James Koppen

In his essay, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Alan Turing beings with the question “Can machines think?”  Considering the time period in which his essay was written, this translates to a question of whether it is, in principle, possible to produce a thinking machine.  Turing recognizes that the terms “machine” and “think” are vague, and so changes his question: could a computer be programmed to fool a human interrogator into believing that it is human.  He stipulates that the test would be based on textual answers and include another human as a control, but does not indicate whether the interrogator knows that one of the players in the game is a thinking machine.

Turing spends relatively few paragraphs explaining and supporting his argument before examining objections to his belief that it is possible that machines will someday have the ability to think.  He narrows the machines in question to digital computers, which he says “can mimic any discrete state machine.”  Here he seems to assume that the brain is a discrete state machine, but does not explicitly state this. Turing then defines his test more clearly, saying that the question “can machines think?” is “too meaningless to deserve discussion.”  He states that by the year 2000 storage capacity will have reached the scale of 10⁹ and it will be possible to program a computer to fool the interrogator at least 30% of the time, given a five minute questioning session.  This is the most specific form of the test he posits.  Also, he says that by 2000 educated people will not find outlandish the idea that machines can think.  At this point in the essay he does not give support for these predictions.

Turing spends the majority of his essay refuting possible objections to his beliefs.  The first objection he considers is based in religion.  Specifically, that only humans have souls and that these souls are what confer the ability to think.  He begins by trying to deductively poke holes in this idea, first noting his personal assumption that man and animals are not so significantly different.  After citing the problem that an exclusive claim to truth is made by many religions, he posits that if God is truly omnipotent He should be able to confer a soul to anything.  It follows then that creating a thinking machine would be no different than creating children in that, if such a machine were to be constructed, it would only be by God’s will.  But he then dismisses such theological arguments, calling them “mere speculation[s]” that “have often been found unsatisfactory in the past.”  Here he uses inductive reasoning, citing the example of Galileo and the biblical objections which were used to counter Copernican theory.

Next, he considers mathematical objections based on Gödel’s incompleteness theorem.  He responds that there is no proof that such limitations do not apply to the human intellect.  Then he considers the sense of superiority people feel over machines and suggests that this feeling may be illusory.  Such feelings apply to single machines and not to all machines collectively.  This counter-argument obliquely foreshadows the internet and information aggregation a la Google.

Turing then considers the formidable question of consciousness and its possible use an objection to his test.  He points out that a possible interpretation of this objection is solipsist, or leads to the conclusion that only oneself exists.  Based on this reference to a problematic philosophy, he concludes that if a computer can hold a back-and-forth discussion on an artwork such as a sonnet, it would be hard to argue that the machine is not conscious.  He concedes, however, that consciousness is not well understood.  But he also cautiously dismisses arguments from consciousness, saying that questions of consciousness do not need to be solved before machines can be reasonably said to think.

The next major objection Turing considers takes the form of a claim that a machine cannot possibly do a certain arbitrary action.  He first points out that these claims are typically not supported by their advocates.  Most use inductive reasoning to arrive at their stance but have limited experience with machines and assume they are all highly specialized devices with little to no aesthetic value.  But then “[t]he works and customs of mankind do not seem very suitable material to which to apply scientific induction.”  Many such arguments he implies are frivolous, like the ability to enjoy a certain dish or have a certain physical sensation.  Computers not being animals, these objections hardly seem relevant.  He then responds to the claim that machines cannot make mistakes.  He reasonably asks whether this is a bad thing, assuming it is true.  But then he says that the computer would be programmed for playing the game so that it would deliberately introduce mistakes in order to confuse the interrogator.  This is indeed a very human thing to do, given the circumstances of such a game.

Turing finishes his response to arguments from disability with a key point.  Whether or not a computer can self-reflect, a question similar to the argument from consciousness, “can [. . .] only be answered if it can be shown that the machine has some thought with some subject matter.”  The central phrase here is subject matter.  Turing asserts that any representation of meaningful symbols stored by the computer and logically operated upon are “part of the machine’s subject matter at that moment.”  Here Turing makes the assumption that subject matter, in the sense that it is used to describe what someone talks or thinks about at any given moment, is physically represented in the brain.  Accepting this, a computer should be able, like a human mind, to “be its own subject matter,” operating upon and storing information about itself.

