Porgy Du Winkle's Rivertown Essay

In his 1925 novel Porgy, Du Bose Heyward tells the story of an ailing Catfish Row. A large portion of the prose is devoted to describing the deteriorating appearance and quality of the community. In contrast, Brass Ankle’s Rivertown is the quintessential growing American town, on the verge of a boom. Though Porgy does not examine race interaction as explicitly as Brass Ankle, both make the central point that the black community is incompatible with American progress. Heyward predicts that this incompatibility ultimately leads to extinction.

Brass Ankle’s Larry Leamer is the poster-child for the American dream. He makes it clear in talking to Dr. Wainright that he doesn’t come from money (Heyward 55). He is a modest “proprietor of [the] general

To Larry’s insistence that she must not strain herself she replies “I’m neither china nor glass” (11). Larry’s desire to do everything for her at first seems like service but in fact is the belief that she lacks the durability to even walk across the room to shut the window. While a surface comprehension of this exchange relays honor and extra-care, a deeper analysis (especially with Ruth’s true identity in mind) reveals the assumption that Ruth is unable to sustain herself. Later Ruth reveals that she is greatly bothered by the constant buzz of Burton’s radio. She misses “the night noises...the katydids, and the singing from the negro church” (12). Before Rivertown got “up to date” with broadcasts and homogeneous race and religion, she says there was “something you could listen to and not get tired” (13). The idea that blackness is timeworn and therefore incongruous with modern white society is starkly presented when Larry first realizes that his son (and therefore Ruth as well) is black. He stands against the wall and [...through the open window comes the raucous sound of the BURTONS’ radio.](56). He begins trembling as he recognizes both the baby and now Ruth have no place in his