Southern Gothic - Family Secrets and Social Criticism
“...here come the last remains of Jean Marie Poquelin, a better man, I’m afraid, with all his sins,–yes a better–a kinder man to his blood–a man of more self-forgetful goodness–than all of you put together will ever dare to be.”
English 104: For your discussion post today, responses must be authentically yours. They should be written in the personal pronoun "I" and reflect your personal thoughts and reactions to the text. Plagiarized or copied text from outside sources will be deleted and treated as plagiarism. The goal of these discussion posts is to share "aha" moments where you found personal clarity, developed a deeper understanding, or discovered a new way to view a text, its themes, or characters. That said, I enjoyed reading through your responses yesterday, particularly the ones that showed your unique perspectives and view points on the topic of Southern Gothic fiction.
2) Click on the following link to read through a syllabus highlighting important learning objectives when studying George Washington Cable. Pay particular attention to the two major themes that emerge in Cable's works. You may also find the questions on this syllabus familiar. http://college.cengage.com/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/cable.html
3) Many of you in the zoom chat stated that this was by far the hardest to read due to Cable's use of dialect and local color realism. Use the link provided to read a student synopsis of the text that may help you sort through the major plot points. https://secretsburied.weebly.com/jean-ah-poquelin
Post Requirements: Your discussion post today is 2-3 well written paragraphs highlighting your PERSONAL take-away from the text. Your response can be framed in ONE of three ways:
1) You can talk about how this extra material helped you better understand the story, its themes, and surprise ending.
2) You can focus on the satire of the text and how Cable clearly criticizes social institutions like prejudice and racism in his stories.
3) You can focus on the big secret "reveal" at the end of the story. Review the quote by Little White used at the opening of this post. What makes Jean Marie Poquelin a heroic figure? Is Jean's heroism ironic or paradoxical? Why would leprosy be such a devastating diagnosis for that time period and in what ways is Jean's social isolation as much for the benefit for the community as for his brother?
Looking forward to reading YOUR thoughts and reactions. Please try to post by 8:00 pm tonight.
Jean-ah Poquelin is a story that can be hard to read at first. With its old southern kreole writing style, and its hidden messages, it can be quite challenging. But with critical thinking and a little research you can find out what the book has to offer. Generally you learn more about a book by reading it. I learned more about this book by researching it due to its foreign sounding text.
The language in Jean-ah Poquelin can be very hard to understand at times. For those who didn't grow up around kreole culture or have kreole relatives, the text may sound completely alien. Kreole dialect is possibly even incomprehensible to some. Although old southern style kreole dialogue is …
Like many of my peers, I was also tripped up by the dialect and language choices that this story contains. The mix up of languages helped to convey to me one of the themes of the story. I chose to interpret this theme as old vs. new. The new being represented as the physical modernization of the setting, and the new people and cultures that it brings with it. The old is represented by Jean Marie Poquelin, his brother, and their property. As society modernized in the story, Jean Poquelin becomes more and more scrutinized and alienated by it. As time passes, the Frenchman's property decays and becomes a target of superstition. I saw these events as parallels t…
Like many of my peers, I was also tripped up by the dialect and language choices that this story contains. The mix up of languages helped to convey to me one of the themes of the story. I chose to interpret this theme as old vs. new. The new being represented as the physical modernization of the setting, and the new people and cultures that it brings with it. The old is represented by Jean Marie Poquelin, his brother, and their property. As society modernized in the story, Jean Poquelin becomes more and more scrutinized and alienated by it. As time passes, the Frenchman's property decays and becomes a target of superstition. I saw these events as parallels t…
"Jean Ah Poquelin" was a difficult story to follow. There were many parts that i didn't understand at all. i didn't understand the overall message. These passage made it easier to follow. I still don't totally understand but it made it clearer and easier to read. It helped me understand the reason for the language which confused me the first time.
Now understanding more about George Washington Cable and what his life was like helped me understand his reasoning for this story. He writes Jean's story showing past and present and how much it has changed. And in Cables life his present is much different than his past.
Jean is considered such a hero because his actions defy the expectations of everyone in the story and even the reader’s expectations. The townspeople’s gossip indicates that they are very superstitious and Jean seems like the perfect candidate to focus that superstition around. The way that George Washington Cable describes Jean’s appearance and mannerisms, the audience immediately becomes suspicious of him. This misdirection of skepticism makes the reveal all the more surprising and meaningful. It works so well because it relies on very common stereotypes that society gives to us. It makes us reevaluate our preconceived ideas of class and race. I think this was the point of the story because, in a way, this relates heavily to George Washington…
Jean-ah Poquelin is a story that can be hard to read at first. With its old southern kreole writing style, and its hidden messages, it can be quite challenging. But with critical thinking and a little research you can find out what the book has to offer. Generally you learn more about a book by reading it. I learned more about this book by researching it due to its foreign sounding text.
The language in Jean-ah Poquelin can be very hard to understand at times. For those who didn't grow up around kreole culture or have kreole relatives, the text may sound completely alien. Kreole dialect is possibly even incomprehensible to some. Although old southern style kreole dialogue is …
Like many of my peers, I was also tripped up by the dialect and language choices that this story contains. The mix up of languages helped to convey to me one of the themes of the story. I chose to interpret this theme as old vs. new. The new being represented as the physical modernization of the setting, and the new people and cultures that it brings with it. The old is represented by Jean Marie Poquelin, his brother, and their property. As society modernized in the story, Jean Poquelin becomes more and more scrutinized and alienated by it. As time passes, the Frenchman's property decays and becomes a target of superstition. I saw these events as parallels t…
Like many of my peers, I was also tripped up by the dialect and language choices that this story contains. The mix up of languages helped to convey to me one of the themes of the story. I chose to interpret this theme as old vs. new. The new being represented as the physical modernization of the setting, and the new people and cultures that it brings with it. The old is represented by Jean Marie Poquelin, his brother, and their property. As society modernized in the story, Jean Poquelin becomes more and more scrutinized and alienated by it. As time passes, the Frenchman's property decays and becomes a target of superstition. I saw these events as parallels t…
"Jean Ah Poquelin" was a difficult story to follow. There were many parts that i didn't understand at all. i didn't understand the overall message. These passage made it easier to follow. I still don't totally understand but it made it clearer and easier to read. It helped me understand the reason for the language which confused me the first time.
Now understanding more about George Washington Cable and what his life was like helped me understand his reasoning for this story. He writes Jean's story showing past and present and how much it has changed. And in Cables life his present is much different than his past.
Jean is considered such a hero because his actions defy the expectations of everyone in the story and even the reader’s expectations. The townspeople’s gossip indicates that they are very superstitious and Jean seems like the perfect candidate to focus that superstition around. The way that George Washington Cable describes Jean’s appearance and mannerisms, the audience immediately becomes suspicious of him. This misdirection of skepticism makes the reveal all the more surprising and meaningful. It works so well because it relies on very common stereotypes that society gives to us. It makes us reevaluate our preconceived ideas of class and race. I think this was the point of the story because, in a way, this relates heavily to George Washington…