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Lack of fathers in Walkers’ *In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens* accidental or purposeful?

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When I first started reading In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose, I thought, you know, I don’t know much about the lives of African American women post-World War I. But by the end of the essay, seeing that it was written in 1974, I questioned, where are the fathers? Were dotting, supportive African American husbands non-existent back in 1974? Why are men demonized in every story we’ve read since “Hedda Gabler”? (In this essay it is unclear who abuses the women, only that they were abused, always; on page 233 there’s an “ignorant and depraved white” overseer, but he’s the only male abuser described.)

It’s possible that because this essay is about the secret that feeds the deprived souls of African American women, men are not in the focus and are rarely mentioned. However, in the few instances that men or fathers are mentioned, I’m led to believe that they’re either trivial or uncompassionate beings—far cries from the dotting, supportive male figures I imagined them to be. Take quote in page 233 for example: “And men took our mothers and grandmothers, ‘but got no pleasure from it.’” Let me mention that sexual abuse of black women is often referred to in this essay, starting from lines 3 and 4 on page 232; that being said, in context, “took” can either mean to have intercourse with, or marry black women. But why claim that no man got pleasure from the act? Did they never love their women? Why does Walker argue this? Unfortunately for me, she doesn’t elaborate further.

If men, specifically of color, were unsympathetic or compassionless towards African American women, then perhaps that’s why Walker wrote that they didn’t get pleasure from their relationships. However, on page 238, there’s an intriguing image that Walker paints, one with her mother and father working side-by-side on a workers field. The one instance where Walker mentions her father is brief but says, “During the ‘working’ day, [my mother] labored beside—not behind—my father in the fields.” This image tells me that her father cared enough about her mother to let her be his equal, let her work beside him, instead of forcing her to work behind him. Nonetheless, Mother’s Gardens leaves me begging the question, what did African American husbands do to support their African American wives creatively? If creativity and “respect for strength” are things needed to nurture one’s soul, then what did men do to facilitate women’s ability to express either one? Or were they simply trivial, passive beings back in 1974? Again, unfortunately Walker does not elaborate further.

“Bartleby”…An attempt to answer why this story was written.

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Why does Bartleby exist, besides the fact that Herman Melville wrote him in in his short story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener”? The Narrator and his office crew could have gone on functioning properly without his existence. Who was this mild-tempered, annoyingly nonchalant copyist? Why did he live at the office, why didn’t he have a home of his own? Why, in the end, did he whither away like a leaf in winter? After the Narrator and his office crew moved, why did Bartleby stay in the old office, like a ghost? Why did he stare at nothing but walls? And what kind of name is Bartleby–or Turkey, or Nippers, or Ginger Nut, for that matter.

Theory: Bartleby was an untold story that, after a period, had to say goodbye forever.
That being said, the Narrator, a writer of sorts, told Bartleby’s story as he knew it, in an attempt to put it to rest. Essentially, Melville, in individualistic expression, needed to write this story as a eulogy attributing to all of his stories that were written but never to be read (or so he thought.) (That’s also why it’s in the Norton Anthology.)

Hard to believe? Well, it wouldn’t be the first unrealistic aspect of this story. Behold, a character who rarely eats, does none but one task and does it from “day-light to candle light,” stares at walls when he’s not copying, and refuses to leave the building even after his former employer and all the furniture leave the office (301).

Unstated in the theory earlier is the fact that Bartleby is part of the Narrator in the same way Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger Nut are. Age wise, if Bartleby is the Narrator’s aged counterpart with “dull and glazed” eyes, then Ginger Nut is the spicy, youthful lawyer’s apprentice who gets little to nothing out of his apprenticeship (311). Temperament wise, before noon, if Nippers is the Narrator’s tranquillity, then Turkey is the one to “glow in the face, overturn his inkstand, and become generally obstreperous” (314). Therefore, Bartleby, before dying, becomes a ghost, a shell in the office he once resided, his only home, before dying without ever divulging his full story. Bartleby has hit the proverbial wall, one he must stare down until he dies.

In conclusion, by the end of “Bartleby,” readers mourn for more than a sick character who died alone–they mourn for his story untold and any others that burn in the “Dead Letter Office,” the depository for undeliverable mail (321).

“I well know there is nothing,” an inverted reflection

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At first blush, I didn’t think much of the first line indention in Castro’s two-stanza poem, “I well know there is nothing,” nor did I linger on the length of the sentences afterwards. After reading this once, it’s a very easy read; it’s translated so well that I would have thought it was written within the last century or so. However, after further analysis, the structure of the two stanzas, as well as the way the words are arranged within the two stanzas, make me believe this poem is more than just a splurt of words on a piece of paper, a rant about a person’s feeling of meaninglessness–it’s a poem with a unique structure by a unique romantic poet.

I noticed in my second reading that no matter how the lines were rearranged, the poem still made sense. For instance:

I well know there is nothing
new under the sky,
forever the same.
that what I think of now
others have thought before.
Well, because we are so,
clocks that repeat
Well, why do I write?

I think the reason why this is so is because Castro is the kind of romantic poet whose work portrays spontaneity and what is natural, not what is orderly and strict. Castro is also a poet who prefers to keep things concise and visceral, which is made very obvious by this poem.

In addition, and this might be due to translation, the lines following the first indented line of each stanza inverts the other’s lines; so that line 2 of stanza one is the same length of the line 8 in stanza two, line 3 is the same length as line 7, and line 4 is the same length as line 6. This, along with line 7 (“clocks that repeat,”) made me think that this poem was a twisted reflection, like Anthony Burgess’ thoughts on mankind in his novel A Clockwork Orange. Then Castro was reflecting on more than just the meaninglessness she was feeling at the time.

"Clocks on repeat," Castro
“Clocks on repeat,” Castro