Genealogy Reflections in “The Bear" (Bucher)
Genealogy Reflections in “The Bear”
by Ms. Bucher
We have spent much time in class stumbling over the genealogy in Go Down, Moses. When trying hard to follow the twisted, obscure genealogy, it is clear that the McClaslin family tree is a complicated double helix of both white and black branches. But the power of the family dynamic becomes even more powerful the moment that Issac McClaslin, grandson of patriarch Lucius Quintus Carothers McClaslin, pushes away his inheritance of the plantation. The question brought up in class many times still plagues me: Why does he reject his rightful ownership of the family land?
Possible reasons come to mind easily: He may not want the responsibility for the care and support of all the people, both black and white, that live and work the land. He has been raised in large part by Sam Fathers who taught him to love nature, the wild, and the liberty of a life unfettered by any interest in social or economic expectations. And he needs to be free to pursue his own vision of the good and create his own purpose and glory.
But go back to what is learned from the ledgers. Issac reads in the old ledgers that Eunice Bought by Father in New Orleans 1807. Married to Thucydus 1809. Then we read June 21st 1833, “Drownd herself” (meaning Eunice). Issac wonders why. He gets the commissary key from McClasin’s room while he is sleeping and “he knew what he was going to find before he found it.” He learns about Tomasina called Tomy Daughter of Thucydus and Eunice, born 1810 and dies in childbirth 1833: after giving delivery to a son, Turl. Of course, we learn Tomy was the 23 year old housekeeper of old Carothers, and that he impregnates her. So, as discussed in class, Tomey’s Turl (Terrel) is a half-brother to Buck and Buddy (half white, half black). But actually, he is not 50%, he is 75% white, because Old Carothers had originally impregnated Tomy’s mother Eunice. “And Tomey’s Terrel was still alive when the boy Issac was ten years old and he knew from his own observation and memory that there had already been some white in Tomey’s Terrel’s blood before his father gave him the rest of it” (259).
Eunice, who Carothers McClaslin had bought in New Orleans for Thucydis, perhaps as a concubine for himself, had walked into the icy creek on that Christmas day six months before her daughter (his daughter too) had his child and his grandchild. Incest. And vile, debauched, traumatic, despicable behavior of a white plantation owner towards his own child just because he could in a society that honored his “rights” to own others for his own purposes. Eunice kills herself (or is she perhaps murdered? We have no information about that possibility) because she finds the events horrific, deeply shameful, as if she is actually responsible for her daughter’s terrible situation), unimaginable, impossible to face. Leading to Isaac's statement “so this land is, indubitably, of and by itself cursed“ (284).
And of course, Issac’s own horror, leading to his refusal of his formal inheritance to cousin Cass McClaslin instead, departs to live a free life as a carpenter and woodsman. Even when pushed by his new wife to take her back to his ‘farm’, he says “No, I tell you. I wont. I can't. Never” (300). He has no vision of any rightful ownership of a land that led to such desperate, miserable, and evil outcomes, transmitted through generations of despair, the “dark and ravaged fatherland.” Issac walks away, renouncing any responsibility for the McClaslin legacy or business. He has a moral compass that is summarized by, “Courage and honor and pride, and pity and love of justice and of liberty. They all touch the heart, and what the heart holds to becomes truth, as far as we know truth” (284).
I believe that Issac, who cannot change his genealogy (particularly the awareness of the inescapable closeness between his black and white relations), his grandfather’s belligerent disgrace, and his overarching sadness about the history of the last several generations of people trying to live on this piece of land within a framework of slavery, can also not see any way forward to accept this reality except to escape from it all into a life that free from it. He forges forward into a life that is all of his own making, one that doesn’t stink from the legacy of the plantation and the cultural assumption of white domination/black oppression.
This post was really helpful for breaking down and helping me understand some of the events that unfold in the ledger. One question that I had about the end of your post is regarding Isaac's inability to change his genealogy, and must escape it all--must free himself. How much do you think one is defined by their ancestry? Why should Ike feel guilty for the crimes of his parents and grandparents?
ReplyDeleteThis was similar to what Mr. Xu was asking at the end of last class about how he doesn't hold his ancestors to such high virtuous standards. In a way, everyone's lineage has gone through dark paths. But what is it with Ike? Is his history too close in time?
It's also something I want to ask because in some ways it seems that individuality is at stake. Why should I be defined by my family. I am not my family--I am me. I am individual. Does Ike get lost in so much history and family ties that he forgets his individuality and separateness from his ancestors? Or is his going off into the woods to free himself perhaps an expression of individuality and will?
I think he is pretending that he is above his roots and doesn't have to be confronted every moment with the scourge of institutionalized and familial racism. But we are defined by our ancestry, to the point that we have the DNA gifts, the (sometimes) deeply unconscious view of the world’s way of things, the results of trauma or decisions handed down over and over shaping our own circumstances. There is such a thing as cause and effect; you cannot side-step the impacts of the past.
ReplyDeleteWe have a responsibility to manage ourselves in the face of these external events, of course, but we cannot turn our backs on the effects of prior generations. No one can say they are not your ancestors; on some level, you are. For example, my ancestors placed me in a position where I have opportunities to live without economic strain, education, etc. All this impacts me whether I am aware of it or not. These are just the ways we develop. It is the environment in which you were raised, the choices that were made for you before you even existed. I am an effect of a cause I had no say in, just by being born. How I respond to it is all my own, but we are never completely detached from the truth that our ancestors decided for us. Your life is an effect of the cause, you can’t change that truth nor be distant from that. You are responsible to address this. This is a deterministic view, perhaps, but Isaac stays in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi and doesn't really try to separate himself from that culture. By absorbing the culture, you are accepting it in some manner.
Like the Germans with the Jews, we must feel shame. This social behavior arose out of an uncontrolled, unethical self-righteousness and greed which led to heinous outcomes for the world. We have to live better than our circumstances. If our own people can foster such ugliness, who is to say that we are truly free to announce we are “clean.” I am still paying for the sins of my ancestors (being Swiss German and Czech) by the horror they have unleashed on the world's psyche, if not directly by the disruption and loss of millions of people’s lives.
Like the Stoics, we have no control over the external events (and that includes our ancestral legacy) but we do have the ability to shape our own reactions and awareness, including facing truth.
This is very astute, Ms. Bucher. What then do we make of Isaac's shocking explosion in "Delta Autumn"? -- perhaps the most powerful use of the n- word in all literature. Is it proof that he has not escaped, that his strategy was a flawed escape based on another misconception of purity? He seems to feel the burden of the whole of human history, because his own family encapsulates all the ruthless depredation that has stained our species -- but is the answer to escape from history and consequence, to "abdicate," or is there an alternative to fight-or-flight?
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