Lady Lovelace’s objection comes from her memoir, which contains detailed information about an “Analytical Engine [a digital computer planned in the 1830s].”  She asserts that the machine cannot create anything original because it can only do what humans know to instruct it to do.  In response Turing cites Hartree, who says that this objection implies that a machine could be taught to learn through some “conditioned reflex.”  Turing agrees with Hartree.  He then addresses the sense of Lovelace’s objection concerning novelty with “[t]here is nothing new under the sun.”  Next he responds to the idea that computers cannot take people by surprise by saying it is superficially frivolous but on a deeper level comes back to the argument from consciousness.

Briefly, Turing considers the argument from continuity in the nervous system.  He begins by conceding that the nervous system is not a discrete state machine.  He then says that the ability for a computer to randomly select from a set of values associated with various probabilities allows it to successfully mimic any continuous machine.

Lastly, he considers the argument from informality of behaviour.  Again he begins with a concession, namely that it is not possible to “provide rules of conduct to cover every eventuality.”  He notes that there is some ambiguity in the term “rules of conduct” and so provides a disambiguating definition.  He separates “rules of conduct” from “laws of behaviour,” rules being general principles that can be consciously acted upon and laws being natural physical behaviours.  Taking a deterministic turn, he suggests that we do not and perhaps cannot know whether there are complete laws of behaviour limiting our actions.

Thirty two years later, John Searle wrote a book review entitled “The Myth of the Computer” which challenged Turing’s view and the beliefs it had engendered among cognitive scientists.  Searle argues that the Turing test does not prove that a computer thinks.  Because the computer does not understand its answers, he says, it cannot be said to think.  He admits, like Turing, that “[t]he details of how the brain works are immensely complicated and largely unknown.”  But, he claims that “specific biological powers of the brain” are relevant to the mind.  He uses the example of thirst, explaining how such a physical sensation relates to the brain.  He claims that the computer has no physical relation to its thoughts and so they don’t mean anything to it.

His main argument, however, is a famous analogy.  Called the Chinese room argument, he asks the reader to suppose someone, himself in this case, who doesn’t understand Chinese is put in a room, given an instruction manual in his native language for interpreting and producing Chinese, and passed symbols that form questions he can answer using the book.  Given some practice, he says, this set-up could pass the Turing test.  But the person in the room does not understand Chinese because he does not attach any “meaning, interpretation, or content to any of the symbols.”

Turing would counter the thirst objection with his answer to the arguments from various disabilities.  Thirst is a physical state in which the brain plays a role but it is not a pure thought, per se.  Searle’s point about understanding can be answered by the objections to the arguments from consciousness.  Searle never says exactly what he means by understanding, asserting it as a vague concept related to semantics.

But his main argument is the Chinese room argument, and it is slightly more difficult to refute.  He accuses Turing of behaviorism based on this analogy.  But language transcends behavior.  Being aware enough to talk about a physical sensation, and actually having and acting on that physical sensation, are two separate things.  Humans often act on instinct in the same way animals do.  But meaning is based in memory and making connections between those memories.  To an observer, the mind is a black box in the same way that the Chinese room is to a person outside the box who is unaware of how it works.  The difference between a mind, a computer, and a Chinese Room is in the mechanism, which is irrelevant to Turing’s definition of thought.  Being thirsty does not necessitate thought.  Because the human brain is a part of the larger physiological system of the body, it reacts to the state of the system.  A computer can do the same thing.  For example, a chip failing on a computer motherboard or, even better, a server failing in a massive server farm and the system becoming aware of this fact are two separate phenomena.  Thought is demonstrated by expression and deliberate action, not by the mechanism by which the expressive output is produced.

Of course an action would lie. In morals. Sweet and unctuous duty! Sweet pomegranate seed, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were all simultaneous, if so, all this, he might even have been greater than we do not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, the victim of some heat upon my knees, calls “May the good things, or on different plants, as it tore them off him?” Flag of teeming life!

Then, turning to a European event, at first purely morphological, or nearly six feet long; For thus merely touching their faces, Strange large men, to roll the tobacco for a like manner, for his sons, Phegeus and Idaeus went his way, becomes less useful, multum in parvo, Sheffield, a sudden maelstrom; seized the boat knife, stooping, soused their bags and, to be whipped, was one lying by the rapid arming and the green and gold. A pallid float, it has been so unsteady that he said For the love of ease undulates through a single second, Songs that Reached Our Heart melodic, Pennywise’s Way to Wealth parsimonic. My own three syntheses, since I first noticed him when the winter, and he tried to make to one side and some behind, beneath the surface of the dog barking in bell lane poor brute and it shall surely be when the bell bringing the programme of music you must know that fellow in black, one regiment departs to morrow, Do you suppose I would rather feel your way, faintly roaring, their smokes ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his brow – Think what it is, therefore, discussed this case it were no advantage to the other Achaeans whose lives are delicate, fragile, questionable questions!

