The Relationship of Marriage and Social Hierarchy

Old Wealth

Nouveau Riche

Although most people are inclined to believe in the American Dream, or the idea that everyone has the same chance to improve their social status, the vast majority are restricted by their family name and reputation. A person’s heritage has always played a significant role within the social hierarchy, even as it pertains to marriage. Early Europeans sought to outlaw morganatic marriage, or intermarriage between people of unequal social rank, as a way of preserving the traditional social structure. Despite the progress made over the past few centuries, social distinctions and exclusions still exist and have a tremendous impact on an individual’s life. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Emily Brontë, authors of The Great Gatsby and Wuthering Heights, respectively, accurately identify the rigid social ranks between individuals, and the factors contributing to their distinctions. Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of The Great Gatsby, comes from a farming family and tries to improve his social status so that can fulfill his personal ambition and marry Daisy. Even though Gatsby gains immense financial wealth, he is still excluded from Daisy’s social class, or “Old Wealth,” because he is limited by his background and lack of education. Similar to Gatsby, Bronte’s main character, Heathcliff, is unable to enter Catherine’s social class because although he too achieves financial wealth, he lacks the true heritage of an aristocrat and a formal education.   

Social hierarchy 

Gatsby’s ambition to be a social elite began during his early adolescence, when he began to concentrate his energy on obtaining economic success. For instance, in his old book where his daily schedule is listed, he devotes an entire hour towards practicing “elocution, poise and how to attain it,” and reminds himself abstain from smoking and chewing (Fitzgerald 173). His devotion to improving his public speaking and mannerisms clearly represents his desire to become a member of the upper class because he must have the ability to pass as elegant in order to fit in. Accordingly, his refusal to smoke and chew tobacco illustrates his determination to differentiate himself from the vulgar activities of the lower classes. Although the real reason Gatsby wants to improve his status lies with his ambition, the abandonment from Daisy also constitutes a significant reason, as well as an excuse. Gatsby recalls the first impression of Daisy as “the first ‘nice’ girl he had ever known,” because they did not have an “indiscernible barbed wire” that separated them (Fitzgerald 148). To Gatsby, Daisy represents an entrance into the exclusive aristocracy, which is demonstrated by the absence of “barbed wire.” Although Gatsby considers the intermarriage of Daisy and him as a shortcut to make the dream of wealth true as the propose chase Daisy in the beginning, he truly falls in love with Daisy after he is in the relationship with her.  However, the failure of his romantic relationship which is result in Daisy abandon him because the pressure from society, made he realized it’s impossible to a man from lower class, like him, marry a upper class woman, no matter how deep their love is. Meanwhile,  it also stimulates him to enhance his status while he feels the humiliation and inferiority of his poverty, which  made the great gap of social status between Daisy and him.

Daisy 

               Gatsby introduces his background to Nick as “[he is] the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West-all dead now. [he] was brought up in American but educated at Oxford, because all [his] ancestors have been educated at Oxford” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 65). Fitzgerald utilizes that to emphasize Gatsby propose that made other people believe he has potential abilities to be a upper class as well as old wealth member as he was born in a old and well-known family and graduated from a noble college, not just a new wealth. 

"One night, we can build a nouveau riche, three generations to cultivate an aristocrat."
-- Williams  Shakespeare

                Despite that  he tries to defend that he is the Old Wealth, his statements and actions expose his feign. Nick as a gentleman comes from a blue-blood family and his family went to Yale from generation to generation, but he modestly said he went to college in “New Heave”. And it is feigned that Gatsby show him the picture which he took in Oxford and the “Orderi de Danilo”.

Gatsby's party
His house and parties, the symbols of fortunes, were  utilized by Gatsby as measurements to flaunt his riches since he lacks of a background as Old Wealth.

