Racism and Bigotry in Literature

Long ago I read, “To Kill a Mockingbird” and I’m currently reading E. M. Forster’s “Passage to India.” I’m sure Forster is portraying the typical English bigotry as some sort of literary device. As I’m only through the first 50 pages, I can’t be altogether positive, but I’m rather confident this is so.

I’m almost ready to put this book down because of how revolting it is to read so many passages depicting the blatant racism that Brits showed back then. I know that it was ingrained into the culture at that time, but reading it now is genuinely annoying. Please do not tell me how the book ends. So far, I have faith that the author will exact retribution upon the sahibs for their intolerance. Anyone who gives his character, Nawab Bahadur, a line like, “Give, do not lend; after death who will thank you?” surely has something more in store than just idle illiberality.

I’m just wondering, do others here find this (now dated) portrayal of institutionalized bigotry just as irritating to read? I’m sure I’ve read other examples of books like this. Maybe they were not quite so larded with the sort of bias this one contains.

It sometimes shocks me, when I’m reading a book from the 1920’s or '30’s, to find casually expressed racial or anti-semetic remarks coming from fictional characters I’ve always considered to be nice people: Bertie Wooster, Hercule Poirot. What shocks me is that the authors are not trying to be mean or ugly or nasty; they’re just reflecting what were considered perfectly acceptable attitudes for “nice” people of that era.

The Great Gatsby had some racist remarks in it. What made it particularly akward was that I was in a small Village in Zimbabwe at the time and somebody there wanted to borrow it. The guy probably had enough exposure to western literature to see it for what it was, but I felt uncomfortable about it anyway. Fortunately I had a copy of A Prayer for Owen Meany, which is a larger book so he was happy to take it instead.

I kind of have a hard time with Gerald Du Maurier and Edith Wharton—both writers whose work I enjoy a lot, but I have to swallow hard to get past their anti-semitism.

Look no farther than Ernest Hemingway. While the author of some of the best and most influential prose of the 20th century, he was a racist bastard. A few cites:

  • In The Sun Also Rises - his protagonist Jake Barnes refers to the Antagonist Robert (?) Cohn as a Jew and a Hebe (IIRC), making it very clear that neither are meant to be flattering. Cohn is characterized as a stereotypical highly educated, athletic man who is a coward in his heart, and that is related to his Jewishness, compared to Barnes, who may not be an athlete, but is a man’s man in spirit.

  • In A Farewell to Arms - at the end of the novel, when Henry is seeing Cat in the hospital, she quotes Shakespeare as Henry walks into the room - something like “Here comes Othello from the wars”. Henry, facing his dying lover and trying to be light-humored, responds with “Othello was a n****r”. I gasped when I first read it.

  • In To Have and Have Not - which could not be more different from the movie, btw - Hemingway runs the gamut, referring to Chinese as “ch**ks” and women in the most misogynistic ways.

If A Farewell to Arms wasn’t so brilliant, along with my favorite short story ever - The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber along with a few others - I would dismiss this man entirely. It is hard to balance brilliance with the damage that clearly lived inside this man.

I like Dostoyevsky but I’ve noticed he seemed to distrust anyone who was not a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. He especially liked making snide remarks about Jewish people and while I realize that in 19th century Russia this attitude was fairly commonplace it still is a bit unsettling to read some of the things he says. One sentence, in Crime and Punishment, reads “His face wore that perpetual look of peevish dejection, which is so sourly printed on all faces of Jewish race without exception.”

It’s a good book, but you wonder why he had to throw in such a pointless and mean spirited comment.

I remember my buddy showed me a childrens book from the arly 1900’s and it was called “Little Black Sambo”.

Holy crap! I couldn’t believe how blatenly rascist it was, and this was a childrens book!

MtM

My grandmother used to read Little Black Sambo to me. In the 1970s. (My whole family is white.)

In the USA since about the 1980s (earlier?) there has been plenty of controversy about Mark Twain’s liberal use of the n-word (in the mouths of his characters, I mean) in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

I’ve always been inclined to take racism in literature as a byproduct of its time…but maybe that’s because I’ve never been the victim of racism myself.

Welcome aboard(s), E. Thorp!

Of all authors mentioned so far, I’d be most likely to cut Twain some slack. He seemed far more enlightened than even some of his recent counterparts (especially those mentioned here). He depicted Nigger Jim as a compassionate and kindly soul and more often than not deftly skewered what were surely models of white bigotry that surrounded him at the time. I do not recall any resorting to the usual bug-eyed pickaninny imagery that would have been so acceptable and convenient for him at the time.

In addition, his work “The War Prayer” shows a depth of understanding for the human condition that could easily have precluded racism upon his part. Perhaps there is a literary scholar at these boards with more detailed information about Twain’s views who can confirm this. Twain traveled the entire world at a time when it was both uncomfortable and risky to do so. I think his cosmopolitan outlook would have forbade him such small mindedness.

[Now, would a Mod kindly get in here and correct the misspelling in this thread’s title?]

I’m not a literary scholar…yet (I’m working on it :wink: ), but there is some information at this site about his views on Blacks and Indians both: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/projects/rissetto/twain3.html (Sorry, for some reason the http code button is not functioning).

As far as my take on the depiction of racist views in older literature, it doesn’t really bother me because, quite simply, I wouldn’t want to see it changed or banned just because it offends me now*. These are historical documents in addition to being literature, they reflect life as it really was, and that includes all the ideas that we now consider wrong. I can learn a lot from these texts and I read them as much for that purpose as to be entertained by the story.

