In both our Pleck reading from last Thursday and
within Hughes’ poem, “Beale Street Love” we learn about ways in which love and
relationships can be interpreted and what governs those interpretations. Whether
it be the Puritan church or a “brown man’s fist” each reading discussed ways in
which love and relationships were defined in terms of conflict and often severe
consequences. What each reading’s depiction of love does is make it clear that
love involves conflict and this stretches beyond time, age, and race.
Last Thursday’s reading
from Domestic Tyranny discussed
the familial relationships and conflicts within the households of early
American Puritan communities. The church played a major role in governing those
relationships and put emphasis on which conflicts and crimes within the family
were most heinous by laying out specific consequences for those crimes of
conflict. However, despite the strong stance the church appeared to take
against conflict and violence within the family such as spousal abuse/domestic
violence, it often appeared that they were more so concerned with establishing
gendered positions and privilege by the enforcement, or lack thereof of such
laws and mandates against such violence. Although the church was important and made it
clear that it frowned upon domestic violence, it also made it evident that it
had no desire to disrupt the family structure and take a woman out of her place
as a wife or remove a man from being her husband. The Puritan Church, by feeling
that it was more important to have a marriage maintain than save a battered woman
from an unyielding and abusive husband, enforced ideas on gender roles. It also
taught men and women that relationships and love were about sacrifice and that
it was better that one woman suffer than the entire church be made to look bad
due to a failing marriage.
In a similar view it
can be interpreted from Hughes poem, “Beale Street Love” that love is
unavoidably intertwined with conflict and directly associated with sacrifice. It
appears that in order for the only character mentioned in the poem, “Clorinda” to
understand or interpret love clearly is through the context of violence. For her
love was embracing the pain of “hard knuckles” and “crushed lips” (Hughes) and allowing
for herself to be sacrificed so she could become the recipient of love, even if
that meant it would come in the form of a blackened eye. Then because conflict
and sacrifice were the only things through which Clorinda had come to perceive love
she began to even request for the abuse to happen, telling her partner to “Hit
me again,” (Huges). In both “Beale Street Love” and the Pleck reading love is
defined as something that is unavoidably connected with conflict and it is the
woman within each relationship who must be sacrificed and made to endure the
consequences of the violence in order for the love to be true.
-Jazmen Moore
The establishment of the relationship between love and conflict, particularly the intertwined nature of that relationship, is very interesting.
ReplyDeleteIn light of your discussion of Clorinda's position as partial instigator in the Hughes poem, I think it would be much more interesting to explore the role of the Puritan woman/wife specifically in abusive marriages, rather than simply summarizing the Puritan church's policies on (or against, as it were) enforcement of anti-violence laws.
I know there was debate about it in class, but I personally read "Hit me again," ironically, as if Clorinda is taunting her abuser, daring him to hit her again (though I think that reading the line Clorinda internalizing violence as love is equally valid). I wonder how reading the line as ironic would fit into or change your argument - basically, I wonder whether or not (or to what level) Hughes is being subversive in "Beale Street Love," combatting the systems of "love" and abuse handed down from pre-Puritan times by mocking them from the inside.
ReplyDeleteGranted, that's not the argument you are trying to make here, but it's still something I wonder and perhaps a perspective that could be helpful to consider. Or not. It's your call.
I really like the comparison you drew between Hughes' poem and the Domestic Tyranny chapter. The similarities between the two and their interest in complicated relationships stood out to me right away as well and sparked interest. I especially enjoy the way you phrased the last sentence of your second paragraph where you point out that the Puritan church would rather endure the moral consciousness of a woman suffering rather than taint their view as an established power. In class we discussed a lot the power distinction between male and female with these two works and the subject matter they discuss. However, I also think it is interesting to consider the power complication between church and its followers, specifically women. The irony of a woman's situation in society is that she is the oppressed in countless scenarios. Rarely, if ever, do we discuss a binary where the woman of the house holds power. Instead of speaking her mind about unhappiness or desire to change, she must confide only in herself for fear that she will be dealt with negatively from either church or other oppressors.