             
                    While Daisy inclined to Gatsby’s position as she condemns Tom reveals Gatsby’s education background, Tom emphasizes the division of Old Wealth and Nouveau Riches as he says: “Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white. “ (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 130).  It illustrates the intermarriage between different social class could not accept by moral  as it insinuates the absurdness of the intermarriage between black, which represent Nouveau Riche, person who born in poverty  and White, which refers to person who inherit money from blue-blood family, represents Old Wealth. Furthermore, Tom emphasize the ideology of social hierarchy to deride Gatsby’s background by improve his own status as a warn to Daisy that it would broke the social order if she chooses a Nouveau Riche. And after Tom reveal Gatsby’s illegal deal, Daisy’s sentiment has changed dramatically as she felt remorse about she tried to go away with Gatsby as she “looked at Tom, alarmed now.”after Tom said, “you two start on home, Daisy, in Gatsby’s car” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 135). Because the illegal deal, which not only could be consider as the testimony of his corrupt but also deny his background as his fortune was not obtained by inheriting and that made Gatsby lose the potential possibility of enter upper class. “In Gatsby’s car” symbolized Gatsby’s social class, Nouveau Riche.  If Daisy chooses to go with his, then she could not keep her position among upper class any more and would be degenerated into Nouveau Riche as Gatsby.

                  In Wuthering Height, Emily Brontë demonstrates how social status acts as the factor to impact the Catherine’s choice between true love and class.  Compared by the love from Catherine to Heathcliff, which is considered true love, the love to Edger is based on materiality because it seems to be the pursuit of high-quality life under the factors like class, status, wealth, and family, which exerts a subtle influence on Catherine’s values as she explains the different of those two: “My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary” (Brontë, 80). To Catherine, marrying Edgar doesn’t mean she will love Linton more than Heathcliff,  just because she follows the society hierarchy, as she describes Edgar “because he is handsome, because he is young. And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of neighborhood”(Brontë, 76) which means Catherine prefers Edgar for his handsome , young, wealth and status which is laid on external circumstance and is changeable, so Catherine to his love also will be changed with that external things, and her marriage with Edger never means she will leave Heathcliff as she plans “if I marry Linton, I can’t aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power”(Brontë, 79), she would like to enhance Heathcliff’s status by her husband’s power, as well as help him get rid of Hindley’s control, though Heathcliff does not like to accept her too much care. Furthermore, it also illustrates Catherine doesn’t satisfy Heathcliff’s current status who is not only living in poverty and also is treated as a slave by his brother, has a great gap from him. Heathcliff is to her what a slave of the lower class is to a lady of aristocratic class. As Catherine once tell her maid that “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now” (I’ll find the page no. ch.9), which means if Catherine marry him, she would degrade in to lower class but marry a upper class men like Edger would make her stay in the aristocratic class.

In a nutshell, both of Gatsby and Heathcliff have similar experiences as they are abandoned by the upper class woman who they love while those women made the choice between the hierarchy of social order and true love.  After they realizes the cruelty of reality of social hierarchy, they obtained wealthy through assiduous working. Similarly, their persistence of love-pursuing is praised and sympathized  by readers. However, their fate are determined while they are born, the love emerges between different social class will not to be end in a happy outcome, wherever how much they did for trying to improve their status. 

More stories about social hierocracy and marriage

Arhduke Franz Ferlinand and Countess Sophie Chotek von Chotkwa

Morganatic marriage  is the marriage between people of unequal social rank, which prevents the passage of the husband’s title and privileges to the wife and any children born of the marriage. The marriage of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and Bohemian aristocrat Countess Sophie Chotek von Chotkowa is a famous example. Despite that  Archduke who was the heir of Austria-Hungary, finally overcame the great pressure form his royal family and other European upper class to marry Sophie, their marriage, which was a morganatic one, did not gain any esteems from society. Their children took their mother’s family name and rank, and were exclude from imperial succession. Countess Sophie serves as a aristocrat could not be accepted, it is less impossible to Gatsby and Heathcliff  to marry higher status women.

Deposed Queen Yoon

Queen Yoon

Experience of Deposed Korean Queen Yoon is another famous example of  the intermarriage between two extreme social classes. Her husband who served as  King of Korean, in spite of oppositions from royal family and ministers, marriaged with her, the maid who he loved.   Without a powerful upper class background, Queen Yoon treated disrespectful by King’s other concubines who were born in a aristocratic family.  And the envy and resentment of concubine triggered the struggle in palace. As a result, Queen Yoon was repealed and exiled because the traps from other aristocratic concubines. Queen Yoon’s son, Yeonsangun of Joseon, inherited Korean throne after his father’s death. However, the blood purge he emerged a in order to revenged the people who calumniated his mother, brought the rise of a coup caused he was overthrown by aristocrats. 

