Art Conveys Identity in Why We Never Danced the Charleston

1. Art Conveys Identity inWhy We Never Danced the Charleston Anna B. Lonon

2. True to the Charleston Renaissance Movement, Harlan Greene’s novel recognizes the significance of the arts in Charleston during the 1920s. By making the arts a prominent symbol within the novel, he is able to hit on touchy issues of sexuality and class. In fact, through the use of the arts, Greene is able to more clearly convey his very complex characters’ identities.

4. Society, which helps to form a person’s identity, is expressed in the arts. • “All of us children in Charleston knew of others, maiden aunts and spinster cousins, who had pressed their blossoms, shut them up and lovingly consigned them to where we found them on rainy days…but they—the ladies of the Confederate Home—still clung to them like bridal bouquets, eternal Miss Havishams” (14) • “…when I read to him from Master Skylark that next Monday, he was entranced. We acted it out with puppets (I had a Will Shakespeare) (18) • “My father’s business contacts, I suppose, had gotten us in here. The Charlestonians did not like that in the least, and they blamed us for their poverty that made this a necessity. The musicians played only waltzes and reels and quadrilles, no modern themes: it was a ritual. The dancers could have been their own ancestors; times mixed; young men danced with old ladies” (26) • “…Lucas Simons and Suzanne Pinckney broke into the Charleston, the dance that had been spawned on our street corners by colored children and would soon by mimicked across the country…They issued dark prophecies and there were at least two fates sealed that evening—Suzanne and Lucas were expelled for their heresy” (27) • Characters develop identity through the context of the arts in Charlestonian society. • Sons of Wisteria • “We were not ashamed of it, or of ourselves, not exactly; we were just cautious. For you see, we discussed books not women…and wrote poems extolling the moon for her beauty” (25) • “’Look at the Greeks; look at Oscar Wilde; and Michelangelo; and Walt Whitman’” -Swinton (32)

5. “Dwin and I had once compared him to Michelangelo’s David, of which we had photographs, and that Swinton on his tour of Italy had actually seen” (37) • “We were too stunned to say anything; then Dwin shook his head and muttered, “Dancing like that is bad enough; but to dance alone!” I clucked his tongue. “It’s just like a darky.” • Characters are defined by their art. • Narrator = Puppeteer • insecure, envious, stifled, naïve, manipulative • “Though we may have been damned, we were not daring, so we never danced the Charleston. We had some strong ideas against which there was no struggling. We made it home every night by eleven-thirty” (45) • “And I don’t know what worried me more: that they were dancing the Charleston together or that they were doing it without me…And they were as together now as surely as if they had taken vows” (94-95) • “…I saw that along the walls were crude childish swirls on cheap yellow paper. There were pastels of monocled walruses, smiling sea horses, and jack-o’-lantern trees, half-men, half-ladies. I saw boys become butterflies and begonias bloom into old ladies…I could not imagine drawing these things that did not exist, that seemed almost evil to me, a heresy” (65)

6. Ned Grimke = Painter/Mask & Diorama Maker • Naïve, oblivious, denial, bold, tortured artist • “Ned backed up violently against the harp-legged table, overturning it” (62) • “They were too shocked to speak, never having witnessed one of Ned’s dances in the Alley. Even Hirsch and I were surprised by this one…He had a set of quills, like Pan’s, and played a little melody. He danced like a satyr on arched feet, up to an old lady from the Confederate Home. “Fool,” she screamed, and shooed him away with her skirt. Ned pranced around, trying to entice her, but she clutched the shawl around her shoulders as if it were the mantle of her respectability.” (101) • “As usual, everyone turned to watch them that night, for they stood out even more– the only unmasked revelers at the party. We were the dreams and they were the dreamers” (109) • Ned’s creatures were at various stages of undress; with bulging thighs and buttocks and lascivious grins. Hirsch glanced from Ned to a drawing of a half horse / half fish, female and voluptuous, with purple lips and nipple” (72) • “Oh, that’s by Ned Grimke,” the hunched little proprietor • had told him. He showed the boy more masks, all • detailed in torture…he began to dress and wear • makeup like those other boys at the Peacock Alley. • When the peephole opened and Chicco looked out, • he saw a face like those masks the boy would discover • later on King Street, marked less with fancy, looking • more human and thus more frightening” (115)

7. Miss Wragg = Art of the salon • Denial, closed, lonely, confused • Surrounded by art in her home: bust of Rousseau, photographs by Ullmann, “frieze of 3 Greek deities” (57) • “…a secret member of the Daughters of Sappho Society…” (57) • “She knew nothing of love, having only heard it in operas, seen it in plays, read it in stories” (117) • “I have nothing at all against homosexuals…except that no one I know who is that way is happy” (56) • “…it was her motto of sorts, and she told Ned, “All hope lies in science to improving things”(68) • The Language • “plaintive symphony” (35) • “it’s like a piano” (45) • “there were no preludes” (49) • “silence taut as untouched harp strings” (42) • “he heard music playing” (89) • “saxophone’s slow urgency” (94) • “note from a soprano” (78) • “drunk reciting poetry” (80) • “wooden floor like castanets”(68)