History as Fiction 2020 - Keshav

One of the central debates of Kindred so far is that of nature vs. nurture. We touched on this a bit in class when talking about the extent of Dana and Kevin’s changes due to living in such a backwards environment. I feel like this is a good example to further unpack with regard to nature vs. nurture because it is so central to the main characters’ development. I can personally see both sides to this argument. The “nurture” argument kind of speaks to me, as Dana and Kevin still have their 1970’s worldviews (overall) that have been ingrained in them since a young age. In this sense, I envision this debate as more nurtured-1970’s worldview vs. nurtured-early-1800’s worldview. Also, there were a couple of lines where Dana talks about how Tom is just a product of his time, and is not necessarily a bad person within that context. I think this is kind of true, but it does not excuse Tom’s actions, and most modern-day readers would be repulsed by him. However, I know that traumas like slav...

Vonnegut’s depiction of mental health (as it is affected by war) creates a lot of interesting ideas to expand upon. Most notably, as we recently discussed in class, the non-linear plot could result from Billy Pilgrim’s post-traumatic stress disorder. His brain trauma from the plane crash may also contribute to this. The novel conveniently cycles between topics relating to Kilgore Trout, Montana Wildhack, and Billy’s real-life war experiences. Due to brain damage (and likely PTSD as well), Billy’s brain could be conflating the memories of these experiences into a meaningful narrative. For example, we know that he has suffered from psychosomatic problems, and is transported back in time soon after. This is triggered by events that remind him of the war. It is very plausible that he simply read Trout’s novels, watched Montana’s adult films, and suffered from traumatic experiences in Dresden, and that these are just parts of his life that are spun together to construct a narrative. (I ...

Due to the theological nature of many of the events of Mumbo Jumbo , Reed’s implications about the conflict between Atonism and Jes Grew have largely religious subtexts. We know for a fact that Atonism is characterized by Judeo-Christian, Abrahamic monotheism, while Jes Grew is characterized by otherized, (likely) polytheistic religions, as represented by the novel’s focus on voodoo. However, this divide also contains intrinsic meaning, as it begs the question of whether or not Reed is “otherizing” Jes Grew. Is Reed otherizing Jes Grew as opposed to Atonism by highlighting the divide between Atonist monotheism vs. (almost) every other world religion, or is he trying to make the postmodern contention that Jes Grew, like Atonism, is simply another (and just as valid) perspective? While his intent is unclear, as both of these possibilities could fit within his ideology, I would argue that Reed does a little bit of both. Reed sort of plays into this Atonist-as-opposed-to-broadly-non-Aton...

Ragtime is the quintessential postmodern novel, and with that comes the focus we talked about in class - emphasis on the world that characters navigate through, rather than the characters’ personal development. However, Doctorow does give these characters a sort of psychological depth, but not in a genuine sense. He creates this “sense” of depth with the aim to subvert it.  Doctorow half-heartedly creates a character that falls into some kind of archetype, in turn creating replaceable stand-ins that simply convey a social context, but subverts all of this to say that each individual does matter - that there is some kind of unquantifiable element to each person. Due to his “replaceability,” this is especially apparent when considering Mother’s Younger Brother as a character (when considering how he represents the archetype of the white radical who tries to “join in” with the Black Power Movement, as we discussed in class). First, as a character, Younger Brother is fairly...

In class, we readily accepted the fact that the little boy must have some sort of psychic power, given the supernatural descriptions of “the hairbrush on the bureau” and “the window in his room.” His unusual personality traits and possible knowledge of future events may seem to corroborate this notion, as they are relatively consistent with our modern-day schema of what it means to be a “psychic.” However, as of the end of Chapter 21, this construct does not fit within the rest of Doctorow’s ontological dominant. He makes so much effort to plausibly create scenarios so as not to explicitly contradict history - our record of what we deem as factual - that it is unlikely that he would go against this model for one little boy. After all, history as of yet has not accepted the existence of such supernatural power; those who adamantly believe in such powers are often ridiculed.  Operating on the premise that Doctorow’s fictional world is conceivable within our own reality, we mu...