Book of Qualities Vignettes

AGENDA:

WRITING: Finish Rattlebone Stories


 Get Book of Qualities

Link to Ruth Gendler's blog and website:
www.ruthgendler.com/


 New Writing Project:

The Qualities

Create two "quality" personifications similar to the ones that Ruth Gendler has written.
Select an emotion and give it the qualities of a human being--personification!  How does this emotion act, "feel", live?  Who are friends of this emotion?  What does this emotion look like physically (if he or she were a person)?  Use vivid DESCRIPTION to PERSONIFY this emotion.

Those of you who would like to can also draw a picture of your "character" and we will try to publish a class book of "The Qualities" at the end of the marking period

On Rattlebone:

      Maxine Clair's novel, Rattlebone, is titled after a fictional community of Kansas City, Kansas. It is a neighborhood, like one of the boroughs of New York City, which is both a part of Kansas City and separate from it. Geographically, it is included in the famous city's boundaries. But, culturally it is a place of its own - a full fledged community. The community that is Rattlebone is brought about and reinforced by the presence of exclusion from the rest of Kansas City and other communities, the small physical proximity of its members, and a set of values that, whether or not shared by all, are acknowledged as normal within the context of the community.
       Two stories that can clearly show how Rattlebone exists as a community are "The Last Day of School" and "A Sunday Kind of Love." The stories, the last two in the book, are the two that occur latest chronologically. By using these stories I will be able to show how the history of the community, shown in earlier stories, effects and influences the community as it is in the time of these stories.
       For this particular community, exclusion may be the strongest influence in its gel. In "The Last Day of School," as Irene experiences a day in school, her narration in the story explains that, "To show good faith in the 'equal' part of 'separate but equal,' the state had made our school identical to Horace Mann High, right down to the last sand-colored brick" (p. 194). This reference to the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case makes it clear that Jim Crowe segregation laws were at this time a part of life for the residents of Kansas City, and therefore the residents of Rattlebone. Rattlebone is an all black section of the town and, though it is not extensively discussed in the text, this infers that the people who lived there would not have had a great many options to live in other places because it is clear that there are very clear rules about where people with darker-than-pale skin were allowed to go. In the wake of the plane crash tragedy that rocked the Rattlebone community, Douglass High students - including Irene and her friends - were held up in the eyes of the public and were somewhat heralded: the church Reverend had them sit in the front at church and the "Woolworth's on the avenue gave [them] a ten percent discount at the Colored Only eating counter" (p. 198). These children were victims to be pitied and praised, but the color of their skin was too much of a blemish to make them fit to eat with people who didn't live in Rattlebone.
       In addition to causing the residents of Rattlebone to come together, segregation also had an effect on some of the psyches of Rattlebone residents. When Irene interviewed with Alpha Kappa Alpha for a place in that sorority, she was asked what was her worst flaw. She responded, "I guess it would be envy...Wanting what somebody else has" (p. 211). We see that at least some of this envy could be directed towards the white world when Irene talks about the American Royal Parade. The black residents of Rattlebone were barred from most of the festivities, but were invited to the parade and her school was able to participate in that parade. "In fact," she tells us,

       each year our corps - our school band, together with the drill team,  
       majorettes,  and cheerleaders - was the only black anything in the
       parade. And so, in the  undeclared competition of marching bands, we
       were bent on preserving our  reputation for performing the most
       complicated routines with the tightest  precision to the hippest marching        music the city had ever heard. (p. 203)

This competition appears to take on a sort of indigence. Irene makes it sound as if they are so determined to be the best specifically because they are the only black people in the parade. Certainly all the parade's participants want to give their best performance, but they do not have to prove themselves worthy of being there like the Rattlebone students might feel they have to. It seems that some of this emotion bleeds into Irene's statement that her vice is envy.
       These emotions were likely to spread and evolve relatively uniformly throughout the Rattlebone because its residents were so close to each other. In, "A Sunday Kind of Love," Thomas reflects that even as his relationship with Wanda began to have hints of the romantic he still "knew her only as one of the neighborhood kids grown up, a closer neighbor since the Scotts next door started taking in roomers" (p. 178). The residents of Rattlebone shared a history that was woven relatively tightly; what happened to one, such as Thomas's wife passing away, effected another - in this case, Wanda. In "The Last Day of School" the entire Rattlebone world's attention seems fixed on the incoming planes. Irene is watching as her friend John has called her attention to it; Mr. Cox, their disinterested teacher, is watching; women working in the garden stopped to watch; and even, "The very trees seemed tense," (p. 195) as the entire community's lives were about to be affected by a single event. The tragedy caused Irene to think that, "In the wake of the crash, the entire city seemed paralyzed," (p. 198) and, "A whole generation of Kansas City's black children had been spared" (p. 198). A tragedy like this would have been catastrophic for any community, as we saw on September 11. But, in Rattlebone it was the entire world. It does not appear to be an exaggeration or stretch to claim that the community had nearly lost an entire generation. The very close proximity of all Rattlebone residents, caused by the limitations and exclusions of segregation, were what made that sort of genocidal accident possible.
       The exclusion and proximity shared by the Rattlebone residents probably contributed to the shared set of values acknowledged by the community members. There are obvious examples of this, including the high school's pride in the American Royal Parade performance and the sense that the plane crash in "The Last Day of School," became "the period at the end of the sentence about life in Rattlebone. After that, nothing was the same. In years to come, people would chronicle events using the crash as a time line" (p. 197). This solidarity comes from racial discrimination and atrocity. But, there was more. When Irene's parents announced to the children that they were going to live separate, her little sister Bea clung to their mother saying, "'Nobody else's mother has to live by herself'" (p. 207). This shows that the children were getting a sense of what was normal by other people, and we have no indication that these children had contact with any people except for those in Rattlebone. In this way they adopted their sense of normal and, as Bea's objection shows, felt any diversion from that normalcy.
       We see this also when we find out that the government had taken over Blackwell Aviation Training at the nearby airfield and it becomes clear that interest in this local landmark transcends status or age. Irene and her classmates are scolded for their attention to the fighter jets flying overhead, but it is clear that Mr. Cox, their teacher has also had his interest drawn by this new local point of pride. His position of superiority and detachment from the students does not override his sense of local solidarity in the community's interest in the fighter planes training.
       In "A Sunday Kind of Love," the very premise of the story shows that both Thomas and Wanda and the rest of the church congregation are acknowledging a set of communal values. Wanda is not a church member and disagrees with some of their values and Thomas, even has a deacon, has his reservations about the church's interpretations. But, they are attending the after-mass meeting because they acknowledge that the church body was a formative body in the life of community values. Thomas especially seems aware of this collective conscience as he thinks that, "They stare as if he alone sits before them" (p. 180). And, as he goes over what he will say, questioning himself, he is very aware of the body of people, thinking, "Can they understand..." and "Should he tell them..." [italics added] (p. 181-182). He even notes when, "At once the congregation's collective posture undoes itself," (p. 183) inferring the like-mindedness of the congregation's membership.
       Just as Bea was worried about the normalcy of her mother living alone, so Thomas is worried about the acceptability of his public image. The difference, however, is that Bea - in her youth - is left with no choice but to accept things as they are no matter what level of normalcy is lost or gained and Thomas makes the decision - in his maturity - to disregard the strict collective judgment that is to be handed by the church congregation.
       These three entities - exclusion, proximity, and common values acknowledged - are the glue that holds Rattlebone together. All three are somewhat intertwined and are symptoms and causes of one another. They are the things that make Rattlebone a community, but just as community is somewhat intangible so it is difficult to see where any one of these things ends and the next begins.