Submission or the Drop of a Fist
"I shivered, looking toward the street, where up the alley through the tunneling dark, three mounted policemen loomed beneath the circular, snow-sparkling beam of the street lamp, grasping their horses by their bridles, the heads of both men and animals bent close, as though plotting; the leather of saddles and leggings shining. Three white men and three black horses. Then a car passed and they showed in full relief, their shadows flying like dreams across the sparkle of snow and darkness. And, as I turned to leave, one of the horses violently tossed its head and I saw the gauntleted fist yanked down. Then there was a wild neigh and the horse plunged off in the dark, the crisp, frantic clanking of metal and the stomping of hooves followed me to the door. Perhaps this was something for Brother Jack to know." Within the posed partnership between the whites and the blacks in the Brotherhood is an underlying sense of authority and domination. Although a picture of alliance is what the whites wish to paint, even shallow reading brings out the irrefutable control which they possess over their black brothers. Unknowably, the narrator is under this control throughout the entire story, despite the recurrent
instances that stare into his blinded view. The above passage is not a particular episode in the novel, yet rather a metaphorical representation of a main theme: control versus rebellion. It also acts as a foreshadowing for the latter section of the novel, as well as a summation for the entire account in general. The horse's rearing can also act as a reflection of the intense havoc towards the end of the novel by all the blacks, or also as the narrator's personal rebellion against the Brotherhood. This comparison is easy to see when the last sentence of the passage is brought into play. When the narrator objects to being assigned to the woman question downtown, this is one of his rebellions; however, it is quickly followed by his saying to himself, "I hadn't allowed the idea to take concrete form in my mind, but for a moment I had almost allowed an old, southern backwardness which I had thought dead to wreck my career" (pg 408). The narrator starts to rebel, starts to think for himself, but takes the easy way out and tells himself that the brotherhood, not him, is right and is in charge of dealing with such things. This compares with the last bit of the passage because the narrator is seeing this rebellion of the horse, experiencing it, drawing the comparison, but then completely drops it and passes it off to be dealt with by Brother Jack. This finalizes our impression of him being under the complete control of the Brotherhood. He blatantly says it himself, yet fails to recognize it, even when it comes from his own mouth. There are instances when he says things like, "Certainly I'm interested. Otherwise I'd act like a sensible man and run out of here" (pg 405) and "...if I were really free...I'd get the hell out of here" (pg 414). We have this finalization of submission by the narrator before it even occurs in the story, which is what makes this passage such a powerful foreshadowing of the rest of the novel. The image of the white men riding
Some common words found in the essay are:
Brotherhood Despite, , Brotherhood Simply, Brotherhood Unfortunately, Otherwise I'd, throughout entire, control throughout entire, whites blacks brotherhood, whites blacks, bent close plotting, bent close, mutual plotting, control throughout, riding horses, blacks brotherhood, close plotting, black horses, control brotherhood,
Approximate Word count = 1322
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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