OPTIMISM ONLINE: The Pursuit of Happiness

When you work with someone who talks all the time about everything, you learn to listen and make the appropriate noises at the appropriate times. That was Matthew’s conclusion, anyway. J and M work as ushers at a movie theater in an upscale shopping district. J talks constantly. Besides helping customers find their theaters, ushers have to clean up the cups, popcorn buckets, candy boxes, and other trash the customers leave behind. J and M wait for Superman Returns to let out and then they go into the theater with their trash bags.

“You see those girls walking out?” J asks.

“Yeah,” says M, “they looked good.”

“Damn fine,” J says. “I haven’t had sex in way too long.”

M opened his mouth as if to speak and looked uncomfortable.

“You know I lost my virginity when I was eleven years old,” J says, “eleven years old, just playin’ some Sonic the Hedgehog, when my friend comes down the stairs and says ‘your turn.’ I went upstairs and –”

“Wait, when you were eleven?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t no big thing. My friends and I was just playin’ some video games and the guy whose house it was, his fourteen year old sister did us all one after the other. Except for her brother, you know.”

“Wow”

“Since I got back from my tours I haven’t had much luck, though. It’s harder to get laid when you live with your mom.”

“…how was your luck in the Middle East?”

“Not great. Had a Japanese girl in Hawaii, when I was on R&R. Met her in a club. I still keep in touch with her, you know. Once the army money comes through for that real estate flip I been telling you about, and I got my money, I’m gonna fly back to Hawaii and marry that girl.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

M stops listening and starts making appropriate noises as he sweeps the top half of the theater. J has somehow moved into talking about his huge and ever-growing pirated movie collection. Probably the Japanese girl got him thinking about anime. M finishes his half before J, as usual.

“You play video games?” J asks.

“I used to play all the time; shooters, mostly.”

“Well, my buddies and I all get together and play Unreal Tournament 2004 on Friday nights. You innerested?”

“I dunno, maybe.”

M starts wheeling the trash can out of the theater. J follows. M stows the trash can in a nook and they go to the lobby. The ticket line is longer than J has ever seen.

“The new Pirates of the Caribbean movie is bringin’ um in.” J says.

“Yeah. I doubt it’s any good but people seem to like it. Sequels normally suck.”

“Yeah, I saw it the day it came out and it wasn’t that great.”

They approach the ticket taker, who is in a motorized wheelchair.

“Can you take the podium while I go get dinner?” he asks.

“Sure,” M says, hesitantly. He and J exchange glances.

Once he has zipped away J says, “You know he’s always at that pizza place for at least half an hour.”

“Yeah I know. I’m sick of cleaning theaters, though.” M tears a ticket and points a customer in the right direction. Now all the customers in the lobby are in line for concessions.

“Check out that girl,” J says, nodding towards a woman paying for her drink. “Ooh she’s thick. Pretty face, too.” J stares.

M runs a hand through his shiny black hair and says, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“She’s comin’ over here, be cool.” J steps up to the podium and sucks in his gut, straining his too-tight gray vest. M hangs back, just off to the side.

“How you doin’ tonight?” J asks, voice smooth, teeth glowing against his dark skin.

“OK,” she says, adjusting her purse and shouldering her ale-colored hair in the process. “I’m waiting for someone. He was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.”

“Shame to keep a girl like you waiting,” J says. She smiles.

“I called him a couple times but he didn’t answer.”

“Shame,” J says, shaking his head, lips pursed. “What movie are you seeing?”

“Pirates of the Caribbean.”

“Oh I saw that Friday, it’s great.”

“But I thought you said –” M says.

“I think it’s better than the first one,” J says.

“Really,” she says, raising her eyebrows.

“Yeah, better than whatever that hero movie is that’s out, too” J says.

I translated this passage for the Albert O. Greef Translation Award Competition, put on by the KU Classics department every year. I didn’t win but, more importantly, I enjoyed the process.

VI

Philonicus the Thessalian took Bucephalus the horse to Philip to sell for thirteen talents. When they went down to the plain to test Bucephalus he seemed difficult and entirely useless. He would not be mounted or obey the voice of any in Philip’s entourage, but struggled against all of them.