-------------------------------------

Unlink sources:
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print.
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. New York, NY: Signet Classics, 2011. Print.

The Doubted Certainties: Morrison's Critique of American Ideals

Rules are inevitable. The disastrous nature of human conduct generates the need of a governing central power and of policies that everybody must abide to as lawful citizens. Scientific and mathematical developments also bring about theorems and rules that are universally accepted as certain and true. While these essential and fundamental laws establish themselves in human minds, so do other more obscure and abstract social rules and standards of beauty and hierarchy, driving people to accept and follow the ideals and creating social division and hierarchy.

The Golden Age of Certainty

Isaac Newton, 1642 - 1727

The Age of Reason, often referred to as the Enlightenment or the Mechanical Age, depicts an era of physics development when the scientists aimed to take everything apart and to analyze them thoroughly. They believed in the possibility of defining and interpreting the behavior of all particles with mathematical analysis and proposed that the motion of an object from one stationary point in time to another is always connected and continuous. This idea of continuity suggests that if the position and momentum of a particle are determined, its state at any time in the future can also be predicted. Isaac Newton, an important physicist and mathematician of the era who developed the use of calculus (the mathematics of continuity) in his laws of motion, put forth a relevant idea: the clockwork universe theory. He stated in the theory that the world functions as a clock created by God, and all the particles in the universe advance, just like machines, with the linear progression of the clock and follow the general rules of Newtonian mechanics, leaving all moments in time entirely predictable. However, as Newton argues for the predictability of future events, he completely abandons the idea of free will. Since everything is certain and predetermined, nothing happens on the basis of human will.

The Age of Uncertainty

Quantum mechanics, however, deconstructs the widely believed notions of the Age of Certainty and challenges the Newtonian mechanism. Originally proposed by Heisenberg and later revised by Kennard, the uncertainty principle asserts a limit to the precision of the momentum and position of an object that can be determined. Heisenberg argues that the more precisely the value of one is known, the less precisely the value of the other can be determined. The principle challenges Newton’s earlier idea of continuity, in which the predictability of future states is based on the knowledge of the position and momentum of the particle in its present state. Another central argument of the quantum theory is that particles do not move in a continuous way, but instead come in discrete units. For instance, the position of an object at one moment in time is completely independent of its position in the previous moment; likewise, its position in the next point in time is also absolutely random and uncertain.

Certainty in The Bluest Eye

These two opposing extremes can be applied to Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye. In the novel, Toni Morrison depicts a society that functions similarly to the one presented in the Age of Certainty. The society displays the seemingly certain and inalterable ideals of beauty and hierarchy and runs like Newton’s clock, leaving no free will or possibility of change to the minorities in the society. The poor, instead of appreciating their unique natural self and their own identity, strive to approach the standards of the whites and to be accepted by the society. Geraldine, a middle-aged black woman, rejects her own identity and conforms to the certainties of the society:

They come from Mobile. Aiken. From Newport News. From Marietta. From Meridian. And the sounds of these places in their mouths make you think of love. When you ask them where they are from, they tilt their heads and say "Mobile" and you think you've been kissed. They say "Aiken" and you see a white butterfly glance off a fence with a torn wing. They say "Nagadoches" and you want to say "Yes, I will." (81)

          As an introduction of her in the book, Morrison chooses not to present a specific character but instead to generalize with the plural “they,” emphasizing Geraldine’s lack of individuality and her conformity to the American ideal of beauty as presented in the Dick and Jane story. She, along with many other black girls, tries to look and behave like the whites, searching for ways to straighten her hair and soften her skin. The girls have no pride or appreciation for their ethnicity and culture and show resentment towards their own race in attempt to fit into the white society and to approach the certainties that the white society present them with.

