Open the Box!
Thinking about the specific words and the order in which to place them for this blog post was something that seemed to haunt me these past couple days. Reading Meridian by Alice Walker put me in the center of a labyrinth in my mind and forces me to try to find a safe way out. I soon realize that safety and comfort isn’t a mode through which this journey can be traveled rather discomfort and uneasiness is embraced and encouraged as an escape.
How exactly does Walker do this? Why do the words on page seem to puncture me as if I’m the cause of the character’s infliction and pain? I see Jean Toomer’s reflection and influence prominently throughout the work yet reading his work Cane never moved me to extent with which Meridian has. Why is that?
My answer was presented in interdisciplinary wrapping paper, through the concept of Schrödinger’s cat. This scientific concept when applied to the context of the pieces of literature provided much needed clarification and insight. Looking at the items for the scientific theory to take place is essential in its understanding in a literary sense of comparing Walker and Toomer’s works. The box is the environment and society around us, the cat represents African American culture and status, the explosive place in the box is the concept of white supremacy in these periods in the United States. Each author hears the explosive go off in the box as African American status and culture is attacked the difference is how this information is recorded and projected.
Toomer (I imagine), timidly walks over to the box, examines its exterior condition and therefore draws conclusions on what might be happening inside. Light is shed on topic and the assumptions of the pain felt is put eloquently on paper in a way that allows readers to see what this may have felt like. Walker’s approach is more direct as she marches over to the box and rips the top off revealing the gruesome details of a dismembered cat. With her first-hand experience of the ruins of the experiment she can truly capture, with detailed description, what has happened and how it has affected everything else around. Walker’s graceful yet simultaneously crude work allows readers to not only see but also feel and live the events that are occurring.
Through Alice Walker I’ve learned to opened my eyes to embrace emotions and feelings I may not be comfortable with because comfort doesn’t equate to growth. But once we open the box, we open the path for development and growth through the discomfort of watching a dead cat.