Five Short Stories Highlighting a Socioeconomic Divide

Title: Enough to Lose
Author: RS Deeren
Where I Read It: Tales of Two Americas

Three months in with Secured Properties, mowing lawns for bank repossessions at ten bucks a pop, and I had inhaled more grass clippings, caked my eyes in more dust, and ridden more backroads than I had known were in Tip County.

The narrator is a man on a financial treadmill that will be going only faster in a post-recession US. At any time he can be flung off. His wife, who has found some dubious work through a multi-level marketing scheme, wants to have a baby. They already gave up a baby to adoption years ago for lack of means to care for him. Now they aren't teenagers anymore, but their financial situation is still precarious. Having a kid is a hopeful step; the narrator is worried that it's unrealistically hopeful.

The narrator's work partner is a gruff man who had "probably been some kind of stupid at some point in his life" and now just wants to get each job done cleanly and quickly with not a minute wasted. During their work, they encounter a man who is still trying to live on his repossessed property; he's desperate not to let it go, to admit that his hope for a home is lost for a good long while (probably permanently). The narrator sees what could happen to him and his wife – the loss of everything they're barely holding onto, the meager chance of having enough money to raise a kid, the lack of well-paying job opportunities, the need to turn into an emotionally closed off machine to make barely enough money. The story wraps the reader in layers of tension.

Title: The Gully
Author: Russell Banks
Where I Read It: Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar
From what I remember, "The Gully" starts out in a very poor neighborhood on an island nation. Three men commit acts of vigilantism. Soon they pool their resources and offer their services in justice (like killing robbers) for a fee. Over time, they make enough money to leave their violent, impoverished neighborhood. They outsource their work to others and extract money from people as they see fit. The story ends with them regarding their old home with contempt, as if they have forgotten where they came from and what they did to leave. How many times has this type of story played out in real life?

Title: The House Behind
Author: Lydia Davis
Where I Read It: The Art of the Story
The two homes in this story could exist anywhere. The one in front is wealthier and more elegant. The one in back is shabbier. A courtyard divides them, where the residents of both homes throw out their trash. It's the one place where they interact. The narrator, who lives in the house in back, says:

“Curiously enough, many pairs of houses in the city suffer from bad relations like ours: there is usually an uneasy truce between the two houses until some incident explodes the situation and it begins deteriorating. The people in the front houses become locked in their cold dignity and the people in the back houses lose confidence, their faces gray with shame.”

Here, the exploding incident is murder.

Some people are illuminated in beautiful prose in this story, but they're never really developed as individuals. They're representatives of different places and classes. Those in the front home react largely as a group, and so do those in the house behind, which strengthens the impression that these relationships and actions will be replicated many times between different sets of strangers. The details will run together and fade, and will anyone care to learn anything or change anything? Each house, front and back, seems to exert a relentless influence on the behavior of its occupants.

Title: The Lesson
Author: Toni Cade Bambara
Where I Read It: American Short Stories Since 1945
At the start of the story, a group of kids in a poor, predominantly black neighborhood in New York City have their own contained world – a certain friend group, places they're familiar with, things they're used to doing. They don't know much about the world beyond, not in a concrete way, until the well-educated Miss Moore takes them on a trip to F.A.O. Schwarz, where the toys are well beyond their means, and where they feel completely out of place.

The main character, Sylvia, doesn't take to this lesson in social and racial divide without disgruntlement or questioning. The field trip to the super-expensive toy store rattles the way she sees herself and her place in the world. What she makes of the trip – how she interprets it and how it will affect her life – isn't clear. She may see herself as neither a warrior nor a victim of circumstance. Her choice at the end, to give more thought to what she has seen, may not be all that Miss Moore intends for her to do, but thinking things over is better than either pretending ignorance or swallowing what you're told without question.

I don't think the lesson Miss Moore delivers is even one lesson. It's a starting point, perhaps an initial spur to get the kids to... do what? Perhaps work hard, think more, gain an education, help enrich their own neighborhoods. Possibly take political collective action at some point. Her approach may also backfire and become a discouraging shock that makes the kids want to ignore what they saw and stick to their familiar turf; they're not exactly receptive to Miss Moore to begin with. One thing I like about the story is that the kids aren't tractable. Their reactions are realistic and individual, including Sylvia's need to consider what she'll make of this new awareness that her world is not just the world of her neighborhood, and that she can cross the boundaries of her neighborhood, though at the price of greater struggle and discomfort.