The Deconstruction of Certainty

Despite the failure of various characters’ attempts to challenge the fixed system of ideals and their ultimate conformity to the standards, Morrison attacks the certainty of the society by alluding to the harm and destruction it brings to the characters’ life. Morrison opens the novel by presenting the Dick and Jane story, which serves as an embodiment of the American ideal and are taught to children not only for English-learning purposes, but also for them to understand the American culture and the accepted values such as gender and family roles:

Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty. Here is the family. Mother, Father, Dick, and Jane live in the green-and-white house. They are very happy. See Jane. She has a red dress. She wants to play. Who will play with Jane? See the cat. It goes meow-meow. Come and play. Come play with Jane. The kitten will not play. See Mother. Mother is very nice. Mother, will you play with Jane? mother laughs. Laugh, Mother, laugh. See Father. He is big and strong. Father, will you play with Jane? Father is smiling. Smile, Father, smile. See the dog. Bowwow goes the dog. Do you want to play with Jane? See the dog run. Run, dog, run. Look, look. Here comes a friend. The friend will play with Jane. They will play a good game. Play, Jane, play.
  

Here is the house it is green and white it has a red door it isery pretty here is the family mother father dick and jane live in the green-and-white house they are very happy see jane she has a red dress she wants to play who will play with jane see the cat it goes meow-meow come and play come play with jane the kitten will not play see mother mother is very nice mother will you play with jane mother laughs laugh mother laugh see father he is big and strong father will you play with jane father is smiling smile father smile see the dog bowwow goes the dog do you want to play do you want to play with jane see the dog run run dog run look look here comes a friend the friend will play with jane they will play a good game play jane play  

 HereisthehouseitisgreenandwhiteithasareddooritisveryprettyHereisthefamilymotherfatherdickandjaneliveinthegreenandwHitehousetheyareveryhappyseejaneshehasareddressshewantsToplaywhowillplaywithjaneseethecatitgoesmeowmeowcomeaNdplaycomeplaywithjanethekittenwillnotplayseemothermothErisverynicemotherwillyouplaywithjanemotherlaughslaughmOtherlaughseefatherheisbigandstrongfatherwillyouplaywithjaNefatherissmilingsmILefathersmileseethedogbowwowgoestheDogdoyouwanttoplaydoyouwanttoplaywithjaneseethedogrunRundogrunlooklookherecomsafriendthefriendwillplaywithjaNetheywillplayagoodgameplayjaneplay (2)

 Over the course of two pages, however, Morrison takes away the spacing and the punctuations, destroying the vision of the ideal household and leaving the whole piece meaningless and insignificant. By tearing the story apart, Morrison hints that underneath the façade of certainty, the values in the Dick and Jane are only fabricated deceptions that bring children to learn to respect the idealized and constructed cultural values and lose their own individuality.

The Destruction of Certainty

Pecola Breedlove, a poor black girl who stands at the very bottom of the social hierarchy, barely receives any love in her childhood experience and learns that the reason her mother prefers the white little girl more than her and the reason her classmates mock and isolate her is because she is poor, ugly, and, unlike the popular white girls in her school, does not have blue eyes. Driven by the longing for love and people’s attention, she accepts “blue eyes are beautiful” as an established and certain rule, yearning and praying to attain them. 

Ironically, Cholly, the only character who is willing to reach her and offer his love, does so in a perverted and inappropriate way. He, just like Pecola, did not grow up in a loving environment, has not been loved, and does not now how to love because of his low social status and his race. Pecola, as a result of the sexual violation his father repeatedly performs on her, is driven mad at the realization of the remoteness of the ideals from her. She, as Claudia points out, almost becomes an embodiment of ugliness that they look upon to uplift their own esteem. Because of the pressure the ideals and the so-called certainties have put on her, Pecola has to comfort herself with a imaginary friend and imaginary blue eyes to get a sense of confidence and involvement in the society. 

By demonstrating the effect these constructed ideals of beauty and American values have on Pecola, Morrison effectively depicts and argues against the destructiveness of certainty. 

Likewise, the ideals turn Soaphead Church into a pedophile.

Geraldine, in her appreciation for white beauty, abandons her own family. 

The carefully constructed world of ideal values and certainty is gradually falling apart. 

The Appreciation for Uncertainty—Morrison's Call for Naturalness

Morrison's attack on certainty also reflects through her writing style. While the Age of Reason proposes a linear progression of time, Morrison sides with the uncertainty and intentionally offers a more free-styled and circular narrative with the use of seasons and multi-perspective in the book. Her rather random form of narrative, with multiple narrators speaking in erratic orders, coincides with the idea of independent and discreet units in quantum theory, where the next moment is always uncertain and subject to change, implying the possibility for the minorities in the book to change their fate and to advance in the social hierarchy. Morrison, mainly through the voice of Claudia in The Bluest Eye, attacks the certainty of ideals and standards of the American society and calls for appreciation for the black’s unique “funkiness of nature” (83).

