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1、Reflecting the Racial Relationship between the American Whites and Blacks in 1960s from Everything That Rises Must Converge从上升的一切必然汇合中透视二十世纪六十年代美国白人与黑人的种族关系摘要：美国白人与黑人之间的种族问题一直是美国社会的一个重要问题。本文对上升的一切必然汇合这部作品所反映的黑人与白人之间的种族问题进行了分析，并从其中反映出的黑人和白人对彼此的不同感觉进行比较。笔者从两代人、两个民族进行比较分析，最后指出美国黑人问题在二十世纪五十、六十年代的新发展。关键词
2、：黑人问题、 黑人、 白人、 种族关系、 歧视Abstract: The racial relationship between the American Whites and Blacks has always been an important issue in American society. This article analyzes the racial problem between the Whites and Blacks reflected from the work of “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, and carries
3、 on a comparison between the different feelings of the Whites and Blacks from the work. The author will compare and analyze the racial relationship from two generations of people and two nationalities, and finally point out the new development of the American Blacks issue in the 1950s and 1960s. Key
4、 Work: Blacks issue, Blacks, Whites, racial relationship, discriminationI. IntroductionThe American Blacks issue has run upon the American people and the American society for several hundred years. After the Civil War, the US abolished the Slavery System to entitle the Blacks the equal status to the
5、 Whites in law. However, this kind of equality was only restricted in the form. But in fact, the Blacks still received unequal treatment to some extent in various aspects in real life. In 1950s and 1960s, the American Blacks civil rights movement changed from nonviolence to violence. The literature
6、was the carrier of peoples emotions and thoughts; it was also one kind of special ideology reflecting the social life. The Blacks issue was such a kind of complex social phenomenon that it naturally attracts writers attention. Many American writers at that time wrote about the awaking of American Bl
7、acks and took the Blacks issue as the theme, and explored the essence of this incisive social issue and the outlet. Everything That Rises Must Converge is just a very good example.1II. Introduction of Author, Content and Theme of the Work21 Introduction of Author The author of “Everything That Rises
8、 Must Converge” was a South American writer called Flannery OConnor, who was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925. Her undergraduate writing at the Georgia for Women won a fellowship to the Writers Workshop of the University of Iowa, where she received an MFA degree. She began her professional career i
9、n New York, but two years later, a serious illness forced her to return to Georgia, where she lived with her mother on a farm near Milledgeville, raising pea fowls, writing, and painting. For the rest of her life the disease restricted her activities, though she traveled occasionally to give lecture
10、s and read from her work, and she died of lupus in 1964, a disease that crippled her for the last ten years of her life. She was a devout and uncompromising Christian; the extraordinary violence of her fictions was designed to expose the precarious conditions of the spirit in a temporal world, as th
11、e startling comedy disintegrates the pretenses of a facile civilization.2 22 Content of the WorkThe story concerned Julian and his mother and a series of misunderstandings between them. We found that Julians mother was overweight, rude to other people, particularly to Black people, and very judgment
12、al. Julian in turn spent a lot of his time judging his mother. The story focused on a bus trip that Julian and his mother were taking to the Ys reducing class, and what happened in the course of that trip. During the bus trip, Julians mother talked with some other white women who didnt like Negroes
13、on the bus. When a Black man got on the bus, Julian attempted to be friendly to him, but the black man refused. After the black man got off the bus, Julian imagined a lot about blacks and his mother. For example, he made friends with other black people and brought them home, or asked a black doctor
14、to look after his mother if his mother was lying desperately ill.It was just shortly after his fantasy that a very large Black woman and her little boy got on the bus and Julian was somewhat delighted because the Negro woman was actually wearing the same hat as his mothers, a hat that he had made fu
15、n of earlier in the story. Julians mother liked the womans little boy and tries to give him a nickel as they got off the bus. The woman clearly didnt want that and she knocked Julians mother down. Julians mother was left sitting on the sidewalk. Julian was quite delighted about this because he think
16、s his mother had received a lesson. But then he started to become horrified when she didnt want to go to the Y, she didnt want to see him but wanted Caroline to come and get her. And then his mother fell down on the ground. 23 Theme of the WorkThe Whites and the Blacks were isolated from each other
