Literature, at its best, goes beyond ordinary story-telling. It may grapple with small or big issues, but good literature should always provide enlightenment and insight. Beyond its entertainment value, literature can also be a liberator of the mind and, thus, create pathways for progress. As a result, boundaries are ignored and place and time are transcended. It can affect all spheres of life including areas of political and social systems, institutions, values, and the daily activities of individual people.
Throughout All Aunt Hagar's Children, haunting images and complex plots combine to create a singular portrait of the city, a city “Beyond the Capitol.” First, what is the meaning of All Aunt Hagar’s Children? Then, choose one short story and discuss how Edward P. Jones focuses his story in one location and provides the reader with a different view of the history and changing culture of the community.
Remember the following: students will post a minimum of one comment, maximum two comments for this prompt. Each comment should be between 300 and 500 words.
9 comments:
The collection of short stories by Edward P. Jones, titled All Aunt Hagar’s Children, is a powerful collection in that it captures the daily lives of normal citizens residing in Washington, D.C during the early 1900s. The title, All Aunt Hagar’s Children, is significant in that it implies that the lives of these citizens are all related in someway. All of the characters in the collection were undergoing some sort of hardship, thus having something in common; just as relatives. For discussion, I chose the short story, In the Blink of God’s Eye. I chose this one because I found it captured me the most, being in that it is about family. In the story a young women, named Ruth, finds a new born baby in a tree right in front of her new Washington, D.C. home. This unexpected baby tests the relationship between husband, Aubrey, and wife, and brings personal struggles for the main characters individually. Edward P. Jones focuses his writing in one particular location in all of the stories throughout the collection. The location of this particular short story seems to be between two places, Virginia and Washington, D.C.; Virginia being the home to the main characters, and D.C. being their new location. Once the characters move to Washington, D.C., Edward P. Jones focuses his story in one location by keeping the details rooted in D.C. He discuses street names and even specific locations in Washington, D.C, engaging the reader on a more personal level with the city in which he is writing about. When Ruth goes to visit her mother, very frequently, the main ideas, dialogue, and action occurs in Washington, D.C. Through his writing I was able to understand the social and more personal history occurring in D.C during the early 1900s. Jones writes about not only the financial struggles, but also the everyday struggles that were occurring at the time, that can also be related to today, such as family disputes. I was relived to be able to read these collections because I as able to understand, in a clearer light, the on-goings that occurred in my city years ago.
I believe that All of Aunt Hagar’s Children represents the people who live in Washington D.C. and faced the many challenges of the city. Aunt Hagar is Washington D.C. and the children are those who live and grow up in the city. The people face the challenges of the city presented to them. Just like the in the book when the military police officer is asked to find a murderer. The character is then faced with a challenge that puts him out of his comfort zone. Just like when people first come to a new city they are put off guard. They are forced to confront obstacles they must overcome. One story I found interesting is In the Blink of God’s Eye because of its ironic twist. The married couple of Ruth and Aubrey came to Washington D.C. to start a family. Aubrey always wanted a baby that he could name after his father. As fate has it Ruth found a baby boy abandoned. She takes the baby in and raised it as her own child. However, Aubrey is dissatisfied that she is nursing the baby. To him the baby becomes a barrier between him and Ruth’s attempts to make a baby of their own. For Aubrey the baby comes in on their time together as a couple. Ruth’s mother also becomes another challenge for Aubrey to face. Every time her mother became ill Ruth would take the baby and go back to Virginia. This allows her and the baby to become close but distances herself from her husband. The baby eventually brings the marriage to a close. The irony of this is that what Aubrey wanted in his marriage ended his marriage. It shows that he wasn’t ready for the responsibilities of a marriage. This story mainly focused on the differences of Washington D.C. and Virginia. In D.C. life was fast paced and no time for rest. While at Virginia one could feel at ease and at peace with the world. Edward P. Jones uses these two locations to show the changes between the two cities. We see one is becoming more industrious while one retains its country charms. This story in particular shows the change a couple makes when moving to the city. They must face times of separation especially if a family member becomes sick. The city eventually tears at the relationship if one wants a city life. If a person doesn’t want to live in that manner then they set up a roadblock. Jones uses younger individuals to reach out to a younger audience and see how life was for the youth of the past century. The reader can feel a connection to a younger couple rather than an older couple. The reason for this is because newlyweds face similar situations all the time. Jones provides insight on how marriage was for a simple young couple in a complex city.
