Cindy Lee Grubbs

VAT 6.30 (What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue)

Suggested Audience:Dual Enrollment LIT 2000 (Introduction to Literature)

Objectives: Florida Sunshine State Standards

The student will:

LA.1112.2.1.1

-analyze and compare historically and culturally significant works of literature, identifying

the relationships among the major genres (e.g., poetry, fiction, nonfiction, short story,

dramatic literature, essay) and the literary devices unique to each, and analyze how they

support and enhance the theme and main ideas of the text;

LA.1112.2.1.7

- analyze, interpret, and evaluate an author's use of descriptive language (e.g., tone, irony,

mood, imagery, pun, alliteration, onomatopoeia, allusion), figurative language (e.g.,

symbolism, metaphor, personification, hyperbole), common idioms, and mythological

and literary allusions, and explain how they impact meaning in a variety of texts with an

emphasis on how they evoke reader's emotions;

Suggested Prerequisite:

This is the reference for the “mark of Ham” allusion!

Students would have already read the play The First One by Zora Neale Hurston. This is her dramatic retelling of Noah cursing his son Ham and turning him black. (My copy came from the archives room at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.)

Resource:Hagood, Taylor. “Dramatic Deception and Black Identity in The First One and Riding the Goat.”African American Review 39 (2005): 55-66.

Another Reference: (from Kate Keller’s packet “Songs from the Revolutionary War Era”)

Page 10 TheAntedeluvians were all very Sober

Tis honest old Noah first planted the vine,

And mended his morals by drinking its wine;

He justly the drinking of water decry’d,

For he knew that all mankind by drinking it, dy’d. Derry down.

Text:

“There is a certain acoustical deadness in my hole, and when I have music I want to feel its vibration, not only with my ear but with my whole body. I’d like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing ‘What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue”—all at the same time.”

Resource: Ellison, Ralph.Invisible Man. USA: Random House, Inc., 1982. 6.

View:

Song Lyrics:

Cold, empty bed,
Springs hard as lead,
Pains in my head,
Feel like Old Ned,
What did I do
To be so black and blue?
No joy for me,
No company,
Even a mouse
Ran from my house;
All my life through,
I've been so black and blue.
I'm white, inside;
It don't help my case;
'Cause I can't hide
What is on my face.
Oh!
I'm so forlorn,
Life's just a thorn,
My heart is torn;
Why was I born?
What did I do
To be so black and blue?
How sad I am,
Each day I feel worse;
My mark of Ham
Seems to be a curse.
Oh!

This is the Reference for the “Feel like Old Ned” allusion!

Old Uncle Ned
Written & Composed by Stephen C. Foster
New York: Millet's Music Salon, 1848
Dere was an old Nigga, deycall'd him uncle Ned--
He's dead long ago, long ago!
He had no wool on de top ob his head--
De place whar de wool ought to grow.
Den lay down de shubble and de hoe,
Hang up de fiddle and de bow:
No more hard work for poor Old Ned--
He's gone whar de good Niggas go,
No more hard work for poor Old Ned--
He's gone whar de good Niggas go.
His fingers were long like de cane in de brake,
He had no eyes for to see;
He had no teeth for to eat de corn cake,
So he had to let de corn cake be.
Den lay down de shubble and de hoe,
Hang up de fiddle and de bow:
No more hard work for poor Old Ned--
He's gone whar de good Niggas go,
No more hard work for poor Old Ned--
He's gone whar de good Niggas go.
When Old Ned die Massa take it mighty hard,
De tears run down like de rain;
Old Missus turn pale and she gets berry sad,
Cayse she nebber see Old Ned again.
Den lay down de shubble and de hoe,
Hang up de fiddle and de bow:
No more hard work for poor Old Ned--
He's gone whar de good Niggas go,
No more hard work for poor Old Ned--
He's gone whar de good Niggas go. /
Original sheet music cover,
Music of the Great Southern
Sable Harmonists.
Special Collections, Univ. of Virginia

Introduction:

Introduce the term bildungsroman – identified as tracking the intellectual and emotional development of a character from childhood to adulthood. (We will be tracking the narrator’s development from his self-imposed exile and childlike hibernation state.)

Writing Prompt!

“And there’s still a conflict within me: With Louis Armstrong one half of me says, ‘Open the window and let the foul air out.’ “ (Ellison 438)

In the form of a one page essay, the student will comment on the “foul air” that the narrator has to “let out” using the lyrics Black and Blue as the framework. The student must also make references to the Stephen Foster song Old Uncle Ned and the Hurston play The First One. How do these allusions contribute to the “foul air” that the narrator has been forced to breathe in?