Title: Morocco Junction 90210
Author: Patt Morrison
Where I Read It: Los Angeles Noir
There are some interesting tidbits about Beverly Hills history in this story, which highlights class divides in a wealthy community. Minerva, the narrator, isn't rich, but her dad worked in security for some of the big movie and TV studios and was well-respected. Through his connections, she has found work helping actors prepare for roles and interviews. She lives on the edge of a glamorous world, a sad world in a number of ways, as many people are desperate to protect damaging secrets and shore up shaky reputations.

Minerva likes to gather information about people – not necessarily for any purpose, nefarious or otherwise, but out of curiosity. After a woman is found dead, Minerva figures out something about the woman's past and the reason she had been selling off her jewelry. The motive of wanting to spare a family from disgrace, and the way residents experience social divisions between old and new Beverly Hills, give the story some echoes of Edith Wharton. The society has its largely unspoken codes – what you can get away with, and what you can't bring yourself to even admit.

The Daughters in Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens

Paul Dombey is wealthy, proud, and heartless. Well, not entirely heartless. He shows signs, even at the start, of being able to feel a bit of unease now and then at how he treats his daughter, Florence. Because she isn't a son who will one day go into business with him, he maintains a distant coldness towards her and suppresses the occasional twinge telling him that he's not as a father should be. At various points, he also feels hatred, jealousy, or outrage because of the love and loyalty she receives from people who should be giving their attention primarily to him.

Dysfunctional parenting is a major part of Dombey and Son, which I read for the Classics Club Challenge. Dickens makes a connection between cruelty and neglect in private homes and cruelty and neglect in public life. Mr. Dombey measures Florence's worth by what she can bring to his business; she doesn't seem worth much in monetary terms. Similarly, there's a scene where Florence, as a child, is kidnapped for a short while by an old woman who steals the nice clothes off her and gives her some rags to wear before setting her free. As she tries to make her way home, Florence is soundly ignored or sneered at because of these rags; in public, her worth is measured by how much (or how little) money she appears to have.

Two other daughters in the novel – Edith Granger and Alice Marwood – are additional examples of the harm that comes from viewing people and relationships in a purely transactional way. In their case, it's their moms selling them into marriage or prostituting them. Florence, at least, had the benefit of knowing that her mother loved her; perhaps this is one reason Dickens has her maintain her angelic character. Edith and Alice, in contrast, are full of rage and bitterness, and Dickens winds up pushing them out of the way by the end of the novel, giving them tidy endings in an overseas home or in death. Florence gets to stick around because she maintains purity and an inhumanly forgiving personality. No anger for her, unnaturally so. (Among the wronged daughters in this novel, the options are all-consuming rage combined with compromised sexual purity OR unblemished forgiving sorrow combined with sexual purity.)

In any case, Dickens has chosen women as the primary way of showing the dangers of treating people as objects in a transaction, with Florence worth nothing to her dad, and Edith and Alice worth only as much as they can bring to their moms through looks, charms, and/or pleasing accomplishments.

Edith, by the way, is Mr. Dombey's second wife, and one reason their marriage tanks so quickly is that Dombey uses a go-between to express his displeasure to her. This go-between is Mr. Carker, the right-hand man in Dombey's business. (This is another way Dombey is mixing business with personal relationships.) Carker is the most smiley villain I've seen in any book. At no point did I come close to forgetting that he smiles a lot, because Dickens refers endlessly to Carker's teeth. Well, not endlessly. Carker does come to a pretty grim end, and his teeth stop appearing in the novel.

What I like best about Dickens is his description of places (here's one example) and certain psychological states and social conditions. His characters, however, don't feel quite real, even if some of their thought processes are complex and real. His descriptions can be wonderfully inventive, but he also falls back on repeating dull phrases like "weary head" and "little hand." The book, which is roughly 950 pages, is over-sweetened and made false at various points by excessive sentimentality. It's also larded with repetition.

I still think it's worth reading because of its better parts and its themes, particularly how genuine love and closeness can't exist in a relationship that's based primarily on how useful someone is to you in the wider world.

Week in Seven Words #394

fantastical
We lean on each other as the train sways. Our feet adjust to accommodate the extra weight of the other person, and I smile to think we're like a four-legged, two-headed creature.

lighter
He's best to be with when he's feeling soft-hearted and full of fun. The years drop from him, and he wants a laugh and good company.

longing
Etta James is calling for a Sunday kind of love through the speakers of his laptop.

long-suffering
She looks fragile in the driver's seat of the SUV and in the pale wash of its interior light. The courage in her comes out in a tired smile.

magnifico
It's the sort of day where the highlight is hearing "Bohemian Rhapsody" at the supermarket. Not a lackluster cover band performing it, but Queen itself.

tablecloth
The lake looks like it's covered in brown oilcloth and dribbles of spilled pea soup.

traits
"Money doesn't change you," he says, "it just shows you who you already are." So if someone turns mean and stingy (or kind and generous) when they acquire money, did they have those tendencies all along?

