African American Literature

How does Odysseus feel about his men? Bonus: a lot of questions about class

We’ve discussed a lot to what extent we think Odysseus is a reliable narrator. The main piece of evidence for his reliability is that he includes details about the way he treated his crew that reflect badly on him. Today in class I suggested that he could include these details to make lies seem more realistic and someone suggested that Odysseus probably just truly feels bad about his men’s deaths. But that started me thinking about the weird dynamic of Odysseus’s relationship with his crew so I looked back in the book to see how he talks about his men and their deaths. I presented on book eleven, so I immediately thought of Elpenor. Elpenor certainly seems important to Odysseus since Odysseus mentions him three times: when he first died, when he’s in the underworld, and when he’s actually buried. Odysseus’s attention to Elpenor both in burying him with all the proper rituals and in describing his death in detail in his story shows that Odysseus has some level of affection for him...

The Pantasote Top

In describing Coalhouses’s Model T, Doctorow repeatedly mentions the custom pantasote top. When we first meet Coalhouse the narrator mentions the top: “His car shone. The brightwork gleamed. There was a glass windshield and a custom pantasote top” (155). When his car is vandalized by the firemen “the custom pantasote top was slashed to ribbons” (180). When Conklin repairs the car, the end result is “a shining black Model T Ford with a custom pantasote roof” (295). We talked about how the car is a symbol of wealth and status and so the mention of the custom top (a fancy addition) at the end of so many descriptions of the car reminds us of that. But what actually is a pantasote top? When the car is being repaired “The Pantasote Company delivered a top” so from the book we know that it’s a brand name top (295). I also googled pantasote and it appears to be both the name of a company and the name of the particular material the company used to make car tops. ...

Pilot

Pilate sounds a lot like pilot. Morrison notes this in Chapter 11. When Milkman asks Vernell, Small Boy, Calvin, Luther, and Omar if any of them have ever heard of Pilate, one of them (it’s unclear who) responds: “Ha! Sound like a newspaper headline: Pilot Dead. She do any flying?” (283). Given that Morrison recognizes the connection between Pilate and pilot, I think she chose the name for that connection; because Pilate is a lot like a pilot. From the OED, a pilot is both “A person who flies an aircraft, balloon, spacecraft, etc.” and “A navigator, guide, or driver.” I think Pilate fills both meanings of the word in that she guides Milkman’s metaphorical flight: his journey away from Michigan. Pilate guides the beginning of the flight because Milkman only leaves Michigan for Pennsylvania to go find her gold. Then once Milkman fails to find the gold in Pennsylvania, Pilate continues to guide Milkman. He decides to follow the path Pilate took afte...

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