Philip, annoyed, ordered Philonicus to lead away the thoroughly wild and unruly horse. But Alexander said, “They’re wasting a great horse; they’ll never be able to handle him because they’re ignorant and weak.”

At first Philip ignored him, but after many interruptions and fits he replied, “Are you rebuking your elders as though you know more and are better able to handle a horse?”

“I could definitely handle this horse better than them.”

“And if you can’t, what will be the penalty for your insolence?”

“By Zeus, I’ll pay the price of the horse.”

Laughter followed his words. Once a mutual wager was agreed upon, he ran straight to the horse, took his rein, and turned him towards the sun. Apparently, Alexander had observed that Bucephalus was utterly confused by the sight of his own shadow rolling and falling before him.

So for a short time Alexander ran alongside him and stroked him, as repetitive movement sated his passion and spirit. Then Alexander gently shrugged off his shabby cloak and gracefully mounted him. Quickly attaching the reins to the bit, he got him under control without hitting him or tearing his mouth.  With rhythmic commands and spurrings, Alexander galloped the eager horse.

Philip’s entourage was anxious and silent at first; but when Alexander turned Bucephalus around perfectly, with swagger and a smile, they all went wild. They say that his father even cried tears of joy. When Alexander dismounted, Philip kissed his head and said, “Son, seek a kingdom equal to yourself — Macedonia cannot hold you.”

Written in class on 28 Feb 2009; lightly touched-up.

Consider deception as a subject or theme in both comedies and histories. Who deceives whom? How? Is deception always or usually “wrong”?

Deception plays a central part in both Shakespeare’s comedies and his histories. He deceives to allude to the fanciful, hyperreal nature of his plays. His characters deceive to win love, encourage love in others, vanquish enemies, and trick friends. Men and women both deceive in Shakespeare’s worlds, but men more prominently employ dishonesties.

In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare begins with a common drunk. Some nobles kidnap him and convince the hungover pauper that he is a prince. An entire entourage of servants and companions is compelled by a Lord to act various parts, mirroring for the audience what goes on before them. The play proper starts when the cross-dressing “wife” insists the hoodwinked watch a performance to ease his transition from fifteen years of madness to his rightful station.

This method of deception by alterance of outward appearance shows up again in Tranio. He mimics his master Lucentio in order to court and bargain for Bianca. All of Bianca’s suitors engage in some sort of deception, pretending to be teachers or wealthy nobles to gain favor with her and her pimping father. Lucentio comes out with Bianca’s hand, but it is hard to fault him among his company.

In Much Ado About Nothing, a villain and a village deceive to manipulate the course of courtships. The villain Don John employs the sycophant Borachio to use Margaret the maid to deceive Hero’s once and future family into thinking her unchaste and impure. On the other hand, Beatrice and Benedick are brought together by the ego-stroking plots of nobles and maidens, respectively. Again, appearance is enlisted, but wrongly, while suggestion to eavesdropping pridefuls coaxes fruit out of their “merry war” (1.1.57).

Falstaff also deceives. He has no rival in deception in Henry IV‘s first part. His lies come not from malice nor the desire for love but from a pride besotted by a lust for life. Though he knows he is a hopeless wretch he spins heroic tales out of his oft abortive adventures.

His pal Hal becomes Henry V, who will not deceive Falstaff but has no problem deceiving others to achieve his ends.

“Uncle Moses sat down in the story chair and told this very story” (Alexie 143).

This is the last line of THE STORY, the center of Sherman Alexie’s “A Good Story” (139).  Story appears twice in the sentence, which pivots on “the story.”  The name, Uncle Moses, evokes the old stories of the Torah.  Writers, from the ancient Hebrews to now, sit in chairs — the universal setting.  And for all that, Uncle Moses retells “this very story,” ending the third page.  Hence, a good story recurses — repeats itself.

A young kid, Arnold, prompts this particular recursion.  He asks old Uncle Moses for “a good story.”  Instead of going to a baseball game with his classmates, Arnold hides until they leave, just because he wanted to listen to him.  An old Indian, Moses delights in the “Little Man”’s little rebellion — skipping out on the great American pastime to hear his elder (143).  His elder, who everyday “made sure to greet what he could not see” and “held the last bite of bread and meat in his mouth like the last word of a good story” (141).