17、in the aspects of housing and education. Although Emancipation Proclamation claimed that the Blacks obtained the freedom many years ago, the people living in the lowest level in Georgias society and economy were still the Blacks. Flannery OConnor understood and described the phenomenon of discrimina
18、ting Blacks in the South America, but he also knew the complexity of racial issue.3Everything That Rises Must Converge in a sense sums up OConnors overall philosophy, that is, everything that rises above complexion, above materialism, must converge somewhere in an ideal realm, that is, Heaven. The “
19、everything that rises” and the “converge” were embodied in the different classes, generations and complexions.3III. The Different Attitudes of Two Generations of Whites to the Blacks31 The Attitude of Old White Generation to the BlacksIn Everything That Rises Must Converge, Julians mother, Ms. Chest
20、ny, once lived in an aristocratic family in the south. After the slavery system was abolished, her family declined in a short time. But more than 200 years slavery system caused her to be immersed in the former family with prominence and glory, the feeling of the racial superiority and the social cl
21、ass superiority in her heart made her unable to accept the fact which had been changed already. She still considered herself as a noblewoman. The white colour is endowed with positive significance. It is related to chasteness and beauty, sincerity, kilter and goodness, virtue and wisdom, the courage
22、 and so on.3 It is also related to the Christ and the angels. In contrast to white, the completely opposite colour black stands for corruptibility and evil. When the black appears in sight of the white, it strengthened the white consciousness to some extent. In other words, when two kind of heteroge
23、nous cultures contact and bump together, the leading culture will inevitably weigh the culture of the inferior position by its own criterion.4 Julians mother was taught that since she came to this world. She was proud as a white woman and she was scared of Negro because of their complexion.When Ms.
24、Chestny saw that everybody in the bus was white, she said, “I see we have the bus to ourselves”.2 When she saw a Negro get on the bus, she whispered to Julian, “Now you see why I wont ride on these buses by myself.”2 She was ashamed that his son sat with the Negro. Thus it can be seemed, the inheren
25、t idea and behaviors of the Whites are a large obstacle of the racial issue. Ms. Chestny gave a coin to the little black boy to show her mercy and pity, but she encountered the young boys mothers angry fist. This fierce fist crushed the pride and superiority feeling of her as a noblewoman. Ms. Chest
26、ny might even lose her life. Through her ending, OConnor proved to the readers that: The Whites were never willing to give up their pride, which brought about Blacks pain. It might not make profit to the Whites, only to incur the Blacks anger and intensely revolting, and finally both sides would be
27、wounded. In other words, if the Whites would not make use of the opportunity to establish a fair and equal society, then every person, regardless of the Whites or the Blacks, would be deeply hurt.32 The Attitude of Young White Generation to the BlacksJulian, a white youth, was unable to understand h
28、is mother. He hated her ingrained arrogance and vanity. In order to pull his mother out of the fantasy to the reality, he sat with the black people on purpose, even voluntarily made conversations with them. He had fantasized many kinds of scenes, such as making friends with all kinds of Blacks and a
29、sking a black nurse to look after his mother if his mother was ill. He wanted to give his mother a lesson in these ways to make his mother understand that this was a new world; it was not the world as she was a noblewoman. When his mother was hit by the black childs mother to the ground, he didnt fe
30、lt the indignation, moreover, he said, “You got exactly what you deserved!”2 Although Julian was cruel to his mother, but it indicated that actually he could accept the reality more easily than his mother. He was willing to alleviate the tension between Whites and Blacks initiatively. The young gene
31、ration of Whites had already realized that the way of the previous generation dealing with the Blacks would no longer adapt them to the new situation. The Whites should not avoid this new situation for it was the problem between the Blacks and them, so they should try to solve it instead.IV. The Att
32、itude of Blacks to the Whites Reflected from the WorkIn the work, the black man immediately unfolded a newspaper and obscured himself behind it after he got on the bus. He didnt give Julian an opportunity to express his sympathy to Blacks. Although Julian wanted to look for an opportunity to chat wi
33、th the black man, the black man was not willing to trust the white people. The black woman didnt want her son to sit beside Julian mother and refused the coin Julians mother gave the little boy. She even hit Julians mother with her fist. This indicated that, the Blacks resisted the Whites false pity
