Anuprova's History as Fic Blog

In  Kindred,  we as readers get to witness the transformation of multiple characters, including Rufus, Dana, and Kevin. These transformations are unique in that they are shaped by the time period of the character themselves and from the time period of the characters that they are interacting with. The most interesting character development to me was by far Rufus’ development. We see the boy grow up from his early childhood from an innocent boy to a morally ambiguous man. The story opens with Dana meeting a very young Rufus and saving him from drowning. Rufus sees her, but their interaction is very limited, and it is mainly a moment of shock for all involved. It is when Dana meets Rufus for the second time that the two start forming a connection and talking to each other. Rufus continuously calls her the n-word, and she consistently reprimands him. Although he is dumbfounded by the idea that it is not alright to call a black person by that slur, he still listens to Dana’s argum...

To be completely honest, after reading Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, many parts of the book continue to be completely incomprehensible to me and I am still struggling to piece the various plotlines together. At the beginning, Jes Grew was one of these puzzling phenomena that made no sense. What really is Jes Grew? Is it an actual plague? Why are people so angry about it? However, I am pleased to say that I am now a changed woman. From our in-depth class discussions on the importance of Jes Grew, I can confidently say that I can not only provide a definition of Jes Grew, but my own depiction of it in today's culture.  At the beginning of Mumbo Jumbo, we are introduced to Jes Grew as something that makes people dance provocatively. However, Reed only refers to Jes Grew using the vocabulary that one would normally use with infectious disease, which confused me for a bit. Words such as “pandemic”, “infection”, and “immune” had me wondering if we were talking about an actual disease. Ho...

     Ragtime is a story that intermingles real-life characters with real, historical, figures, often blurring the lines between what is fiction and what is historical fact with his crazy but yet somehow plausible storylines. One such historical character he brings into the story is Booker T. Washington, a well-respected African American man from the time period. His role in Ragtime is to convince Coalhouse, a fellow black man, to stop fighting for his car and forgive the government.       To understand the significance of Booker T. Washington in the narrative, we must have a better understanding of his identity and legacy. Washington was a man born into slavery, but he later gained freedom during the Civil War, as the state of West Virginia joined the Union side. After gaining freedom, Washington pursued higher education at various colleges and went on to create the Tuskegee Institute, a school for training teachers. He believed that African Americans...

Ragtime is made up of multiple different plot lines that all come together to tell the story of the early 20th century. From stories with fictional characters such as Coalhouse, Tateh, and Sarah to those with famous historical characters such as Harry Houdini, Emma Goldman, and Evelyn Nesbit, the plots  weave together to create an intricate narrative of the societal structures and significant cultural events from the time period. So why is this novel titled Ragtime ? What does ragtime have to do with the events in this story? To start, what does ‘ragtime’ mean? Ragtime was a popular style of music characterized by syncopated beats that blend together to create a layered tune. It is also worth noting that the time period from 1895-1919 is commonly referred to as the Ragtime Era, which is when this novel takes place. Despite the vastly different plot lines in this book, the idea of ‘ragtime’ comes up in multiple different settings. So far, we have had three mentions of ragtime throu...