The "Red Line" of History in The Proud and the Free
There are many passages in _The Proud and the Free_ in which Jamie Stuart thinks about
the struggle of the Foreign Brigades for _real_ liberty for the working classes as a part
of "a story unbroken and continuous", a story of which he has "a
glimmering." (8) He sees the Revolt of the Pennsylvania, or "Foreign",
Brigades, as one of a long series of revolts by the working people of the world against
the ruling and exploiting class, a series which began long ago and will continue into the
future.
For example, he is stirred to write the true history of this Revolt, which historians
have either ignored or lied about, by learning of, and then joining, the Abolitionist
movement against slavery. He says of the Abolitionists:
I want to know the end of this, and I realize that such knowledge is for others, not
for me [ he is past 80 years old at this point, the early 1840s, when he writes the
book]... In another way, I am joined to them [the Abolitionists], and it is of this other
way that I would tell.
Again, on page 14, he writes of his comrades in the Line, now dead:
they reached up for the stars and they made a crude key to unlock the gates of
heaven. This, other men will do, and the key will become a better one...
Please find and reread, in context (i.e. understand where they occur in the story), the
following passages on "the Red Line through history" -- the continuous struggle
of the exploited and oppressed against their upper-class exploiters, for a world of true
freedom:
- p. 28 - "...that curious, unspoken, unformed dream..."
- 62-63 - "... dreams of a new army, an army which would sweep across the land,
calling thousands to its banners, an army which would brush the British into the sea...
which would call upon all of those who worked by the sweaat of their brow and the strength
of their hand to create a new kind of republic..."
- p. 81 - "... there is a will on our part ot assert ourselves and to cast out
those who make a mockery of our dreams, and that we must do...".
- p. 200 - "... and I knew more than that: i knew with deep finality that my
dreams -- wherein this kind of hatred and cruel practice would be no more -- were not for
accomplishment in my time or my children's time...".
- p. 215 - "Someday, perhaps, your kind will get angry with the gentry and do us
in proper -- and when I think of those damned Philadelphia fops, I'm not all regrets."
- p. 294 - ".. there is something in my comrades that is proud too, and in the
gentry who lead us there is also a pride, so I will follow them... but someday it will be
my turn, even if i am dead and rotten in the earth, someday it will be my turn!"
- p. 304/5 - ".. I do not blame Wayne; I do not condemn him ... What he had to do,
he did, and somday what we have to do, we will do."
- p. 306 - "[Billy Bowzar] ... Because there will be a time for remembering."
[Jamie Stuart] And when will that time come?
[Billy Bowzar] Not too soon, God willing, Jamie Stuart. Not before the time is ripe,
and then, God willing, we will know the road we take. We are like a seed that ripened too
soon, to quick, for we were planed within the gentry's own revolt, and we grew a crop they
fear mightily and neither they nor we knew how to harvest it... Be patient. the voices are
quite this moment, but they will rise again. Be patient."
- p. 311 - "However it may seem in the course of my tale, I for one do not believe
that they perished in vain or that they suffered in vain.... their story is only half
told. another chapter is being written by those angry souls who call themselves
Abolitionists, and I think there will be chapters after that as well. There would be no
hope in such a tale as this if it were not unfinished."
After having found and reread these passages, please write about 300 words, discussing
Howard Fast's treatment of this question in The Proud and the Free. Think about
questions _such as_ (but not limited to) the following:
* what kind of a view of human history is this? Relate it
to CLASS; the "class" view of history;
* is this a "progressive" view of history (history as
progress
towards some better future)? or is it "history as recurrence, repetition,"
showing the "futility of human striving"?
* is this the kind of history we study in High School? college?
why, or why not?
* what is at stake in taking such a view of history? Whom
does it benefit? Whom does it threaten?
* Howard Fast was an activist in the Communist Party, which at
that time looked towards the Soviet Union as "the next step" in this 'red line'
through human history. Now the USSR has been dissolved, is the 'red line' at an end? If
not, what might the 'next step' be? |
Please email to your group and to me before the next class.