All Aunt Hagar’s Children by Edward P Jones is a book that deeply centers on the values and characteristics of relationships. Every story in the book has its own personal aura; the characters are all round and have their own background to give. The term “All Aunt Hagar’s Children” refers to the book’s intrinsic connection with all the characters Jones’s book center’s around. In an interview with Jones, he said the book was titled such because “All Aunt Hagar’s Children” was the expression used most by his mother to refer to African Americans. In the story “The Devil Swims Across the Anacostia River” the setting is in a Safeway on Good Hope Road in southeast. A woman named Laverne Shepherd is married with one child and another one on the way. While shopping, she remembers a time when the Devil spoke to her Grandmother; the voice caused her to walk into the ocean and drown herself. As soon as Shepherd continues shopping, the Devil appears in front of her and talks about how he’s been watching her for years. The fact that the setting is mainly in the Safeway helps the reader to understand that the main concept is that time is working against Shepherd. The more time she spends trying to ignore the Devil’s truths, the more she realizes that she can’t remember what it is she’s supposed to be buying for her son. She knows that if she calls her husband, he would know. There is when she notices that her entire world has centered around her dancing career and not on her family. She laments the possibility that it might be too late and that thought brings forth more regrets. She resolves her conflict by establishing the frame of mind that if it is her time than it was meant to be. In the end, we see that the Devil only visited Shepherd to make her come to her senses, his true intentions are set on Shepherd’s mother. The setting being in Washington DC allows for me, as a reader, to have a better connection to the story. When Jones gives a street name, it doesn’t matter that I don’t know the exact street; I can still form a picture based on the fact that I know the area. The setting also gives more to our knowledge of the time period. The side stories of barbershops, park benches, and mansions coupled with our knowledge of the current DC lets us know what the culture was like back then. Because we personally know that area of the story, we know what changes there have been to the community since.
All Aunt Hagar’s Children is a detailed collection of short stories that provide insight in the lives of men and women living in Washington, DC. Edward P. Jones tells the story of ordinary citizens and shows the other side of the well known-city Washington, DC. The title of this book is meant to connect African Americans throughout the stories and with the reader. Aunt Hagar is seen as an important relative to African Americans who, in these stories, struggle with the difficulties in the world. A lot of the characters are still connected with their Southern roots, but they all live differently in Washington. In the short story, Blindsided, a young woman named Roxanne suffers a hardship, but learns to adjust her life with her situation. Roxanne is on a bus on her way to Howard Theater from work when she becomes blind. The main setting of this story is in Northwest DC. In this story, Edward P. Jones is able to capture the essence of Washington DC in the early 1900s with detailed descriptions of streets, buses, stores, restaurants, and hospitals. The author is able to give a description of how the city Washington is changing when Roxanne gets off the bus and mentions how the city is becoming unsafe for people like her, “Two weeks ago a woman on New Jersey Avenue returning home from work had been robbed and hit twice in the head with the gun, the worst crime many had heard about in some time. Roxanne was realizing that Washington was getting less and less safe for people like her. The good and the decent.” In this quote, Edward P. Jones shows how there are “new elements” in the city. The city is changing and it is affecting the lives of its ordinary citizens. In this story, Jones is able to show how the seasons and weather of Washington affect people. He includes the humid weather of summer and inches of snow during a winter. Another part of Washington that the author incorporates is the government office buildings, around where Roxanne is able to get a job, when she applies for a program in Washington that helps blind people. Edward P. Jones does an excellent job in bringing the reader into the streets of the “Shining City,” one that some of us have begun to truly appreciate.