Week in Seven Words #393

assistance
The cart with her belongings clanks against the walls and comes to an uncertain stop at the head of the stairs. Twice, a neighbor passing by helps her move something down to the U-Haul. Another time, it's a homeless guy who makes five bucks for the box he carries.

gather
She joins me at the synagogue that evening. I sit on a cardboard box at her left arm. The seats and floors are filled with people.

gone
One of the stories we hear: A concentration camp inmate, given an opportunity by the Red Cross to send a postcard to someone, realizes there may be no one left who cares whether he's alive or not.

minute
The storage facility reminds me of a video game where you need to adjust your speed and timing to keep from getting shut out and having to start over. The entry doors will stay open for ten seconds, the elevator doors for seven or eight. If you hit someone with your cart, you lose points. Lower level, make a right, then another right. If you hit the walls with your cart, you lose points.

overhead
Street after street, there are empty storefronts, evidence of high rent blight. To run a small business in this environment has become untenable for many.

salable
Hanging baskets of flowers at the farmer's market, nuts and chocolates too. Only the meat and seafood seem suspicious in their sweating coolers.

storybook
On both sides of a narrow apartment building, there are sunny, vibrant gardens with raised beds of flowers, a small fountain spilling its melody, and a gazebo where a woman and her grandchild sit among piles of picture books.

Old Goriot - what genuine feelings survive when everything's a transaction?

Honoré de Balzac sets much of his novel, Old Goriot, in a dingy Parisian boardinghouse during the period of the Bourbon Restoration. Madame Vauquer runs the place and might call herself the "mother" of all the tenants - mostly young people who are struggling to make their way in the world (like the law student, Eugène de Rastignac), old people who are probably stuck there for good (like the titular character, Goriot), and maybe one or two others whose finances are a mystery.

The boardinghouse occupants, if one squints, could be seen as a kind of family, dining together and getting in each other's business, but Madame Vauquer isn't a real mother. Her relationship with the boarders is transactional, and the ones who can't afford to pay her much get the worse rooms. It's business.

Some articles on the state of healthcare in the US...

One article I read for Deal Me In - "Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us" by Steven Brill - is a depressing look at medical costs in the US. Although it was written before the ACA (Affordable Care Act) really went into effect, the problems are still prevalent in our messed up healthcare system. For instance, the article gives examples of the lack of transparency in hospital bills and their inexplicable charges, and how hospitals can charge patients multiple times for the same item (a pill, a pair of latex gloves, etc. etc.) at inflated prices.

And this article only gets at some of the issues that make our system unworkable in the long-run. One sign of a good article is that it motivates you to immediately look for others on the same topic, which is how I found this one, also worth reading.

Another critical part of the healthcare problem lies with our habits and choices, too little emphasis on prevention and an industry bent on getting us to live off of junk food (topic of a different essay). Plus, wages aren't keeping up with the costs of healthcare (and housing and education).

I don't know what to say about all of this. So I'm just dumping it here in a grim heap for you to pick through.

Week in Seven Words #335

blot
I don't always know how an author's life will affect the way I react to or analyze their work. Just sometimes, the knowledge interposes itself between the work and me. The literary merits may still exist, but with the shadow of the knowledge on them.

extent
People have a village mind and vote on global issues.

glide
What she does on the diving board isn't diving; it's flying. She throws herself into the air with a faint smile. She's just as much at ease in the air as in the water.

masked
She sets up a doll schoolroom, where her doll, equipped with tiny books and pens, pretends to be stupid.

prominency
She's over six feet tall, and has trained herself to be less intimidating by smiling and laughing a lot. She's also been advised to give up high heels but has refused so far.

savings
They're sweating and shivering as they wait in line at the bank. The loss from their account is only a glitch, they hope, easily reversed.

tremulous
The ghost stories we share become explorations of what we're really afraid of - the fears that we hesitate to speak on the off-chance they'll become true.

