BLOX

Here is my BLOX for “lightness”

Notes:

1. Picture of statue: As quoted from its Wikipedia entry: “‘The Negress is a bronze sculpture by French artist Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. It is now in the permanent collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The Negress portrays a woman who is the personification of the continent of Africa. Carpeaux wanted to use her to emphasize the horrors of slavery, creating the piece 3 years after the Civil War of the United States had ended and twenty years after it was banned in France.” I chose to use this statue in my BLOX because not only is it representative of Africa, but it also alludes to the female black slave. As you can see by the chains wrapped around her body, freedom has been denied to her. In my BLOX, her eyesight is directly focused on Africa in the earth image that is the central focus of my BLOX. This conveys a sense of belonging but also a great deal of distance and pain, judging by how far away (in outer space) she is from her homeland.
2. Golden necklace: Represents the wealth and privilege of the white class that has a hold of earth. The planet hangs on gold and wealth, literally and figuratively.
3. Birds flying away from earth: These birds help to convey “lightness” on a literal scale; however, the “lightness” applied to the verbal texture of the novel is also represented here. The birds represent Hetty “Handful” and her mother’s spirits attempting to fly over Africa, but they are redirected away from earth after being denied access to their ancestral homeland. “Lightness” manifests here in the form of transcendence from the body that occurs when Hetty’s mother tells her tales about people flying freely back in Africa. Furthermore, the body of the birds are formed by a snapshot of the center of this very same BLOX simply to give it an ethereal feel and a deeper meaning. The birds carry earth with them, which is something to think about.
4. Use of transparency: Transparency can be observed in the birds. It creates a spectral effect that shows us that a spiritual event is occurring. My interpretation of the human spirit (or soul) is that it is not in the least bit opaque.

Experience

Calvino’s “exactitude” (or “exact”) appears in literature in the form of mood, atmosphere, and general tone. Already we’ve seen that The Invention Of Wings is full to the brim with emotions on both sides of the playing field: a trapped and (constantly) endangered slave, Hetti, and her mother, Charlotte — both discriminated against, dehumanized, controlled, manipulated, outcasted, harmed, and mistreated, THE LIST GOES ON; and then we have the white plantation mistress’s daughter, Sarah, and, though born into privilege on the mere basis of being white-skinned, she doesn’t tolerate slavery in the least bit and goes on to dedicate her life to the anti-slavery cause while concurrently fighting for the rights of women. Both are members of womanhood, and in that perspective they are two sides of the same coin — Sarah’s side being ten tiers above Hetti’s. Both are discriminated against and made inferior on the basis of being women. In Hetti’s case, she is not only suppressed as a woman, but is also considered to be less than a human due to the pigmentation of her skin.

Searching for an excerpt that accurately expresses the overall tone and mood of the novel, I came across the scene where Hetti’s mother, after all her life of slaving away, is finally laid at rest (narrated by Hetti herself):

“‘Mauma?’

She lifted her face. The light had gone from her eyes. There was only the black wick now.

I eased down beside her. ‘Mauma?’

‘It’s all right. I come to get my spirit to take with me.’ Her voice sounded far off inside her. ‘I’m tired, Handful.’

I tried not to be scared. ‘I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry, we’ll get you some rest.’

She smiled the saddest smile, letting me know she’d get her rest, but not the kind I hoped. I took hold of her hands. They were ice cold. Little bird bones.

She said it again. ‘I’m tired.’

She wanted me to tell her it was all right, to get her spirit and go on, but I couldn’t say it. I told her, ‘Course, you’re tired. You worked hard your whole life. That’s all you did was work.’

‘Don’t you remember me for that. Don’t you remember I’m a slave and work hard. When you think of me, you say, she never did belong to those people. She never belonged to nobody but herself.’

She closed her eyes. ‘You remember that.’

‘I will, mauma.’

I pulled the quilt round her shoulders. High in the limbs, the crows cawed. The doves moaned. The wind bent down to lift her to the sky” (303-304).

Hetti’s mother, Charlotte, passes away under an oak tree

Making this moment even sadder is the fact that Hetti’s mother had only recently returned back to the plantation after having been gone for thirty-some years — gone from her daughter’s life ever since Hetty was just a teenager. The part where her mother tells her, “When you think of me, you say, she never did belong to those people. She never belonged to nobody but herself” (304) — is especially important because it is her mother’s last wish; she wants her daughter to have the best vision of her possible, to see her for her strength and willpower rather than for her suffering. Charlotte lived her whole life being owned by others, like chattel, like property. Her only means of escaping slavery now becomes death. The white slave owners may “own” her body but they cannot entrap her soul and spirit — a fact that Charlotte, Hetti’s mother, proves even before her death via her little — albeit persistent — instances of rebellion. This whole novel is then a remark on slavery, oppression, and civil rights, and is an accurate depiction of the myriad feelings possessed by slaves and black Americans at the time and that went overlooked altogether.

What did Hetti’s mother experience as she passed away? — the peace and freedom she was searching for all along? Who did she meet? — her ancestors who came before her? Her beloved mother? What did she see? Did her soul pass through a tunnel of light, accepted into the warm, loving arms of God? My hopeful answer is “yes” to all the above.