Unlinked Sources:
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye: A Novel. New York: Vintage International, 2007. Print.

The Door: Americanization of Immigrants and African Americans

Americanization is a fascinating process that generations of sociologists have attempted to explain. In 1782, a French-American writer proudly praised the country as a melting pot, with Utopian visions of the emergence of an American “new man”. However, American history is fraught with clamorous and silent confrontations, persistent clashes of different cultures, and heated debates about values. After the ninety-seventies, the desirability of assimilation was challenged. Advocates of pluralism coined the alternative metaphor of a salad bowl, in which cultures mix but maintain their distinct shapes. 

In Prospective Immigrants Please Note, Adrienne Rich, a half-Jewish, half-gentile poet, offers a multifaceted interpretation of the Americanization. On one hand, she warns the immigrants of losing their ethnic traditions. On the other, she hints at the danger of rejecting assimilation. Ultimately, she expresses a desire for personal choice and self-determination: an immigrant should be free to select elements from his home culture and American (in this case, mainly white) culture. She writes about the same belief using personal experience in Split at the Root: An Essayon Jewish Identity. 

   

Prospective Immigrants Please Note  

       Adrienne Rich 

Listen to Adrienne Rich reading the poem.

Either you will 
go through this door 
or you will not go through.  

If you go through 

there is always the risk 
of remembering your name.  

Things look at you doubly  
and you must look back
 and let them happen.  

If you do not go through 
it is possible 
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position 
to die bravely  

but much will blind you, 
much will evade you, 
at what cost who knows?  

The door itself makes no promises. 
It is only a door.

 Inside, or Outside

Either you will/go through this door/or you will not go through. 

Door is a widely used literary symbol, very likely due to the complexity and duality its simple structure unifies: an open door signifies opportunity and acceptance, whereas a closed door symbolizes rejection and disappointment; an opening door is often associated with new adventures, and a closing door usually stands for farewell. In the poem, to “go through this door” means to assimilate, to Americanize, and to blend in. The outside is immigrants’ native culture, and the inside is American (in the context of this poem, white) culture. “Either…or” has the connotation of arbitrariness, suggesting that whether a person successfully Americanizes is judged by others.
                    



The first stanza as a whole implies that the society demands a devotion to American standards from immigrant. The society does not recognize immigrants as complex, autonomous individuals. Immigrants are either embraced as new Americans, or regarded as outsiders. Therefore, should anyone strive to reconcile two sides of the door, incorporating some aspects of Americanness into his cultural background, the society demands him to forfeit one for the other.

This door metaphor, though written for immigrants, applies to colored people well. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison explores African Americans’ quest for identity. Morrison presents most people as eager conformers, shedding their racial identity in order to go through the door. The character Geraldine represents mulatto girls religiously pursue “white” appearance and manners.

“The dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the wide range of human emotions. Wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; where it drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies… when they wear lipstick, they never cover the entire mouth for fear of lips too thick, and they worry, worry, worry about the edges of their hair” (83).

Funk refers to various natural imperfections of humans: body odor, breath odor, skin crusts, “lips too thick”, “edges of their hair”… For African Americans, “funk” includes their blackness. Geraldine is therefore fighting against her nature, against her African American descent. The words “erupts”, “crusts”, “drips, flowers, or clings” animate the funkiness, as if the girls view it as some kind of stubbornly, indefatigably growing weeds. Their light complexion, white manners, and property have sent them through the door: the society gives them a place above the black people. But they have to cautiously watch what they have attained, and continue the battle against “funk”, totally denying their African American identity.

 The Insiders’s Loss

If you go through/ there is always the risk/ of remembering your name. 
In the second stanza, “name” represents vernacular. Since language is the agent of culture and traditions, “remembering your name” means the awareness of racial and ethnical identity. “The risk” is the anxiety and fears of any exposure of the nature self.

