NCHS AP English Language

Merry (joe) Christmas!

So a basic synopsis of all the main events in chapter 10:

• Bobbie's family does not take Joe's money, only because Bobbie's 'mother' doesn't let them.
• Joe finds a bottle of something alcoholic, and then drinks the whole thing, which makes him drunk.
• He wanders around, having sex with random women and using his money which he had stolen so he could marry Bobby.
• This is ironic because he had saved it up for marriage, and instead uses it for having sex with random women.
• Tells all the women that he is black just to see their reaction .
• He starts to think of himself only as black.
• He gets angry at this woman who doesn't care that he is black.
• Then he goes and lives in a community of black people and marries a black woman.
• He's trying to become as black as he can.
• Then he leaves his wife, and goes to a town in Mississippi.
• He meets a random black boy and enquires about Joanna Burden's house.
• The kid says that no one would have a reason to harm her because she doesn't harm anybody.
• This catches Joe's interest.
• Joanna's first words to him involve food (food seems to be his connection with women).

Joe is trying to completely change from the person he was before. Mr. McEachern tried to make him a perfect white protestant, and so now he chooses to be black and sleeps with random women. He chooses to be black, even though he could pass for a white man, and tries to integrate himself with the black community because he ostracized himself from the white people.

Stream of consciousness is a technique which tells the reader what the character is thinking and feeling regardless of if it makes sense, or is chronological. For Joe Christmas, this is very relevant. His thoughts are often foreign to the common way of thinking, and so far the chronology has been skewed.

-Ellen, Melissa, Anh, Kelly (is dumb)

posted by Ellen @ 8:46 AM