Sunday, March 10, 2013

What is the resolution to "Blues Ain't No Mockin Bird"?

The resolution, or denouement, is the final unraveling of all the complications of the plot.  In "Blues Ain't No Mockingbird" by Toni Cade Bambara, the child who is the first-person narrator mentions the several times that she and her family have moved, but she does not know the reasons for these moves.  One day cameramen begin filming the yard and the children playing.  When Granny comes out "bammin" the screen door behind her, she gives the men an icy, unfriendly  look, conveying her thoughts that they are people who protect their privacy:  "Just people here is what I tend to consider."


The cameramen informs her that they are filming for the county and the Food Stamp program.  As Granny stares at the men, the narrator recalls a story of Granny's about a man who considered suicide.  While the preacher talked with the desperate man and the frantic wife chewed her hand, cameramen filmed the entire incident.  Cathy, then, tells the children about Goldilocks who did not respect people's privacy, also, while Granny returns inside the house, allowing the screen to slam again.


After Grandaddy Cain returns from the woods with a hawk and nails it to the shed, another hawk appears:  its mate.  Grandaddy throws up his hammer, killing the second hawk.  Just as quickly, he takes the camera which he has requested from the two men, and yanks off the cover, exposing the film that the men have made of the yard, the children, and the deaths of the two hawks.



...like cathy say, folks can't stand Granddaddy tall and silent and like a king.  They can't neither.  The smile the men smilin is pullin the mouth back and showin the teeth.  Lookin like the wolf man, both of them.



After Granddaddy ruins the film, he tells the two men that they are standing in the flower bed, and that the land is"our own place."


It is at this point that the resolution to the conflict between the two county men and Granny and Grandaddy takes place.  After her husband has run off the men, Granny begins to sing--"high, not low and grumbly."  Grandaddy has intimidated these two nosey men with their prying camera that takes videos of them as though they are animals to be observed.  He has won the battle this time: Granny sings because he has humiliated the men.  Just as Granddaddy has successfully killed his chickens' enemies, the hawks, so, too, has he defeated the social foes who would observe them in a demeaning manner.  The woes, or "blues" of Granny's family are real, like the blues of the man wishing to commit suicide. The greatest disrespect for these feelings comes from the men filming them in an imitation of live--like the mockingbird.  But, Granddaddy demands respect; he resolves the problem.

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