Week in Seven Words #322

austere
The immaculate bareness of a garden with its gates closed.

clattering
"Please, no quarters," the cashier says. "A lady came in this morning and paid me 56 dollars in quarters."

larynx
They dial up the excitement in a game of Twister by trying to put each other in chokeholds.

smoother
I keep thinking this is going to be an awkward, painful conversation, made more uncomfortable by the fact that it's over the phone - not face-to-face or by email, which is what I prefer. But it goes well. There are no leaden, sinking silences.

striven
Reaching a private, hard-won milestone that gives me hope.

thumb
It hits me that I don't look like anyone in the room. Superficially, I could say I have the same hair color or skin color as most of them. But I couldn't blend in if I tried. One after the other, hair, clothes, gestures, unblemished sameness, and I'm amazed and a little afraid sitting there sticking out.

tints
Colors creep into a brisk, cold landscape. The shades of blue in the reservoir, the green tint to the gray plants by the wayside that hold out for warmer weather.

Week in Seven Words #317

digs
It's an old-timey lobby with wood paneling, cubbyholes for mail, and a brass call bell at the front desk. I expect to see men lounging around in homburgs and high-wasted trousers.

gleam
The corridor has a triangular glass roof. Beyond it are roosting birds and gray sky. Lamplight reflects off the metalwork.

indefinitely
Mirrors extend the front hall infinitely. The doorman sends us up to where the old man lives on every last drop of his fixed income.

limited
By mashing buttons, I score a slam-dunk in video game basketball. When in doubt, mash the buttons. Something will happen. I try it again, making a shot across the full length of the court. I wish I could say it goes in.

relic
I stare at the payphone as if it's prehistoric. My friend comes up behind me and says, "You can... call people on this?"

shibboleth
With the slogan, he identifies his tribe and takes a mental shortcut. The conversation ends.

webbing
Pushing through to the other side of tiredness to finish a project on time.

Week in Seven Words #234

afloat
A chair floating legs-up in a lake, like a creature from Seuss.

busted
A building grinning through broken teeth.

civilized
A well-to-do woman from San Francisco sits beside me on the bench. She asks several questions about New York - recommendations for museums, etc. - and after each suggestion, she points out that in San Francisco there's something better. "You have fine museums," she says, as if she fears I'm deeply offended. "But…" And here she tells me another thing that's wrong with New York, in tones of gentle regret. I hope she doesn't guess how amused I am by our conversation.

deposits
The lake has a marble quality to it, light and glass as you look to the floor of the shallows and find pink rocks and twisted scrap metal.

guardedness
I'm becoming better aware of what resources I can spare for others and what I should better protect. Another line of defense against those who alight on other people's emotions in a vampiric way.

heartsease
To make train fare, he tries selling artwork, some of it not his own. Out of a book he's torn a detailed sketch of a pansy drawn in three colors. One dollar for it.

pressured
A morning of quiet sidewalks and still trees. The air doesn't move, and the sun pounds on my head.

Week in Seven Words #214 & 215

214

encrusted
Thoughts of taxes are like barnacles I want to scrape off of my brain.

fancies
One of those wild days when we talk about ideas for hours. I feel closest to him then.

overbooked
He trudges along in his karate uniform, with a violin in one hand and a tennis racket slung over his shoulder.

parts
I'm an ear, and she's a mouth.

price
Having a ready-made role to step into can be a relief, but what are you sacrificing for the extra comfort?

quailing
Their arrogance keeps them from confronting the fears that have hollowed them out.

yoked
This is the arrangement they've come up with: He's cut down on his leisure time, and she's compromised her dignity.

215

blank
For years, he hasn't dared to dream about anything.

chemistry
There are fascinating stories behind each element on the table.

dainties
Three small identical dogs, leashed to a bike rack, peer into the bakery that promises so many treats.

microscopic
Toddlers want to go at their own pace, examining sidewalk cracks and clods of dirt, and not just be tugged along all the time.

secure
Throwing pebbles, a child tries to knock birds out of a tree. Some twigs crackle, but the birds stick around.

unwasteful
With his finger, chasing the last of the whipped cream in the paper cup.

wavering
He continues to tip his chair back, frightened but excited about the moment of reckoning: a mastery of balance or a humiliating fall.

Week in Seven Words #202 & #203

202

accord
Comfortable silence over pasta and fish.

concavity
Small fingers bending like ski slopes on the heavy keys of the piano.

conifer
The scent of evergreens on street corners.

demands
Having to look at it again through the eyes of a beginner, I see how much goes into piano-playing. Learning to identify the keys, learning to read the notes, developing the coordination in the hands. It's difficult. A love of music is a large part of what sees you through.

implore
The jingle bell sounds are the panhandlers rattling their cups.

limbed
Trees aren't dead in winter. They're expressive in ways they can't be when covered in leaves.

slip-ups
People behaving foolishly, young people who don't think things out well enough, are stuck with their indiscretions: photographs floating around the web, videos, comments that can't be deleted. Like having to walk around everywhere with several squares of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of their shoes.