All Aunt Hagar’s Children is a spectacular collection of 14 stories. Each story has its own protagonist that is going through a rough time in their lives. Even though the individuals go through different things, they all take place in one setting: Washington D.C. The meaning behind “All Aunt Hagar’s Children” is that it demonstrates how all these characters in the stories relate to one another, they went through some horrible situation; even though different the setting was the same. I concentrated my discussion on "Resurrecting Methuselah," which opens simultaneously in Okinawa and Washington, D.C. An overseas army sergeant, after "finishing his business" with a prostitute, becomes convinced that she has stabbed him by some otherworldly means. What she's actually done is put her finger on a tumor he hadn't noticed before: a medical emergency. His marriage is in a doubtful state, however, and though his spouse back in D.C. tries to do the wifely thing by flying out to him, she just can't go through with it. She also can't bring herself to confront her daughter's fourth-grade teacher, who has brought Christianity into his classroom big time by telling his students they can live even longer than Methuselah if they'll accept Jesus. The story's strands of mortal threat and dreams of immortality are firmly rooted in everyday detail. The parents' long-distance marriage is going through recognizable sadness. The title story, likewise, has a semi-mystical slant to it. The narrator is a young Korean War veteran all set to go gold-prospecting in Alaska. The trouble is his mother and aunt wants him to solve the murder of a friend's son first. He obliges them. But the real mystery he's trying to solve is the meaning of the last words a woman uttered when she collapsed and died in his arms, after they exited a D.C. streetcar together. Several realities collide here — and dreams of Alaska become an unresolved point. He focuses this location on one setting, even though the story opened in two locations, it mainly focuses on one. Most of the events occurred Washington, with the problems that the veteran had to the fear of confrontation with the teacher. These collection of stories change the way I think of Washington D.C, it also demonstrates how it has changed over time.
All Aunt Hagar’s Children, is a collection of emotional short stories written by Edward P. Jones. This novel is composed of 14 interesting short sorties in which all have something to do or have a connect with/to Washington, DC. These stories also give us, as readers, a clear understanding of what was it like to live in Washington, DC in the 1900’s. Every short story connects to each other in one way or another. The characters have to face something in which testes them emotionally as well as physically. Every story is different from one another but all share a hardship or something in which affects the characters life to make them realized something that would change there perception on something or someone. For example, one of the fourteen short stories is, In the Blink of God’s Eye. This is a perfect example of characters having to face a hardship in which will test the character emotionally. This short story is about a married couple, Ruth and Aubrey, who just move to Washington, DC from Virginia. Ruth then finds a baby in a tree. This is one example of a hardship in which tests both Ruth as well as Aubrey. This baby what will changes their lives in an emotionally reality and it which would also help both characters develop through out the story. Edward P. Jones short stories are so realistic in the fact the short stories are so realistic in which lets us know that it may happened. I really felt that the emphasis in location made me connect more with the actually stories that the fact that in talks about Washington, DC, the place where I have lived for more than six years. I really enjoy the vivid descriptive worlds in which describes Washington, DC very well.
