Jean-ah Poquelin

Upon examination of the story of Jean-ah Poquelin, there is a strong parallel and symbolic notion in regards to how Jean acts in social situations and how people view him to the way that blacks were viewed in society as opposed to reality. Within the text we find that Jean's marshy swamp like property was surrounded with superstition and the citizens seemed to fear and mock him. When he does seem to interact within the town appears very civilized and for the most part well mannered, just a bit harder to understand because of his french tongue, even though he can speak in English. This parallels the discussions in the movie from class, "Black Notions", where it explained that blacks were viewed in society as a caricatured version of them selves, but were in reality quite civilized. The movie also discussed how even though blacks were well versed in proper English, the common view of their speech was a strong, almost incomprehensible dialect. Just as Jean died of and seemed to gain respect at the end of the text, in the same way the veiws of the Southern Black as being uncivilized had started to diminish and the Black race at least begin to earn some of the respect they deserve with equal rights as time went on.