7 stories from around the world

Story Collection: World Literature: An Anthology of Great Short Stories, Drama, and Poetry
Editor: Donna Rosenberg

Title: The Doctor's Divorce
Author: S.Y. Agnon (Shmuel Yosef or Shai Agnon)
Translator: (Info not provided)
"The Doctor's Divorce" shows a man trapped in a self-fulfilling prophecy. A doctor starts up a relationship with a nurse at his hospital and marries her; from early on, there are signs that his ability to love people (instead of just claiming possession of them) is questionable. When she tells him there was another man in her past, he begins to pretend in an exaggerated, unconvincing way that it doesn't bother him, even as he thinks about it obsessively. He just knows that the existence of this other man will drive a wedge between him and his wife. And that's what happens, but only because he can't let the matter drop. He kills any chance of intimacy or happiness with his wife; maybe he's incapable of being in a relationship that has either of those qualities.

An orchestra of recycled instruments

The kids in the video live in Cateura, Paraguay.

Week in Seven Words #165

buoyed
By the end of the Seder, it's pretty much just the two of us singing determinedly. Occasionally someone else joins in, then drifts out again.

minding
At the start of my cold, when the symptoms are heaviest, I wish I could set up a forcefield around me to ward people off, both for their sake and for my own. Then I can sneeze and cough as much and as loudly as I want without drawing comments.

nourishing
Dew settles gently into dark places.

papery
I can't shake off the feeling that the only way they make money online is by selling books and courses on how to make money online.

reminders
Every year we ask the same questions, which is good, as we've sometimes forgotten the answers.

sentry
She's cooked heaps of delicious food, but I wish she would enjoy her own cooking more. She gets up often, sits at the edge of her seat, and monitors the meal. Maybe she wants to confirm that her food is being enjoyed the way she feels it should.

uplifted
The tulips, drooping in the purple vase, soon rise towards the desk lamp.

Week in Seven Words #155 and #156

Week in Seven Words #155

cat's cradle
The dog criss-crosses her leash around and through my legs.

contrasts
The weather, in a way, is perfect: a cloudy cold day, not too cold, the air fresh and scented with herbs and flowers. Because the garden is only half-alive, a sunny day might have made it seem burned out and dead. But the winter mist brings out every hint of color in the broken twigs and grey-green leaves.

disparity
Neighborhoods laid down side by side: slums and fast food joints giving way to gabled homes with chocolate trim.

espied
The bench, sheltered in the gazebo, overlooks the garden, the pale river, and the clouds.

expectations
Maps fire the imagination. This one has names like 'conifer slope' and 'aquatic garden' that sound intriguing but turn out to be a sodden hill and a fountain that isn't active in the winter.

likenesses
Cacti of all kinds: some look like rosettes on a cake, others like cold sorbet fuzzy with ice, others like balls of electricity.

surfacing
I like when the subway climbs out into the light and rattles alongside rooftops and billboards.

Week in Seven Words #156
blasted
A cold wind that seems to scrape out the inside of your skull.

dredge
Gristly duck and faded decor in a restaurant that was once great.

propionibacteria
In a span of five blocks we see something like 10-15 people in Elmo costumes. One of them has terrible body odor, so no one stands next to him.

pulverulent
A dusting of snow on the curbs and benches.

remuneration
Making money off my writing gives me a really good feeling.

spooked
When the ghosts start swarming out of sewer vents and subway stations, the dog yaps at the TV.

therapeutic
Through her dolls she tries to cope with her anxiety about broken bones and reassure herself of a speedy recovery.

Worth Watching: Midnight (1939)

Title: Midnight
Director: Mitchell Leisen
Language: English
Rating: Not rated

Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert) is a quick-thinking American gold-digger who arrives in Paris on a rainy night, penniless but wearing an evening gown. She's picked up at the train station by a gruff taxi driver, Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche), and the two drive around the city and stop to have some food.


Though they're attracted to each other, Eve can't imagine getting involved with a taxi driver, so she flees his cab and crashes a late night recital attended by upper class notables including George Flammarion (John Barrymore), his wife, Helene (Mary Astor), and his wife's lover, Jacques Picot (Francis Lederer). Eve passes herself off as a noblewoman, and the only one who sees through her guise is George, who offers her money to break up his wife's affair by luring Jacques away. So Eve finds herself in a dilemma - should she marry Jacques, the wealthy playboy, or tenacious Tibor, who's been searching for her ever since she disappeared from his cab?