The meaning that Edward P. Jones was trying to depict in All Aunt Hagar’s Children was that each story that was in the book contained main characters. The plot revolved around the main characters in each story. In a sense the main characters in each story are the children of “Aunt Hagar” its just that they go through different trials, tribulations, and have their own conflicts in each story. It was during a time in Washington, DC when a lot was going on in the early twentieth century as far as segregation and African-American’s starting to thrive in the entertainment industry. All Aunt Hagar’s Children is a very interesting book the collection of stories were very magnificent in the book. The short story I chose was The Devil Swims Across the Anacostia River. This short story was about a lady who had seen the devil in a safeway in southeast Washington, DC. The devil had reminded her about the things that were going terribly wrong in her life as far as her not paying enough attention to her son and husband at home. The devil also reminded her that the baby she had on the way was not her husband’s. The devil knew all of this because he had been watching her for a while and knew the things she had done in the past. But it turns out that the devil was not there for her he was there for her mother because it runs it the family that every lady sees the devil and dies by it. The lady had a revelation and will start to pay more attention to her family. Edward P. Jones focuses in on one location in southeast Washington, DC in this safeway because it represents a lot of things in the story. When the lady was in the safeway she did no even remember her own son’s favorite cookies which reminded her that she did not pay enough attention to her son at all. Also she was a good dancer back then African Americans were thriving in the entertainment business especially in Washington, DC. Actually to make a comparison Washington, DC in a sense started the Harlem Renaissance. So this story has a lot of hidden but factual historical information.
All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones, is a collection of stories that discusses the daily lives of black people living in D.C. in the early 1900's. The novel reflects on their hardships and problems that they all encounter. The story that I chose was Blindsided because if the irony that it displayed. In the story, a black woman named Roxanne Stapleton was going to attend a Sam Cooke concert after she got off from work. Roxanne liked to party and drink and that was how she ended up in Washington from her home in Louisiana. Prior to her leaving her job for the day, her boss tells her that watching anyone performing who's black will make you blind. As Roxanne was first going home, her vision begins to deteriorate while on the bus. there is a lot of commotion on the bus and one passenger, who has been rather obnoxious to the bus driver, offers to see that Roxanne gets home She reflects on other statements that the white woman she works for said. The city is not a place for the good and decent; but ironically a complete stranger had agreed to see that she got home safely, going out of his way to do so. During the blindness, Roxanne receives both words of encouragement and words of uncertainty. But her boyfriend, Melvin leaves her to be with her friend, Agnes who is portrayed as a somewhat religious and stiff person who is not at all like Roxanne. A new woman moves into the apartment and Roxanne is forced to revisit events in her life that happened to her when she was younger. She was assaulted by a man and rescued by a child, Adele, when she interrupted. Even though Roxanne was still blind, she had visions of what the child must have seen. Roxanne through all of her disappointments with people and life, before and after her blindness, decides in the end to try to live her life to its fullest. Edward P. Jones through the character Roxanne, tells a story of how life can sometimes throw things at you that you can not predict will happen. Even when you are blindsided, you have to continue to try to make the best of what life has to offer; even when you are blindsided, you have to persevere.
All Ant Hagar’s Children primarily depicts the live and hardships of African Americans on Washington D.C. area. This collection of short stories recalls the stories of African Americans who in many ways had to overcome challenges and constantly defend their identities. From families, couples, children, and individuals each story portrays different circumstances that African Americans faced during this period of time.
In “Spanish in the Morning” the story is narrated by a young girl who is attending her first year of school. Her mother being a “Washingtonian” as the young girl recalls, wanted her to be educated by nuns and priests, the way it had been done throughout all her mom’s and her people for generations. On the other hand, the dad wanted her to attend a school that was just across the intersection of L and 1st Streets. The story has a steady place, the setting only changes when the young girl recalls how her grandmother and her dad ended up in D.C. Her grandmother decided to move from South Carolina to D.C. because she was tired of living a life and have spent so many years with an alcoholic husband. For her grandma there was no better location to move in than D.C. because according to South Carolina old folks in Washington, “people threw away their dishes after every meal because it was cheaper to buy new ones.” (Jones, 34). And indeed, grandmother had a better life in D.C.
She was the first of her parent’s three girls, and on her day of school, she had all the support of her family. Her grandfather was always preventing her of the white evilness and always asked her how they treated her in school. One day this girl witnessed the white cruelty when one of her classmates was slapped for something that probably was against the school rules. And so she feared them very much. This steady setting makes the story easy to follow and understandable.
Estefani Legge-Lopez
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