ReplyDeleteHey, Jazmen,
ReplyDeleteI liked your arguments about love being a product of conflict and sacrifice and feel that your close reading would benefit from examining quotes from the articles and unpacking the language to help supplement your argument about conflict and sacrifice. You have very strong points, but do not provide concrete citations, and providing an example from the text would help boost your argument. You did an awesome job, and are a really good writer. Thanks for sharing your work!
-Jess
I like what your doing with this paper. The exploitation of conflict and sacrifice on an individual level is interesting. Furthermore, you bring the system (Puritan Church) into light, which is also another form of conflict because they direct attention away from the root issue. Overall, I like the direction and the comments you have on the issue.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing that is confusing for me is the last sentence of your first paragraph. Rewording this sentence to better fit the body of work would convey the argument better.
I like your stance on love and how it connects to conflict. I agree that rewording your last sentence in the first paragraph would help solidify your argument. You could try taking out the part that makes it seem like a question at the beginning of the sentence. I do enjoy your connections between how the Puritans and Hughes poem are able to coincide with one another in showing how women are treated throughout time. I also think you did a good job of providing examples to help prove your point. Good work!
ReplyDeleteI like that you connected readings from Domestic Tyranny and "Beale Street Love" in order to explain the poem as a serious definition of love from "Clorinda's" point of view. I think your theme of conflict and sacrifice does a good job at explaining domestic violence of the past and present because many of us cannot fathom being in an abusive relationship. It would be interesting to question (not necessarily find definite answers) if "Clorinda" accepted violence as love because of the past discussed in Domestic Tyranny, and also if the women in Domestic Tyranny saw love as "Clorinda" did.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed seeing the way you interpreted "Beale Street Love" and connected Hughes' poem to the historical context of Puritan society presented in Domestic Tyranny. If I had to make a suggestion for you piece, I would have liked to see a few more specific citations or quotations to support your reading of the text. I think it would simply make your argument stronger. Well done, though! I really enjoyed reading your work.
ReplyDeleteThe connections you made between the Hughes' poem and Domestic Tyranny reading are logical and significant. I would suggest that you intertwine your reading of the poem with your conversation about the other text in order to elaborate on and emphasize their similarities. It might also help you develop deeper observations about the interconnections.
ReplyDeleteI really like that you brought "Beale Street Love" into the response. I think the combination of the readings really give us a chance to examine the different perspectives into an abusive relationship.
ReplyDeleteI think you should add some points from "Wife Torture in England" to your response to further examine physically abusive relationships. It would help to have more examples of abuse as well as help draw more connections between the texts
Like Rachel's post, your connections are strong. A big question I have is about the ideas of the church suggesting that love is sacrifice and the idea of feeling loved while being abused. I think you set the two up differently, with the latter representing a certain ideology adopted by the woman and the former seeming like the woman must suppress something inside of her that knows abuse is not right.
ReplyDeleteI love your topic choice, being the tensions of love. It's personal and relatable, especially amongst the other posts, so kudos! I was wondering, though, if maybe more concrete and real life examples would be beneficial for your discussion. As others pointed out, Clorinda's role could be a sign of irony, rebellion, complacency, etc., but accounts from the Puritan society and Cobbe's article are factual, thus cannot be interpreted in so many ways. Or you could just argue your reading of Clorinda's line, I suppose, by using what we understand about society itself -- perhaps it's MOST likely that she's accepting his love. That could be interesting to consider.
ReplyDeleteGreat job :)
I really like the concept of exploring love in these two texts. However, I'm not sure how much the Pleck chapter actually allows for this. Maybe this could be solved by adding specific evidence from the text to back up your thesis. But I don't really remember there being much about the role of love in an abusive marriage. It is true that the Christian perception of love is so heavily founded in self-sacrifice, but not in the sense of allowing one's self to be abused for the sake of keeping up appearances of familial unity. Of course, as you point out, this is exactly how some of the Puritans could have ended up distorting their view of love. But more evidence for this from the chapter could help solidify your argument. The part about the poem is pretty solid.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you intertwined the Puritan Church with your essay. It is important to remember the impact that the Church held over individuals and family life during this time period. I liked how you compared the "Beale Street Love" piece with Domestic Tyranny in the final paragraph, but I think that this paragraph needed more expansion. The final paragraph seemed to be where you were making your claim about the two texts, and therefore should be expanded upon with great detail.
