Wow, that's quite a question. If I'm reading it
correctly, inherent in the question is the assumption that Julian's problems are caused
by the educational institution. I'm just not willing to go that far; it seems pretty
clear that Julian's character, choices, and conflicts all stem from his efforts to teach
his mother some kind of a lesson. That's personal, not
instuitutional.
Julian is a recent college graduate. "'He
wants to write but he’s selling typewriters until he gets started,'" says his mother.
He's still living at home but can't wait to move out. We don't know what his degree is,
but he's clearly not motivated to do much more than he has to in order to buy his
cigarettes and live his self-centered life. We know his mother has gone without to
ensure he had everything he needed. She has also coddled him and made him too soft,
perhaps, but he is clearly in control of his own choices and actions by the time we meet
him.
He's angry at his mother for her
condescending ways and her prejudice--which we understand way more
than we understand his condescension and prejudice. He thinks he's
being friendly to blacks, somehow compensating for his mother's racism;
yet
"he had
never been successful at making any Negro friends. He had tried to strike up an
acquaintance on the bus with some of the better types, with ones that looked like
professors or ministers or
lawyers."
It's clear Julian,
too, was prejudiced and was only interested in befriending the "right kind" of black
friends and even then, only so he could bring them home and cause his mother to have a
figurative stroke.
Julian's conflicts are with everyone in
this story--blacks don't see him as a sympathetic character, and he's so angry at his
mother he spends his waking hours trying to seek some kind of revenge. He creates these
conflicts himself, and he's going to have to live with the consequences (the most
significant of which is his mother's death, of
course).
The "conventional psychological and social
setbacks of institutionally educating children" should be well known and documented in
order to be considered conventional. While there are clearly flaws with the educational
system--including the segregated schools particularly in the South, for this story--it's
a system that regularly turns out reasonably well adjusted students and citizens.
Julian is a product of both his education and his upbringing, it's true. What's also
true is that Julian has his own motivations and makes his own choices. Blaming the
educational system seems too simple and easy an out for this grown
man.
No comments:
Post a Comment