Mary Elizabeth is written in an interesting way. I feel the writing helps give me a better feel for the time period as slavery was coming to an end. Shockingly we have reading that doesnt necessairly deal with race relations between blacks and whites as much. I think this is good so we can really focus in on what the blacks were doing amongst themselves in this time period. The read was pretty hard to understand at first but after learning the style and to quickly take the words such as "en i ses to him" and translate to and i said to him.. or "i aint sez nothing ontel" and translate to i hadnt said anything until... or "jes" to just... i realized it wasnt that hard and i enjoyed getting a better grasp of these ebonix or whatever this form of slang is called.
The story was a bit strange but ended well. A story within a story is a nice way to show how change can come. The way that Roger and the author healed their relationship because of Mary Elizabeth's story was nice. It is hard to believe that people would get taken away and remarry so many times. You would think once they made a commititment that thye would stick with it even if unable to be by that person. I guess over time that they had physical and mental needs to fullfill and thought they would never see their spouses again? I dont know but i dont like it and glad i dont have to deal with it. i feel bad for the blacks who had to go through this. And i dont know if i should feel good or bad when in Mary Elizabeths story her biologiacal parents meet up... its good for her I guess... and for her parents? waht about their current spouses? what kind of pain are they gonna feel if they are left because a past love comes back into the picture? this bothers me a bit maybe i should be more optimistic though.
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I agree, “Mary Elizabeth” was a change. I think it’s a good example of what Elise MacDougald was talking about in “The Task of New Negro Womanhood. Obviously, not every black woman is a domestic laborer, which I guess is sometimes taken for granted. Mary Elizabeth obviously is a maid or domestic laborer of some description, but the woman she works for obviously is not. In fact, the narrator of this story can’t even make coffee. Later we find both her and her husband are in fact African American and from well off families. Furthermore, Mary Elizabeth addresses the morality question by telling the story of her parents. It is a shock for the more elite class narrator to hear that Mary Elizabeth’s parents were separate, and then, those they would go on to marry again. However Mary Elizabeth’s story clearly points out that the vows and commitments of ‘official’ marriage were important, at least to her mother, thus answering the ‘moral standards question.’
Yes I saw the same trend in the poems. I wrote that they seemed to deal with more universal themes of relationships and love. These were good because they could relate directly to anyone's life and experience.
I feel like "Mary Elizabeth" is talking about gender as much and if not more than it's talking about race. I think the author uses the examples of making coffee or learning to play cards to portray the gender roles within a home.
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