ReplyDeleteThis was very well written and I liked how you chose to focus on love as a conflict. This argument is made prevalent through both Domestic Tyranny and Beale Street Love. It is crucial that you noted how the church had an impact on society through marriage and whether a divorce was necessary or if the marriage between a man and a wife should be left alone (even if it is an abusive relationship). One thing to note, is you can use more examples to support this argument from Domestic Tyranny. There are many examples of this conflict in the chapter we read on this topic, many including the Puritan Church and its role.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is a nice piece connecting the two readings. However, I also agree that it needs a little more expansion. As Rob mentioned earlier, the Pleck reading on Puritan Society did not explicitly state the "love" aspect of relationships, where as the Hughes poem is an actual definition of love. It would be interesting to possibly connect the "love" definition of the Hughes poem with the Puritan society and how the Puritans could possibly be defining love in terms of their enforcement or lack of enforcement of laws that relate to familial relationships.
ReplyDeleteI think you set up a strong argument for the case of conflict within relationships. You say that women must be sacrificed in the relationship, but how does this play out when men are the ones who get abused? Or conflict within same sex relationships?
ReplyDeleteI really love your last statement, but I would like to see you expand on it more. Why must the women be sacrificed? The topic is great and I like the compare and contrast between the two texts as well as the topic of conflict. But I think you could expand on the Puritan Church and the "brown man's fist" and their direct relationship which would make your argument stronger.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your work and ideas! Overall good work!
I really like how you connected both the readings through relationships and love in addition to domestic violence. I think you could also potentially tie the Cobb reading into this. Specifically when Cobb mentions "in some cases lingering affection cannot be overcome" (81). Why do women have this skewed view on love and why has this been proven century after century?
ReplyDeleteI find your argument interesting and I liked how you used both the Domestic Tyranny and the Langston Hughes poem. I think you could have taken more time organizing your thoughts for it would only strengthen your argument but overall I liked reading your essay. :)
ReplyDeleteI am really impressed by the last statement you made in your first paragraph. "What each reading’s depiction of love does is make it clear that love involves conflict and this stretches beyond time, age, and race." I think this is very telling; not only what you took from the readings, but it also shows that you related this to factors outside of the reading. I think we all understand that love and conflict transcends time, age, and race on a sub-conscious level, but by putting it into words you made me consider what that really meant, even for our society today. I think you could build on that statement and explain what you mean by love and conflict stretching beyond time, age, and race by including relevent examples from the present. Good reading.
ReplyDeleteI believe that every relationship has an element of conflict within it. It is up to argument whether that conflict can be translated or justified as a form of violence. I agree with Logan, I read "hit me again" as a protest to the beating she was receiving. Challenging the nonexistent power that the man was trying to obtain by beating his lover. I think the conflict lies in that struggle, there is always a struggle for power in any relationship. I believe that Clorinda was making a grab for that power in defiance of her abuser.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you tie the definitions of love presented in both Hughes' poem, "Beale Street Love" and Pleck's "Domestic Tyranny" together in the end to make one solid misrepresentation of love that occured for the Puritan's based on their religious beliefs towards the institution of marriage and Hughes' representation of love in Harlem. It really strengthened your essay and helped depict how wives were viewed in marriage in both these times and for both races.
ReplyDeleteI liked your connection between the Pleck reading and Hughes' poem about love. There are just a couple syntax edits that you could make to help this paper flow better. I would read it again and correct a couple of the grammar mistakes. Your thesis statement could be stronger. For example, you could say that "the depiction of love in both these readings makes it clear that..." A conclusion would also help to wrap up the ideas of love that the readings make and show how they are similar and also different.
ReplyDeleteThe usage of sacrifice is interesting to me in that it is not clear that Clorinda even understand that she is sacrificing the good aspects of a relationship because it seems that she equates pain as love.
ReplyDeleteGoing deeper into how these woman are forced to sacrifice in their relationships would present great element to your readings.
I think you have a really solid base. I would just expand with a bit more examples. Interesting choice in thesis though!
ReplyDelete