Leor’s blog

Kevin character analysis      In Kindred Kevin is Dana's spouse and is a middle aged white writer. Kevin, like Dana gets sent to the past to experience the tragedies of slavery. To the reader on the surface, Kevin could come across as both insignificant to the development of the story, and somewhat useless and ignorant, however with further investigation there are a lot of layers to Kevin's character that are hard too unpack upon first glance. Butler does a great job using Kevin quietly as a way to make the reader to stare at the harsh realities of slavery and racial inequality, and ultimately Butler uses Kevin as a student learning through the 1619 project.     Towards the end of Dana's second visit to the 19th century she finds herself trying to fight off a patroller who thinks that she is Alice's mom. After shaking the patroller off, she finds herself mistaking Kevin as the Patroller. This moment is where Butler begins to flirt with the idea of Kevin goi...

The significance of Jes Grew in the novel Mumbo Jumbo  In Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo a viral epidemic seems to be plaguing the lives of people across America. The disease revives in New Orleans and begins to spread uncontrollably throughout America, trying to reach its final destination in New York. The Atonist description of Jes Grew is people "doing stupid sensual things" and "were in a state of an uncontrollable frenzy". However according to Papa LaBas Jes Grew is an anti-plague and enlightens the "infected" and encourages them to move and think freely. So what is Jes Grew and what is it's significance       Despite multiple accounts reporting that Jes Grew is an extremely dangerous epidemic and could threaten the existence of mankind as a whole, the emphasis on curing the disease is very big throughout the story, which gives the reader the impression that the disease is very bad. However as the story continues the reader begins to learn that J...

     The blur between history and fiction in Doctorow's Ragtime.      Doctorow's Ragtime is a story which has you often asking the question "Did this really happen?". The answer most of the time is maybe. Doctorow finds multiple pockets throughout history, where it's hard to tell exactly if something really happened or not. For example Harry Houdini suddenly crashing his car at the same time a kid was thinking about his idol/ role model Harry Houdini. Later on you see him entering their house and chilling with their family before leaving and carrying on with his own business. In history there are many moments like these where something could've happened or it could've not happened and this is all possible due to Houdini's day to day life not being recorded in history. Doctorow loves to exploit these spaces in history where there are gaps, even if those gaps are small and seem to be insignificant on a larger scale in history, they help him fabricate his...