Class 7EWRT 1B

Discussion: Hughes: "Who's Passing for Who?" Juda Bennett’s Reading of HughesMorrison: “Recitatif”

Comparing works that we have read.

AGENDA

Take ten minutes to discuss Hughes’s "Who's Passing for Who?” and Morrison’s “Recitatif.”

Group Meeting

Caleb Johnson (social worker)The “Three dark bohemians” (artists)

The “red-haired man from Iowa” Mr. Stubblefield

The Iowan Couple (school teachers)

The “brownskin man” and blonde woman

Characters: “Who is Passing for Who?”

The Artists and Caleb’s friends(If your question is in the presentation (in White), you get one participation point.

1. Q: Why is Caleb Johnson so intent on defending Mr. Stubblefield’s actions by explaining that, “Mr. Stubblefield is new to Harlem”

2. Why did Caleb feel the urge to apologize to Mr. Stubblefield [for the confusion caused by the interaction between Stubblefield, the ostensibly white woman, and her black husband]?

3. Q. Why did the black artists choose to ignore the color line? Were they really blind when it came to race?

4. Q: Why does Caleb hang out with white people instead of with his own race?

Q: Why did the red haired man from Iowa and Caleb begin to act differently after the couple in the restaurant that were fighting revealed that they were both dark-skinned and not white?

Q: Why did the white man stop helping the blonde lady?

Q: Is the red-headed man passing as a gentlemen?

Q: If the situation looked the other way around, a white man beating a black woman, would the red haired man still interfere?

Q: Why did the others questioned Mr. Stubblefield’s motives, when they themselves took no action to help the woman?

The red-haired man (Mr. Stubblefield) and chivalry

Question: Why was race so big to the group once they found out that the couple actually was white?

Does being around your own race really change the way you behave in public?

Q: Is it helpful to entertain these white guests if only going to ridicule them? Do these interactions undermine their community’s strength or are they only creating a sideshow for outsiders to gawk?

The Party

• Q: Did the white couple pretend to pass to exact revenge for their red-haired friend?

• Question- What is the purpose of the couple by trying to fool Caleb and his poet friends saying that they were passing?

• Q: Were the [Iowan] couple really white passing for [black]? Or [black] passing for white?

• Q: What is the purpose of the woman telling them in the end that they were really white passing as African American? Was she mocking them?

But why?

Who Else is Passing?

If so, where do you see hints of it?

Do you read queer passing in the story?

Bennett’s Thesis: “With a sense of the interplay between voyeur and

object, homophobe and homosexual, inside and outside, “Who's Passing For Who?" Interweaves the

explicit theme of racial passing” with the buried theme of the closet.

Bennett, Juda. “Multiple Passings And The Double Death of Langston Hughes.” Honolulu:  Fall 2000. Vol. 23, Iss. 4;  670-95.

 

Bennett writes,

[Assertion] The voice of the narrator is the key to discovering this buried, or closety, theme. Although critics have been surprisingly silent about the narrator's various and potential passings, there are several reasons for reading his character as false or at least layered. [Evidence] He admits, for example, to at least one performance when he states that "we dropped our professionally self-conscious 'Negro' manners... and kidded freely like colored folks do when there are no white folks around" (173). [Explanation] Although Langston Hughes is working within an African American tradition that has often explored the nature of performance as it relates to racial difference and insider/outsider communities, [Analysis] this story further layers that dynamic with other marks of difference.

[Evidence] Before the action begins, the prolix and witty narrator introduces his friends and himself as "too broad-minded to be bothered with questions of color." [Explanation] This statement sets up the dramatic irony that positions the narrator for his ultimate blunder: being fooled by the white Iowans. [Analysis] Although the narrator's bohemian world is meant to stand in contrast to the boring white folks from Iowa, Hughes eventually reverses the roles. The Iowans prove to be the tricksters, and the narrator must confront his own naiveté. That the narrator could not see through the Iowans' dissimulation is funny, ironic, interesting-but in the end, not entirely believable.

What happens, though, if we read the narrator's bohemian world as a homosocial world? [Assertion posed as a question] When we divide the entire cast of characters into single men and heterosexual couples, we discover that racial passing only occurs within the heterosexual realm. Not only does the Iowan couple pass, but so too does the only other woman, half of the only other heterosexual couple in the story. [Analysis] We might then see these racial passings as deflecting attention from the narrator and his friends, who become boring and unremarkable despite the initial flair with which they are introduced. [Logical Conclusion] Racial passing becomes a decoy, distracting our attention from the performances of the bohemian bachelors.

