Opps

-

 How do the characters' relationships impact their ability to fulfill their dreams and reach their goals? When do the characters support one another and when do they obstruct one another? When friends and family members become barriers to achieving goals, why do you think this happens? 


    Throughout the play, there are multiple instances where a character's thoughts or opinions affect another character's ability to reach their goals. The first main relation is between Cynthia and Tracey. After Cynthia got the promotion at Olstead's, Tracey began to say things about her, trying to put her down. Cynthia says (to Tracey), "I don't deserve the things you've been saying. You've always been cool...You got a problem, you tell me to my face"(Nottage 59). Tracey's motivation to badmouth Cynthia likely sprouts from multiple factors, including her jealousy and racism. Instead of being happy when good things happen to her friends, Tracey tries to put them down because she didn't receive the opportunity. In addition, her blatant racism towards Oscar shows her real character. Tracey probably never really liked Cynthia, and the promotion gave her the motivation to let her emotions loose.

Similar to their mother's relations, Jason also puts down Chris. When Chris opens up about his dreams, Jason responds with: "You got aspirations? What is this, Black History Month?"(Nottage 31). Jason's impulse to put down Chris also comes from racism (like his mother), as he doesn't want to see someone of a minority succeed. While Jason, alongside Stan, might be attempting to give advice to Chris, they are ultimately still obstructing him from his dreams. These remarks become barriers that Chris must deal with in order to reach his goals.

Unlike Tracey and Jason, Brucie actually is able to give Chris advice by saying things like "My two cents, take the small concessions"(Nottage 63). The difference between Brucie and Jason's advice is that Brucie's clearly has good intentions. Jason and Tracey have an undertone of jealousy/racism that reveals their true intentions.

People may put others down because of past trauma or insecurities.

Comments

  1. Jaesung KimNovember 12, 2023 at 8:04 AM

    I like the point that Jason might be trying to give advice to Chris but the way he is doing it, regardless of intention, isn't the best way to support a friend, when someone has aspirations to do something better for themselves. I also like that you said Tracey might not have liked Cynthia at all, and the promotion gave her a chance to be mean at Cynthia. Looking at her racist nature, I think it is fair to assume that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yungeun (Daniel) LeeNovember 12, 2023 at 11:34 AM

    I liked how you focused on how emotions and beliefs drove the relationships between the characters in the play. I agree with your statement that Tracy, fueled by jealously, burned away the fake facade and relationship she had with Cynthia, with her true, racist character being exposed. I also liked how you correlated the relationship between Tracy and Cynthia, with the relationship between their two sons, Jason and Chris.

    ReplyDelete
  3. David ChenNovember 12, 2023 at 8:33 PM

    I like how you analyzed the difference in characters due to their relationship with that person like how Brucie is Chris' father so his advice is more likely to be out of good will instead of jealousy. I also really liked how you said Tracy might have been faking being Cynthia's friend from the start which ngl sounds like a Tracy thing to do.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

what really happened?

-
Image
 After reading Recitatif and its themes of differences in perception, I couldn't help but wonder the extent of this in our lives. Last week when we were doing the graphs on the structure of the story of Three Girls and Flowers, almost everyone in my group had unique looking graphs; it all comes down to perception. We all read the same piece and were given the same task, yet produced different answers. I believe it all boils down to our memories and past experiences.  This parallels what we're learning in AP Psych right now: the fact that memories causes perceptual sets (biases) in everyone. When you think about it, we are really just our memories. They are what we did in the past and they affect how we will act in the present and the future. This is what makes us unique; the fact that no two people have the same perception of life. Sometimes, people's perception of things can be starkly different, as in Recitatif. Although Roberta and Twyla were both at the incident with Ma...
Read more

Who doesn't like eggs?

-
Image
 The best present out of the 12 days of Christmas is undoubtedly the 3 French hens. I'd go as far to say, even with the 5 gold rings included, the hens are still a better option.  First of all, days 8-11 are probably considered human trafficking if you were actually gifted them, so they can be removed from the equation. If you weren't already arrested for such a crime, supporting 8+ people would be quite heavy on the bills, not to mention the need for a mansion of a home. And who would want to hear 12 drummers all day/night? From a monetary perspective, 5 average gold rings would cost around $1000 total (200 per ring from Google). If we assume that the 3 French hens have a full lifetime ahead of them, lay an average of 265 eggs a year, and have 4 years of productive egg-laying, we reach a sum of 3180 eggs. And, because they graze in the backyard and are healthy, we'll consider them pasture-raised. At today's market price of 6$ a dozen, that's $1590 total.  Yet, the ...
Read more

What's a father?

-
 Last week in class we read "A Story", a poem about a father trying to come up with a story for his son before bed time. I believe the main message of the poem is about the difficulties fathers (or mothers) experience trying to please their kids and also not being able to let them go as they grow old. The poem does a good job being generalized so that it is relatable to many people, with the simple title and lack of names. While the child only innocently wants to hear a new story, this task is very challenging to the father. It causes him to create a whole scenario in the future where he struggles to let his son leave. The child never meant to cause pain to the father, yet the father takes it upon himself to do everything to support his son.  The author implies that this kind of relationship is unhealthy. As in the last lines, he states that the two sides add up to silence, where nothing is accomplished and only remains in a cycle of stress.  Yet this poem also comments o...
Read more