Colbert is charming and funny, and gives her character a hard edge too, as Eve tries to focus on the intrigue she's involved in and not get sentimental about anyone. The filmmakers seem determined that she and Tibor get together, but there are moments of troubled reflection on her part. Eve tells Tibor that her parents' marriage soured over money issues. And she can't imagine keeping house all day long as Tibor drives around in his taxi. Their conflicting outlooks on life are a real issue, but because this is a light-hearted comedy any concerns are swept away. They'll have their happily ever after even if it kills them.

The ending wasn't as funny as I'd hoped it would be (some parts of it made me cringe). You know how I wish the movie would have ended? With Eve and George teaming up as con artists and infiltrating royal palaces and embassies across Europe. I really liked the dynamic between Colbert and John Barrymore as co-conspirators.


Barrymore's performance in Midnight is deranged. The gears in his head are whirring a few seconds out of sync with everyone else's. He comes across as bored, rich, and off his rocker. In short, he's delightful.


He and Colbert are the highlights of this movie (along with Rex O'Malley playing Marcel, Helene's witty and effete confidant). The dialogue is funny, the characters play off of each other well, and even though Tibor and Eve's romance was problematic and didn't move me much, at least the comedy side in this comedy-romance was entertaining.

*All images link back to their source (Flixster Community).

Extracts: A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Don't you see there isn't any real progress... there is only one large circle that we march in, around and around, each of us with our own little picture in front of us - our own little mirage that we think is the future.

A Raisin in the Sun is a wonderful play, one of the best I've read in a while. Lorraine Hansberry shows how people define themselves and strive for their dreams; in progressing towards what they hope will be a better life, they discover new sources of strength in themselves but also risk self-destruction and undermining others. The play ends on a mix of good spirits and foreboding; the Younger family haven't had it easy up until that point, and they have frightening circumstances to deal with in the future, but they're still alive, fighting with one other and against the world.

Meet the Youngers
The Youngers are a black family living in Chicago's South Side in the years after World War II. The patriarch of the family, Big Walter, has passed away, and his material legacy is an insurance check worth 10,000 dollars - a boon to his family, who have long wanted to get out of their airless, lightless hole of an apartment.

There are six of them: Lena (Mama), Big Walter's widow and the matriarch of the family; their adult children, Walter Lee and Beneatha; and Walter Lee's wife, Ruth, and son, Travis.

Walter Lee is a chauffeur, and both Lena and Ruth work as domestic servants, cooking and cleaning in white people's homes. Unlike Walter Lee, it's apparent that Lena and Ruth don't stop working when they get home; with some help from Beneatha, they take care of all the chores in their apartment, while Walter Lee spends time with his friends, shooting the breeze and cooking up grand business schemes. Beneatha (who at a low point in the play speaks the words excerpted at the start of the post) is a college student, a first for her family. In the course of the play she's also wooed by two very different men - George Murchison and Joseph Asagai - each representing a certain kind of future for her, should she choose one of them.

Dreams deferred, denied, or achieved
Everyone in the Younger family has a dream they want to realize. For Beneatha it's becoming a doctor, and for Walter Lee it's running his own business as a bigshot executive. Lena's primary goal is to move to a real house, something Ruth longs for as well. The only affordable neighborhood within an easy distance of their workplaces in the city is a suburb where only white families live.

Personal flaws and family tension could keep their dreams from materializing. Hansberry might have gone the route of having the family be on the same page, united by the same beliefs and outlook as they fight for a better life, but instead she wrote them as messy and real. Walter Lee fights a good deal with his sister about the man she should marry, and with Lena about what to do with the 10,000 dollars; he wants a chance to be his own boss, and if Beneath got to go to college, why can't he have his opportunity to develop himself?

Walter Lee and Ruth's marriage also goes through a lot of strain. Ruth doesn't have Beneatha's booksmarts or Lena's central position in the family, but it's a testament to Hansberry's writing skills that instead of being a sidelined two-dimensional figure she's distinct, given good lines, a dry wit and a complex character, and made to confront her own difficult choices. As for Lena, she looks at her kids with love and pride and, at times, incomprehension. Of those in the younger generation, Ruth (the aptly named daughter-in-law), is the only one who consistently connects with her.

On top of all the intrafamilial conflict, there are people in their community who would resent their move to a better home, taking it as a sign that the Younger family doesn't know "their place." The one neighbor we do see, Mrs. Johnson, is a riot - a funny portrait of a woman who tries to pass off her nosiness and envy as sincere concern. There are also other people in their community who would more actively undermine their attempts to realize their dream.

