Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Karintha: Maturity Impeded

"The smoke curls up and hangs in odd wraiths about the trees, curls up, and spreads itself out over the valley. . . Weeks after Karintha returned home the smoke was so heavy you tasted it in water (4)."

In Toomer's short story "Karintha," everyone who beholds the young girl is struck by her incomparable beauty. Old men wish her to ride upon her knees and young men for her to dance with them, as well as counting the time until they could make love to her. Her beauty is such that any actions she may take that would cause another child to suffer punishment is permitted or excused. As Toomer indicates, "She stoned the cows, and beat her dog, and fought the other children... But no one ever thought to make her stop because of it (3)." All of the lessons a child would normally learn from being reprimanded for bad behavior are lost on Karintha, since she receives no form of censure. She is also corrupted by the gaze of older men, sexualizing her because of the beauty she possesses.
All of these affect her transition into adulthood. She becomes malicious, promiscuous, and unstable. The old men whose knees show rode upon she now teases and tempts because "she has contempt for them (4)." She bears a child, but still entices young men into working and making money for her, which she willingly takes. Also, she has been married many times, none of them presumably working out. Without the lessons she should have learned as a child and the lust for her because of her beauty, she has become a less than admirable person, willing to use her looks to manipulate others and being unable to settle.
Toomer illustrates the dust and smoke created in the valley by the saw mills. Karintha moved silently and stealthily through it as a child unlike anyone else. The haziness ans blurriness presented by the smoke reflects the state of her morality: as a child, still learning right and wrong. However, since she never learns those morals because of her exalted state, that smoke and fog sticks around her permanently. Only after Karintha returns to her home where the saw mills are does the smoke get heavy enough to actually be tasted in the water. The smoke represents Karintha's lack of morality that sticks with her throughout her entire life, or at least the portion Toomer presents to us.

6 comments:

  1. I am curious, you say that as Karintha progresses to adulthood she becomes promiscuous but as I read "Karintha" I took that to mean that the men bringing her money were paying for sex. I thought that what Toomer was saying was that as Karintha 'matured' in this environment that pushed the men's sexual wants and desires onto her she found a way to exploit that and continued her ways that would have earned anyone else reprimand, but that she was free from, and she began to sell herself. In that vein do you think that Karintha has had to develop a lack of morals so that she can exploit the men in her life for their money to simply get along? Furthermore, was Karintha's proposed prostitution a sort of "survival sex"? I think that the point Toomer was making was that Karintha was subject to the society in which she lived and because of the way she was treated, she became this loathsome being that really was good for no more than anything as a way to fulfill one's desires and natural urges. I think Toomer says that Karintha was, in a way, forced into her own form of sexual slavery.

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  2. I definitely agree with your analysis. Karintha is definitely undisciplined and I feel that is because of the society she is in. Even the priest excuses her behavior because she is beautiful. She also learns sex through either hearing or witnessing her parents making love. I interpreted the younger men making money for as means to have sex with her. The footnote on page four suggests that she is a prostitute because "men using stills were making and selling whiskey illegally" (4). This seems to be an act of desperation for pleasure. The fact that there are several men trying to get her money also suggests that she sells out.

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  4. Your analysis makes sense. Karintha's adulthood can be seen as a result of being overly spoiled as a child. She received far too much attention and was never taught life lessons because of her looks. As a result, she became accustomed to getting what she desired. Old men and the like never admonished her for her bad behavior. When she got older, young men brought her money. She never learned true values, and thus found her ruination toward the end of the tale as "a growing thing ripened too soon."

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  5. I like what you say about Toomer's use of illustration or rather imagery within the piece. He does a great job at painting a vivid picture that makes it easy for the read to visualize. As you note in your analysis with the haziness and blurriness presented by the smoke. I would take this one step further though and note how Toomer portrays Karintha withing the piece earlier on. He describes her "like a black bird that flashes in the light." (Cane 3). Toomers us of imagery is great in adding to his message that she was capable of "darting" around her impure morals as a young girl, but as she grew older she was no longer to avoid the haziness of the smoke as you mention in your analysis. I agree.

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  6. I think you're definitely on to something here, but it seems like you could go a step further. Everything you suggest seems like it is saying something about the overall culture of her environment, applicable to all African-American women of the time, not just Karintha. So, is that something that maybe crossed your mind?

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