*I’m not suggesting anyone here would like to see anything changed or banned.

Good topic Zenster :slight_smile:

The British title of the Agatha Christie work released in America as “Ten Little Indians” was “Ten Little N****r Boys”.

And I tried to reread Gone With the Wind as an adult, after reading it as a child, and I couldn’t complete it. The part that got me was Sam the overseer, who saves Scarlett from A Fate Worse Than Death, and then makes that ghastly speech about how he needs someone to feed and take care of him and order him around. It made my skin crawl.

Regards,
Shodan

Actually, the story itself is charming. The problem is just with the character names. (And the artwork from many old editions.) There’s a new version out with new names and art (it’s otherwise identical to the original story) and it doesn’t read as racist at all:

The Story of Little Babaji

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0062050648/qid=1056044274/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-8885179-8308013?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Here’s one that had me scratching my head …

It was in a book of children’s verse called the Strewwelpeter, or in English Shock-headed Peter – a truly vile 19th century exercise in child hatred, in which the “moral” of each verse is illustrated by a child horribly punished for misdeeds (a thumb sucker has thumbs hacked off, a kid playing with matches is burned to death, etc.). I found it gruesomely entertaining. :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, one of the verses is about some kids teasing a “blackamoor” (a little Black boy), for being Black. A powerful wizard tells them not to tease the boy, who can’t help being Black. They don’t listen. So the wizard, as punishment - turns the teasing boys Black themselves!

Is this racist, or anti-racist? The message seems to be that teasing others for being different is bad. And yet, the “punishment” is to be turned Black! (And yet, given that others are likely to be racist, the true “punishment” is maybe to be teased by racists?)

Frankly, any book set prior to the late 1900’s is bound to contain racism (intentional or not) if the major characters are white and non-whites are minor characters. After a certain point, you just have to give the author the benefit of the doubt if you want to enjoy the story.

Gone With the Wind was so annoying to me that I couldn’t enjoy it, though. I didn’t like the protagonist (Scarlett) at all, and the fact that she was a white supremacist didn’t much warm me to her. So I was happy when she starving and groveling and struggling. Yay! Let the bitch suffer.

The thing that annoys me the most about stories set in the south between 1860 and 1960 is when the main characters are portrayed to be Very Good Toward Black Folks and yet their actions aren’t all that great. Okay, so the genteel white family doesn’t condone using the word nigger because that’s just wrong and uncouth. Three cheers for them. But they will still insist on being served hand and foot by a black maid or butler, so pardon me, author, if I’m not bowled over with admiration. I’ve also read stories where slaveowners are portrayed as good because “oh no, we don’t beat our slaves!” But the goodness the author tried to put forth is cut short by the fact these people A) owned slaves and B) showed no remorse for owning slaves.

I perfectly understand the reality of the times yadda yadda yadda, but it still is annoying to read.

You have ot realize that the whole thing was filtered through Scarlet’s very distorted worldview. She thought she was being kind to her black slaves, therefore, every little thing she does is reflective of that. She didn’t care to know them as people, therefore, you get horrendous speeches like the one mentioned above. Her whole world is filtered through this distorted lense because she’s a very selfish and spoiled person.
Anywho, I know that doesn’t make her any less annoying, but we aren’t supposed to agree with her or think “Yeah, man, she’s so progressive!” We are supposed to notice what a sad, and at times emotionally cripped person she is. That’s the drama of the story—how can such a woman survive the War and keep her family (most of whom she doesn’t appear to like) safe too?

I don’t mind racism in literature, as long as it’s flagged as something to be mocked. :smiley:

Nah. You just have to accept it as a product of it’s time. I recently read The Merchant of Venice for the first time not too long ago and was appalled by the characterization of Shylock and his daughter. Likewise, the Prioress’ Tale in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (which repeats the oft-claimed blood libel against the Jews) is simply a product of its time. Every time I read works of that nature, I thank God that we have (for the most part) moved past that stage and are now living in saner, sensibler times. That’s not to say that there aren’t wackos out there who still believe it, but at least, for the most part, stereotypes such as those are things of the past.

Zev Steinhardt

I’m gonna have to give F. Scott Fitzgerald a lifetime achievement award here. I guess it’s just because he’s so obsessed with the American social “caste” system, and various people’s position in it for whatever reason, but still, he usually comes off as an asshole. It gets to me, man. He likes his women stupid and childish, a woman who could be a peer is never presented as something positive. He likes his minorities stereotyped and stuck in the background, and dammit, he could write things that just make me melt. So much talent, and still such a maroon. What to do?

LC

If you read “Little Black Sambo,” it’s hardly racist. Sambo is attacked by a tiger and outwits him. He’s not portrayed as stupid or anything demeaning. The problem is that bigots took the name of the character and turned it into an insult.

And if anyone starts complaining about Inky and the Minah Bird, those are fighting words. :wink:

I’m not sure what stories/books you are referring to, but if you are talking about literature up to 1960, have you considered that it might be a reflection of reality at the time? Not every racist person in history was foaming at the mouth to get out and kill black people. Racism was often subtle–as in the examples you cited. I don’t think the authors were aiming for you to be “bowled over with admiration,” they were just writing from what they knew–just as people have always done and continue to do today. Again, it is impossible to tell for sure without a citation of some of the stories you are referring to.