And finally there's the all-white neighborhood they want to move to. The neighborhood association sends a representative to try to dissuade them from coming to live there; in a morbidly funny moment, Beneatha refers to him as the "Welcoming Committee," a joke taken up by Ruth and Walter Lee:

Mama: What he want?
Ruth: (In the same mood as Beneath and Walter) To welcome you, honey.
Walter: He said they can't hardly wait. He said the one thing they don't have, that they just dying to have out there, is a fine family of fine colored people!

Lorraine Hansberry's own parents fought racial residential segregation in the northern U.S. (read about the Supreme Court Case, Hansberry vs. Lee) and she knew first hand how violent the situation could get, with black families getting fire-bombed out of their homes, attacked by mobs, and worse.

What is progress?
Returning to the excerpt at the top of the post - is progress an illusion? It's fitting that Beneatha makes this pessimistic pronouncement, as someone who's still figuring out her identity.

On the one hand she's the first college-educated person in her family and wants to be a doctor. But if she marries could she still pursue a career in medicine? (Her brother is leaning on her to marry George Murchison, who would be least likely to support her career.) So what is her identity, her role in the family and society at large, meant to be? And what options are available to her as a black woman who wants to go into medicine? She isn't expected to take charge of her family; for better or worse, Lena comes to expect that of Walter Lee, not necessarily because he has good judgment but because he's the man of the house. With her education and career aspirations Beneatha finds herself in an unprecedented position in her family.

Across the generations, the Younger family has progressed out of slavery, then out of the South, to live in their own apartment and to send one family member to college. Even when the "Welcoming Committee" representative from the white neighborhood comes to speak with them, he doesn't threaten them outright, as Beneatha puts it:

Oh - Mama - they don't do it like that any more. He talked Brotherhood. He said everybody ought to learn how to sit down and hate each other with good Christian fellowship.

Progress seems to work uphill, with backsliding and resistance for every bit of ground gained. The newer generations - Walter Lee and Beneatha - are building off of the sacrifices of their parents and forebears in different ways, while also fighting certain battles all over again: not what previous generations fought against - not slavery and not the southern Ku Klux Klan specifically - but against similar forces, in new shapes and forms. They also fight to understand who they are and where they belong in society, and to understand how the legacy of their parents and ancestors affects them; they absorb it, honor it, chafe against it, turn to it sometimes for guidance and mock or ignore it otherwise. The sum total of Big Walter's legacy - along with what Lena has imparted to her kids - is more than 10,000 dollars.

Any push for progress requires risk. Sometimes the desire for a better life is so consuming that it blinds people to potential dangers as they work impatiently towards it. Then again, focusing too much on the dangers keeps people where they are, relatively safe but also miserable and diminished.

Why haven't we seen more of Hansberry?
In addition to being very active in the Civil Rights movement, Lorraine Hansberry made history in theater with A Raisin in the Sun, becoming the youngest American playwright to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Tragically her life was cut short, at age 34, by pancreatic cancer.

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I read The Modern Library edition of A Raisin in the Sun; it's also the first work I'm writing up for the Classics Club Challenge (you can find the link to the challenge post in the Reading Lists tab at the top of the page as well).

Worth Watching: You Can't Take It With You (1938)

Title: You Can't Take It With You
Director: Frank Capra
Language: English
Rating: Unrated

Synopsis
Alice (Jean Arthur) and Tony (Jimmy Stewart) are in love. Alice comes from a household of fun, free artistic people presided over by her grandpa, Martin (Lionel Barrymore). Tony comes from society's upper crust; his father, the arrogant and powerful Mr. Kirby (Edward Arnold), is a banker. Martin is already a thorn in Mr. Kirby's side; his refusal to sell his house prevents Mr. Kirby from completing a lucrative deal. At last the families meet, in an evening that includes fireworks, a wrestling match, some jail time, and a courtroom scene with an adorable judge (Harry Davenport).

Characters
The film features a house full of eccentric people, so it has at least one good thing going for it right there. My favorite of the bunch is Alice's mother, Penny (Spring Byington), a sweet absent-minded lady who writes plays at her desk in the main room as fireworks rumble from the cellar, and her other daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), dances ballet while setting the table; Essie is supposed to be clumsy, so Ann Miller does her best to look like an amateur dancer. Another character I like is Mr. Poppins (Donald Meek) who is rescued by Martin from a mindless job and installed as a permanent house guest, working mostly from the cellar on his masks and mechanical toys. I don't remember if the movie ever explains how Martin has enough money to support a large household. Maybe he worked for years and saved up, or maybe he really never paid any taxes.



