Tag Archives: classism

Amelia Bedelia, Working Class Rebel

By Robin Bates | Published: June 13, 2019

Friday Here’s a literary comparison I never would have anticipated: Amelia Bedelia as a feminist Bartleby. Reader Donna Raskin alerted me to this New Yorker article by Sarah Blackwood, who came up with the comparison after reading the series to her children. Amelia Bedelia is a maid who gets in trouble because she takes every […]

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Morrison: Where America Went Wrong

By Robin Bates | Published: January 3, 2017

Toni Morrison’s 2008 novel “A Mercy” seems to start with a promising vision of America before everything goes wrong. It’s as though she starts with the optimism of the Obama years and then predicts the Trump backlash.

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All Must Love the Human Form

By Robin Bates | Published: November 19, 2016

In “The Divine Image,” Blake gives us a poem for our time, a call to pray for mercy, pity, peace, and love and to recognize the human form in diversity. In “The Human Abstract” he adds that prayer is not enough. It must be accompanied by human justice.

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Duck Dynasty Patriarch as Pap Finn

By Robin Bates | Published: December 23, 2013

Patriarch Phil Robertson of “Duck Dynasty” shares certain characteristics with Pap Finn.

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