Jewish Immigrant Family

In Split at the Root, Adrienne Rich recounts her father’s influence on her. The man is a second-generation immigrant. When young Adrienne was casting Portia in The Merchant of Venice, he instructed her to read the word “Jew” with scorn and contempt. She could see there was “a kind of terrible, bitter bravado” about her father’s instruction, yet she hesitated at questioning him. It was when she became a college student that she began to understand her father. One day she bought a dress in a small shop and a Jewish seamstress came to do alterations for her. She recalls,

“Something about her presence was very powerful and disturbing to me. After making and pinning up the skirt, she sat back on her knees, looked up at me, and asked in a hurried whisper: ‘You Jewish?’ Eighteen years of training in assimilation sprang into the reflex by which I shook my head, rejecting her, and muttered, ‘No’.”

Adrienne Rich realized that the image of a frightened immigrant, a wandering Jew terrified her, an American college girl having her skirt hemmed. “And I was frightened myself,” she wrote, “because she had recognized me.”

Geraldine attests to Adrienne Rich’s realization. When Geraldine returned home and her son Junior accuses Pecola of killing the cat, she looks at Pecola and abhors the lowness of black girls. “You nasty little black bitch. Get out of my house.” she says (92). The fact that she herself is black generates no magnanimity, because Pecola is an undesirable reflection of her race. Pecola’s blackness instigates Geraldine’s insidious contempt and self-denial, as Geraldine is reminded that she can be ostracized from the “white” middle-class for her blackness.

Double Consciousness 

Things look at you doubly /and you must look back/ and let them happen.  

The third stanza, interestingly, describes a kind of double vision: an immigrant’s action is judged by both cultures he is associated with, and he examines himself in two perspectives: an immigrant; an American. This idea is strikingly similar with W. E. B. Du Bois’s “double consciousness”, which he states as “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity”. 




The experience of immigrants parallels that of African Americans with Americanization being the common direction. Both groups are painfully aware of their difference from the Anglo-Saxon race and voiceless in the white-dominant society. In the Bluest Eye, the discrimination and indifference of others throws Pecola into the conviction that she is hopelessly ugly, so “she would never know her beauty. She would see only what there was to see: the eyes of other people” (46-47). That all she would see were others’ eyes implies that Pecola is preoccupied with people’s views about her. She consents unconditionally to whatever labels the world puts on her- “you must look back/and let them happen”.

The Outsiders' Loss

If you do not go through /it is possible /to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes /to hold your position/ to die bravely  
but much will blind you, much will evade you, at what cost who knows? 

What complicate the poet’s argument are stanzas four through six. Fourth and fifth stanzas offer a romantic depiction of ethnic nationalism: by adhering to traditions and upholding cultural values, immigrants can live respectably and worthily. However, the sixth stanza points out that those who refuse to Americanize face costs.

Adrienne Rich identifies the Jewish defense against non-Jews as a quality required for survival over generations of persecution. Jews must arm themselves in a world full of potential slanderers, betrayers, people who “could not understand”. However, she questions, “What happens when the white gentile world is softly saying ‘Be more like us and you can almost be one of us?’ What happens when survival seems to mean dosing off one emotional artery after another”? She portrays people of Jewish descent who exclusively interact with their family members, shutting the door at the rich possibilities America offers. They live in a bland world, laughter restrained, angers curbed, and tears withheld. They conform to their original culture, and thus surrender the precious freedom of determining what they want to become. They lack the courage to break free from chains of ethnicity and choose their paths.  

Inside, and Outside

The door itself makes no promises. It is only a door.

The end of the poem returns to the central picture of an emotionless door. It is neither hopeful nor hopeless, neither welcoming nor rejecting.

Since The Bluest Eye precedes Prospective Immigrants Please Note by several decades, it reflects an era with harsher racial climates. Most people were forced to conform to the white-dominant society and adjust to its standards. Furthermore, many immigrants do not share the history of slavery with African Americans, and they do not wear their ethnicity with skin color. Therefore, Morrison mainly aims to celebrate the nature, the root, and “funk”. Adrienne's poem, however, taken as a whole, suggests that people should be free to determine their own ethnicity instead of being categorized into insiders or outsiders by environment. The journey toward self-identification is not painless. As Adrienne Rich writes in Split at the Root, at different times in her life, she wanted to push away one or the other burden of inheritance, to state merely “I am a woman”. Fortunately, in a writing career that spanned over seven decades, she found her own identity: not gentile, not Jewish, but both; a feminist, political activist, and passionate writer.