The wily and kind Martin, played wonderfully by Lionel Barrymore, is contrasted with the avaricious Mr. Kirby whose values slowly shift from the jail scene onwards. Mr. Kirby's character development is one of the best parts of You Can't Take It With You - it's a gradual dawning, as he realizes that he's a distant father with little joy in his life and no true friends. Edward Arnold is a subtle expressive actor, and I loved one point in the film when he's in an elevator and the doors open on a large board room full of men hungrily applauding him and waiting to gorge on the profits he'll make from a landmark deal; the close-up on his face shows dismay and spiritual exhaustion, in a powerful moment.

His son, Tony, was never cut out to be a banker. Stewart plays Tony as goofy, gallant, and mischievous - which makes him a delicious romantic lead; he's the kind of guy who can laugh at himself while softly and confidently flirting and moving in for a kiss. In the course of the film he grows up a little and takes his first steps away from the life that's been laid out for him since birth.

Like Tony Alice is also different from her family, but she has a close loving relationship with them. Of everyone in her family Alice is the least eccentric, though even she prefers sliding down banisters to taking stairs. Jean Arthur makes Alice sensible without being boring, and gentle without being meek. She has a quiet feistiness, and in the courtroom scene the underlying steel in her emerges.

Relationships
Alice and Tony are in love from the start. What they need to figure out is how to marry happily when they come from such different backgrounds. Alice's family likes Tony, but Tony's family, particularly his haughty mother (played by Mary Forbes), thinks Alice is unsuitable.

As Alice and Tony's relationship is tested, a fellowship slowly forms between Martin and Mr. Kirby. Martin at one point loses his temper and berates Mr. Kirby, then apologizes and gives him a harmonica. The harmonica becomes the symbol of their friendship, and of the simpler happier life that Mr. Kirby wants to settle into by the end. Martin effectively rescues Mr. Kirby much as he did Mr. Poppins.





Though class conflicts are central to the film, at its heart it's more about what's important in life. The film's title comes from the observation that you can't take money with you to the grave and beyond; if you're letting your heart wither as you pursue wealth, if it gets to the point where you're sacrificing everything and everyone for it, then what kind of life are you leading?

Memorable sights and sounds
Harmonicas lead to happiness. A harmonica duet has the power to reunite quarreling lovers and give them hope.

I didn't see this film primarily as a comedy though there are funny moments throughout. Jimmy Stewart screaming like a murderous toddler is among them (in the very same scene where he offers a marriage proposal). He's showing Alice how since infancy all he's ever needed to do to get what he wants is yell loudly enough. Stewart's comedic talent also extends to some awkward dancing and the mild, natural way in which he says funny things.

Stand-out scenes
The courtroom scene is a highlight, with all of Martin's friends from the neighborhood showing up in contrast to Mr. Kirby's four lawyers. This is the scene were Alice makes a stand against her future in-laws' snobbery, and Mr. Kirby is already beginning to see how impoverished his existence is.

I enjoyed all the scenes with Tony and Alice too, when it's just the two of them. They banter, confide in one another, and bring love and levity to stuffy places like Tony's office or a high-end restaurant.





Further thoughts
Sometimes the film drags along or a point is belabored. Regardless it has a heart and a strong cast of characters. One of the lessons it leaves you with is not to live an anxious miserly existence. Love your life and the people in it and don't live in constant fear.

*All images link back to their sources (Flickr; Flixster (community); Wikipedia).

Week in Seven Words #22

absorption
The intense focus of two dogs discovering a third. The two immediately strain at their leashes and begin to sniff; one of them attends to the third dog's face, the other delicately samples the hindquarters.

crotchety
My foot is slightly swollen and pained. It reminds me of a grumpy companion on a road trip, complaining about distances, uncomfortable car seats, and slight jolts along the way.

currency
The cashier is incredulous when a customer pays her in dollar coins; she at first thinks they're fake, like amusement park tokens. She's new to this country, but thought she'd learned everything about the money; she tells another cashier that a trip to the mint is in order.

elusive
The young child's mind is good at eluding experiments that try to tap into the earliest years of language use; a researcher can feel like a naturalist crouched in a tangle of vines and shrubs, hoping for a chance to cast a net at a sly and mysterious creature.

haft
In some other world, a character I've become acquainted with holds her sword at the ready.

nice
She's someone who's genuinely nice. I don't mean that in the bland way in which 'nice' may be used, when you can't think of a stronger or more interesting quality. She is a fundamentally nice person, and it's a pleasure to be in her company.

rudder
I think I have a firm grasp on the story, but the draft I'm working on drifts off course, and not in a mostly delightful or illuminating way. But at least I get some insights into the characters from this unexpected deviation, along with some words that I'd like to keep working with.