Tuesday, April 1, 2014
How Could You, Rufus?!
So after rereading the long reading assignment, I only have one thing to say. How could you, Rufus?! It's not okay to rape black women, even if the other white people tell you it's okay. It's really worrying to me, because I think that it shows Rufus is becoming more like his father, a slaveholder, than a compassionate young man that Dana wants him to become. The big question now is whether Alice is carrying Hagar or not. If not, it remains to be seen if Alice and Rufus will be in a loving situation when they have a child together. Also, if it isn't a loving situation, will Dana's morals or her will to survive win? For now, it seems highly unlikely that Alice would be willing to be anywhere near Rufus. Will Dana's intervention play an important part in bringing Alice and Rufus together? So far, she's been focused on just making sure Rufus stays alive, but what if she's also supposed to help Rufus with his personal life? Dana did manage to get Rufus to listen to her previously, but now as a teenager Rufus has quite a rebellious streak, seeing Dana's reminders as threats and even threatening Dana himself. In fact, Dana can't even know if Rufus really sent a letter to Kevin, which is very worrying. Hopefully Rufus will turn out to be a good person, which I feel should take priority over everything, even ensuring the creation of Hagar. I can't wait to read on and find out what will happen.
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Yes, one would think that certain crimes--like rape, assault, or murder--would be universally acknowledged to be wrong. It can't just be our social context that makes us oppose such acts! But slavery itself is a large-scale human crime which takes the form of a social system, and the people living within that system are in many sense already morally compromised. The whole notion of a "good" slave-owner is an oxymoron, in so far as owning other human beings is reprehensible behavior no matter how "kind" one is to those people. I don't know if this novel goes so far as to "excuse" this kind of behavior from Rufus--but by showing how a basically decent-seeming kid can grow up to see such behavior as okay, or as normal, the novel reflects what an insidious, criminal system this whole huge chunk of American history actually was.
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