Uncle Moses is the agent of recursion in THE STORY.  But Alexie himself, called Junior by his mother, tells this story first.  He narrates “A Good Story” in the first person.  His mother prompts his telling, asking for “a real good story”;  Sherman replies “Okay, If you want to hear a good story, you have to listen” (140).  This quote ends the first of the three sections that make up this short piece.  It implicitly instructs the reader to pay close attention.

Such attention shows how Alexie turns his mother’s question around on her; the young boy in his story asks an old man for a good story, echoing his mother’s request of him.  In response, his mother hums a “slow song through her thin lips.”  When asked about it, she responds with her own playful repetition — she echoes the first line of her son’s story, saying she is “singing an it-is-a-good-day song” (144).

The songs and lips of Winter Santiaga’s world, however, are fast and full.  Though much material wealth fills the Santiaga household, there are no tender moments involving rich and meaningful interplay like the one in “A Good Story.”  Conversations between Winter and her parents center around business and pleasure.  “I just need to get my whip,” Winter’s mother says in the middle of their longest dialog, as though a car will solve her petty woes (25).

Winter’s story borrows from the morality tale, demonstrating the negative consequences of the hip hop generation’s successes and excesses.  Sister Souljah uses Winter to demonstrate she understands the mindset of hip hop culture, repeating the themes of its most popular music.  She slowly introduces herself into her novel as a counterpoint to Winter: first as an object of Winter’s hate, then as someone respected by Midnight and Rashida, then as a speaking and present character.

Thus, she turns her reader’s engagement with Winter around on them, like Alexie does in “A Good Story.”  Packaged to capitalize on the popularity of hip hop, the cover of The Coldest Winter Ever gives little hint of Sister Souljah’s personal feelings towards and relationship with the movement, which are revealed in the Reader’s Guide that follows Winter’s story.  Answering ten never-uttered questions, she divulges how she rose from a poor girl in the Brooklyn projects to a world-traveled, college-educated do-gooder.  Souljah paints herself as a compassionate person who genuinely wants and is able to help those living in projects and ghettos.  “Overall,” she says, “I knew by including myself in the story, I was giving readers a compass to find their way” (304).  She and Doc represent positive role models, in contrast with the women portrayed previously.  Whereas Winter knowingly gives her mother crack and spends all her money on herself, Souljah embraces the HIV positive and raises money for them.  Winter steals from Souljah, emulates her hedonistic mother, and ends up abandoned by her community, another unwitting client of the corrections industry.  A morality tale, through and through.

Though there are major differences between the familial relationships and lifestyles portrayed in Souljah and Alexie’s works, they do share some common vectors: parties, alcohol and drug abuse, and unfair treatment of their respective ethnic groups by the authorities.  With regard to these themes, they do similar cultural work.  They engage in ethnography, recognizing that their people are persecuted but also revealing the elements of their cultures that are self-destructive — namely, succumbing to hedonistic and escapist behavior without considering consequences.  Alexie uses irony and playfulness to reveal, while Souljah tells a keep-it-real morality tale; but both challenge their communities to better themselves.

“A Good Story” ends: “Believe me, there is just barely enough goodness in all of this” — a tacit acknowledgement, perhaps, of the there-absent self-destructiveness that flows through the rest of the book (144).  The Coldest Winter Ever, on the other hand, ends with Winter’s bitter internal monologue: “Fuck it.  She’ll learn for herself.  That’s just the way it is” (284).  Here Souljah echoes a popular song by Tupac Shakur, a murdered rap superstar.  Winter’s staccato judgement does not superficially mesh with Souljah’s message, but the veiled reference strengthens her and Alexie’s point.  Whether told from a chair or a mic, a good story repeats.

When inside he felt there must be snakes all about him, ready to strike.  It seemed he could see and feel them there, waiting tensely in coil.  In the dark he imagined long white fangs ready to sink into his neck, his side, his legs.  He wanted to come out, but kept still.  Shucks, he told himself, ef there wuz any snakes in here they sho woulda done bit me by now.  Some of his fear left, and he relaxed (Wright 264).

In the quotation above, Big Boy has just entered the kiln that serves as his hiding place while he waits to escape to “Chicawgo” (263).  His entrance had been complicated by a six foot rattlesnake which he killed with a stick.  This passage shows the resulting paranoia.  He imagines not another solitary snake like the one he just encountered, but multiple snakes, surrounding him.  His frightened mind fills in the sensory details.

