Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Determinism
After learning about the naturalistic novel on the very first day of "The Street" the ending should really be no surprise, as shocking as it is. Lutie spends the whole beginning of the novel trying to deliver her and her son from the stereotypes of the street by making him focus on school and reject the notions of shoe shinning and criminality. However, if we follow the naturalistic themes of determinism, no matter how hard she tries she will always fail, she's destined to. Bub does wind up in reform school and she does resort to criminality. At the end of the novel while beating Boots Lutie proclaims, "she was striking at the white world which thrust black people into a walled enclosure from which there was no escape"(Petry 430). In terms of determinism is it mutually exclusive for the "white world" and black world or do the two coincide? I almost feel as if Lutie is suggesting determinism is not just everyone's destiny, but rather the destiny one group puts onto another.
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I was completely surprised by the ending but after reading your post and giving it some consideration, I can see where I miscommunicated Lutie's actions. I think it is interesting that you talk about destiny and groups placing each other into that group. At first I felt that certain characters like Boots and Mrs. Hedges were not given a specific destiny, but then I remembered that without Junto, a white man, they wouldn't be where they are today. I know we talked about this early in the class when Lutie was working for the Chandlers and they really seemed to believe a lot of stereotypes about black people. This caused me to think that they placed them into a category that determined their fate.
ReplyDeleteI agree Chelsea. I also, thought that the ending was another point of parallel between this novel and Richard Wright's Native Son.
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