Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
2005
Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik
Hauptseminar: “Recent American Fiction“
Dozent: Prof. Dr. Zapf
Referentinnen: Frauke Schneider, Nina Rose,
Johanna Sauer
4. Time:
The short story does not include a explicit time reference. Objects such as the mailman’s car
or the circulars mentioned in the text point to a period of time after WWII.
5. Space
The short story is situated in a very poor area. Rannie lives in a very shabby hut: the house is
not isolated and it is very cold inside; the windows are grimy, the quilts are thin and pale.
Since the house is situated in a pasture, Rannie and Snooks are in a way living with animals.
Outside it is raining and the ground has turned into mud, what signifies that Rannie/the blacks
can not get out of their situation.
6. Language
The language can be considered as the sociolect of the blacks in the South. It is their
vernacular, which Alice Walker wanted to preserve for the future generations.
7. Narrator
The short story presents a overt narrator who is omniscient and omnipresent. The narrator
highly judges and comments on the figures in the narration. He has an inside view on the
characters’ feelings and thoughts. “Today he thought she looked more ignorant than usual...”
(p. 83) At some points the narrator’s report of what is going on seems to pass over into a free
indirect discourse giving a full and unclouded perspective on the characters’ minds. “He gave
her what he hoped was a big friendly smile. God! He didn’t want to hurt her feelings.” (p.83)
8. Historical Background
● It is important to see the historical reliance of African Americans on folk medicine. In the
past, slaves weren’t allowed to use traditional cures to treat any illness on there own. The
owners saw it as their responsability to cure the slaves with modern medicine. Therefore,
using traditional cures was one way of resitance to white ownership and a claim of
responsability for and control over their own bodies.
►Sarah’s talents as a traditional healer are a legacy of her culture’s active resistance to
oppression.
● “shot syndrom”: due to the usage of penicillin during WWII, shots were generally accepted
not because of their scientific proof, but they were known to be traditionally efficient.
9. Themes
● white society vs. black community
The entire story is interlaced with not only a sharp contrast of skin colours but also with the
difficult problem of a community in transition. On the one hand there is an economically
developed white society which excludes African Americans and their problems not only
mentally but geographically as well.
● culture vs. nature
Closely connected to the contrast above is the gap between culture and nature. The mailman
represents a white society that has a functioning health care system based on modern
scientific achivements which is not available for blacks. Sarah, a conjure woman, represents a
tradition of folk cure.
The gap is widened by Rannie’s inability to understand the function of the circulars which are
helpful to her in only one way, to paper the inside of her hut in order to keep the wind out.
● illusion vs. truth
Rannie clings to a double illusion about modern medicine. First, that one shot will cure her
baby, considering the shot to be an infallible miracle and second, that this shot will be
available upon demand in this moment of crises.
Sarah is fully aware of both of these illusions and of the racial discrimination connected to the
second one.
● young vs. old
Rannie’s and Sarah’s relationship can be seen as a conflict of two generations. Racism has
made blacks mistrust their own abilities and forced them into dependence of white culture of
which Rannie is a victim. For Rannie a white doctor is the only source of salvation, so she
turns away from African American culture even if this action is linked with the threat of
death. She ignores Sarah’s offer to help and treats her with intolerance. In opposition to that
Sarah is practicing her art of healing and therefore perpetuates a powerful tradition of
resistance to white racism, a cultural reality she wants Rannie to accept.
10. Symbolism
● horse tea:
There are folk cures that employ urine and horses as instruments of regenerative power, not
humiliation. The story is not constructed to demonstrate that the tea can actually revive
Snooks.
● pasture:
The pasture is a symbolic terrain where Rannie’s inability to move appropriatly in her
surroundings is shown. Rannie is not merely physically isolated in the pasture; she has
separated herself from her cultural heritage as well.
● circulars:
The advertisment in connection with the mailman are Rannie’s only link to a modern white
society which she doen’t understand.
● gray mare:
Seeing a gray mare is a sign of death.