[Assertion] Before Hughes initiates the drama of racial passing, he comes dangerously close to revealing the "perverse" nature of the narrator and his bachelor friends: [Evidence] “You see, Caleb and his white friends, too, were all bores. Or so we, who lived in Harlem's literary bohemia during the "Negro Renaissance," thought. We literary ones considered ourselves too broad-minded to be bothered with questions of color. We liked people of any race who smoked incessantly, drank liberally, wore complexion and morality as loose garments, and made fun of anyone who didn't do likewise. We snubbed and high-hatted any Negro or white luckless enough not to understand Gertrude Stein ....” (Hughes 170)

[Concession]Although the narrator assumes this affected tone, his dandified attitude and the passing reference to Gertrude Stein hardly mark him fully and definitively as a homosexual. [Assertion] Nevertheless, the title, with its bad grammar calling attention to itself, encourages speculation. Who is passing for whom? [Explanation/Analysis] Surely the author would have planted more and trickier trickster figures than the Iowans to fully justify his title. Furthermore, the narrative has already schooled us in the surprising fluidity of identity, and so readers are encouraged to suspect more revelations and exposures.

[Concession] To those who would argue that the subject of passing lends itself to this kind of wild and speculative reading-after all, everything is performance, and everybody passes-I heartily agree. [Final Assertion] I am finally arguing that in his autobiographies, poetry, fiction, and drama, Hughes returned to the subject of passing throughout his career because he was fascinated with identity as something unstable and "queer." With their emphasis on compensation rather than loss, questions rather than answers, the unknown rather than the known, and curiosity rather than punishment, Hughes's writings on sexual identity invite comparison to his exploration of racial passing.

QHQ Discussion: "Recitatif"

Where do you think the author came up with the idea to name this story “Recitatif”?

Roberta FiskTwylaBig Bozo: Orphanage WorkerRoberta’s mother: Twyla’s mother: MaryMaggie: Kitchen workerJames Benson (Twyla’s

Husband)Kenneth Norton (Roberta’s

Husband)Chinese Limo Driver

Characters “Recitatif”• St. Bonny’s• Howard Johnsons• Food Emporium• School Picket Line• Diner at Christmas

St. Bonny’s1. Q: How is reading a story from Twyla’s

point of view still show the struggle of Roberta’s experience?

2. Q: Why would Twyla say “my mother won’t like you putting me in here” when Roberta was assigned as her roommate?

3. Why didn’t Roberta’s mother want to shake hands with Twyla’s mother?

4. Q: Why is Twyla so obsessed with expressing her annoyance towards her mother by “killing” her?

Racial Ambiguity: Class Difference?

1. Q: Why doesn’t Toni Morrison establish who is black and who is white between Roberto and Twyla?

2. Q. Did the racial differences between the two girls affect their friendship at all?

3. Q: Is Roberta racist towards blacks? 4. Q: When do we learn to “see” race?5. What was the bigger conflict, class

difference or racism?

Reunions

1. Q: Why did Roberta act like she did not know Twyla at Howard Johnsons?

2. Q: Would Roberta have acted the same way to Twyla if she wasn’t with the two other guys?

3. Q: Twyla meets Roberta another time while shopping for groceries. Why is Roberta suddenly more open and close to Twyla than she was before?

4. Why doesn’t Roberta help Twyla when the crowd rocks her car?

5. Q: Why do Twyla and Roberta have a complicated relationship?

Q: When Twyla encounters Roberta on Hudson street they begin to argue about their different feelings towards the district’s choice on transferring their kids to different schools. During this argument Roberta expresses her anger by reminding Twyla about Maggie “Maybe I am different now, Twyla. But you’re not. You’re the same little state kid who kicked a poor old black lady when she was down on the ground”. This confrontation resulted into Twyla being confused about whether Maggie was black or not. Subsequently, Twyla figured out she never had kicked Maggie but she always wanted to. At the end of the story Twyla and Roberta run into each other once again. Roberta admits to Twyla that they both never kicked Maggie, but she always wanted to. Why did both Roberta and Twyla want to kick Maggie? Was it their difficult situation of not being with their families or did they want to be like the other girls?

Maggie1. Q: Why does Roberta think that Maggie is black?2. Q: How did the Maggie situation effect Roberta

and Twyla through their adulthood: 3. Q>Why do Roberta and Twyla remember some

events of their childhood differently?4. Q: Why is Maggie such a big deal in this story?5. Q: What does Roberta lie to Twyla about having

kicked Maggie? Also, why are the girls so concerned with Maggie’s race?

.Q

Comparing Works We Have ReadWhat does” Morrison’s “Recitatif” have in

common with Hughes’s “Who’s Passing for Who?

What do they share with other works? How are they different?“Passing,” the poem“Passing,” the short story“Leaves from the Portfolio of an Eurasian”Passing, the novelDo you have any other insights into “passing”

that you have realized through our readings or discussions.

Read: Kennedy "Racial Passing." Posted under "Secondary Sources."

Post #8: Discuss one story from Kennedy's article that particularly speaks to you. How did it influence you in your thinking about passing? Include cited textual evidence.

Read: “Racial Segregation” William Pickens and the essay #2 prompt.

Study: Terms

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