34、 subconsciously. They wanted their self-respect, their status, their freedom. Obviously this racial conflict took root deeply in peoples thought, only depends on several people to change the situation single-handedly, its function was miniscule.The Blacks and the Whites live in two different worlds,
35、 distinguishingly. Regarding the Whites culture, the Blacks oppose it as if a kind of natural resistance in their bodies.5 The black woman refused to accept the coin and hit Julians mother. This is the sound of the protest from the Blacks who was under the discrimination and the oppression.Under thi
36、s prejudice and the discrimination, the violent campaign caused by the Blacks for being enraged would certainly be able to destroy this harmonious society which should be constituted together by both the Blacks and the Whites. From this angle, OConnor described how the Blacks regarded and dealt with
37、 the racial conflict. They all adopted the manner of “the cold treatment” to be isolated from the Whites. But their violence was unwise and even destructive. The Blacks should create the opportunities to let the Whites know their circumstances, understand their feelings. So the Whites would feel sym
38、pathy and understanding to the Blacks, then they might give up the opportunities and environments of discrimination. V. The Attitude of Author to the Solution of the Racial DiscriminationAs a writer with an intense social sense of responsibility, OConnor tried her best to search for and show the rea
39、listic ugly social phenomenon, the metamorphosis of the abnormal people. She tore the evilly twisted world in artistic technique in order to show them to the people with the aim of awaking common people. She described the violence and weird behavior with the hope of awaking the humanity from the ign
40、orant modern life.6In the middle 20th century, the racial segregation system had already been abolished in the South America, however, would the racial discrimination which had been used for many centuries be eliminated because of the innovation of the world? OConnor had brought this question to the
41、 readers in the work.In the work “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, the author expressed her opinion through the speech of Julian. “Dont think that was just an uppity Negro woman. That was the whole colored race which will no longer take your condescending pennies. That was your black double. Sh
42、e can wear the same hat as you, and to be sure. the old world is gone. The old manners are obsolete and your graciousness is not worth a damn”. 2 Could the Whites superior consciousness be changed? Would the status of Blacks being discriminated be changed? About the question of the racial equality,
43、OConnors opinion was extremely clear. She told us, the South abolishing the racial segregation was urgent not only to the Whites but also to the Blacks - regardless of hypocritical people or those who were intensely opposed to the racial segregation. The work took a pair of contrast between the whit
44、e mother and her child and the black mother and her child. And it showed the gaps and differences between two generations of people about the racial contradiction to the readers. Julian was one of the new white generation in the America; he treated the new things with a new attitude. The mother repr
45、esented the old generation of fogy who couldnt accept the new world. Therefore, the conflict between these two generations is inevitable. Only through this conflict could OConnor fully demonstrate the racial contradiction. OConnor not only described the gap between these two generations, but also sh
46、owed the gap between the black mother and her child. From the fact that the black child did not obey his mother, we can clearly see that the conflict existed not only in the Whites but also in the Blacks. This is a conflict regardless of races and regions. The Blacks no longer need the Whites to bes
47、tow to them, no longer need the whites pity. That sturdy big black woman displayed that the Blacks couldnt be looked down upon after the racial segregation system was abolished. The child suggested that the new generation didnt think much of the race and complexion.In the work, Julian said to his mo
48、ther, “From now on youve got to live in a new world and face a few realities for a change.”2 This was also the attitude of OConnor. As White people of the new time, they should learn how to live with the Blacks, that is, with understanding and communication. VI. The New Development of American Black
49、s Issue in the 1950s and 1960s.The slavery system was one kind of social systems which was barbaric and violating the human nature. It had brought the huge misery and injury to the Blacks, and had also seriously poisoned Whites social morals. It enabled the Whites to think that they were born superior and the Africans we