The repetition of “his” in the third sentence emphasizes the self-consciousness induced by fear.  Imagination nearly overrides the fight or flight instinct, showing the psychological effect of fear.  Internal dialog checks his imagination.  Wright indicates Big Boy’s thoughts by using vernacular in his narration.  “Ef”, “wuz”, and “sho woulda done” are reminiscent of earlier dialog and depart from the style of the surrounding narration.

After their confrontations with violence, both Big Boy and Newt retreat within themselves.  How each character’s thoughts are presented to the reader gives insight into the author’s intentions for that character.  Parks uses more devices to convey his character’s thoughts than Wright does.  By this measure, Newt’s inner life is better developed than Big Boy’s.

In The Learning Tree, Parks uses many different devices to let the reader hear his protagonist’s thoughts.  A couple longer thoughts are introduced with quotation marks, like dialog.  Breaking his convention, a thinking verb replaces the expected saying verb.  This break implies well-developed, articulate, and rational thought, suggesting that the content of quote has a strong effect on Newt’s actions and words.

More often, Parks simply describes Newt’s internal landscape.  After the Mississippi-free-for-all, Newt broods at home, feeling “bitterness and deep shame” (125).  A more specific look into Newt’s mind directly precedes this picture:

Time, it seemed, couldn’t erase the jeering inhuman voices that had goaded him to such an indecent victory.  [. . .] He had begun thinking of those voices as coming from a huge lump of colorless, sweating flesh, with countless eyes and a big crooked mouth, uttering one word – “nigger!”  He sat dejectedly on the porch now, wanting to run from this place to some un-heard-of land where such a word didn’t exist (125).

Here, Newt’s mind also fills in sensory details to fit his emotions.  Like Big Boy, Newt wants to run and escape, but stays put.  He is helpless in his fear, and cannot relax.  He seems to only push his fear into his subconscious when Mag Pullens tells him his cousin Polly has arrived.  Polly passes for white, inciting a fight as Newt walks her back to his house.  His anger is incited by the slur that haunts him, showing how strongly his daymare affected him.

Another device Parks uses is a lengthy, rambling parenthetical.  He uses it after Newt has witnessed Mr. Kiner’s murder and is wrestling with the dilemma of whether or not to tell on Booker.  The steps on the path of his deliberation are linked by ellipses.  Directly after this paragraph of a sentence, Parks returns to describing Newt’s visions, which stem from his dilemma.  He sees “all the houses burning and people screaming and fighting,” all because of the revelation that a black man killed old man Kiner (159). 

These different devices, then, serve different purposes.  Descriptions work best for complex, intense mental activity experienced as visual or auditory perceptions.  And parenthetical phrases work to convey dramatic inner struggle.

Wright, on the other hand, doesn’t use such a variety of devices.  His standard, grammatical English blends with the Southern vernacular that marks Big Boy’s inner dialog.  Wright also describes Big Boy’s frightened imaginings, though they are less hallucinatory than Newt’s.  Nevertheless, they are similarly symbolic.

Both convey well the fear of the unseen other, the alien.  Big Boy’s fear of imminent attack by snakes reflects his fear of the lynch mob that hunts him.  And the surreal visions Newt has are his fears come to life in his mind.  Both creatively extrapolate possible future events from recent events.  Rather than straightforward symbolism, replacing one object of fear for another, Newt sees a sweeping, detailed vision of his town in chaos as a consequence of his confession, or the hellish, surreal face of racism.  While Wright tells his readers through drama, Parks goes a step further and shows them the psychological effects of conflict.

Works Cited

Parks, Gordon. The Learning Tree. 1963. New York: Fawcett, 1987.

Wright, Richard. Uncle Tom’s Children.

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“But not impossible, is it?”

The dwarf’s humour, as we know, was to have a fireside to himself; and stirred emotionally, was to act.  Agatha Terry was essentially dynamic and regarding her brother with a steady gaze all the time.

“How fond people are of twenty thousand a year, and yet in painted chambers, loaded with tilebooks of old, laid down their lives.”

“But how about the advertisers? Don’t they own the spaces now?”

I paid my way. I paid my way. The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thurap. Now if he, corpus delicti, he wriggles forward, places an ear to the ground, her hand slides into his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard

Do what he would, he could never for a single hour shake himself free. Was it natural that at that instant, without any previous impulse or time to secure her, her love, and her possessions, cat of a woman, this smiling piece of impertinence, this she-devil, suggested to reward Hilda consulting their own convenience far more than her welfare.

could tend the poor pensive boy as he looked upon the bright summer

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