What makes a man

“Y’all got boys,” he told me. “Young boys, old boys, picky boys, stropin boys. Now at sweet home, my niggers is men every one of em . Bought em thataway, raised em thataway. Men every one.”

“Beg to differ, Garner. Ain’t no nigger men.”

“Not if you scared, they ain’t.” Garner’s smile was wide. “But if you man yourself, you’ll want your niggers to men too”(pg.12)

The Critical lens that I chose to analyze my passage is known as the Marxist lens. In order to analyze through the marxist lens I will be focusing on how certain classes and there power affects the way characters interact amongst each other. Mr. Garner and a couple of other plantation/slave owners are talking amongst each other and garner is bragging about how his slaves, “Now at sweet home, my niggers is men every one of em. Bought em that away, raised em that away. Men every one.” Now Garner believes that the slave men that he has at his plantation, sweet home, are better than the other plantation owners slaves because his are men. Garner refers to the other plantation owners slaves as boys. The way I interpreted this was Garner is actually comparing his slaves and others creating a sort of social pyramid and has identified his men as being on top. Now by doing so there is a sense of competition between the plantation owners. While Garner takes pride in his slaves for being “men” other slave owners don’t believe that slaves can me men, “ Beg to differ, Garner. Ain’t no nigger men.” Overall the plantation owners believe that they are in charge and have power over these slaves, we hear it in the overall tone of the passage which highlights a bigger problem going on at this time which is the social power gap between the Rich plantation owners and the poor slaves.

The social division between the characters which creates power struggles between both classes. After bragging about his slaves Garners tries to inform the other plantation owners on how their slave can become men too, “Not if you scared, they ain’t.’ Garner’s smile was wide. “But if you man yourself, you’ll want your niggers to men too.” Garner believes because he is above the slaves he has the power to control them. He believes that in order to make them men you can’t be “scarred.” What I interpreted from scarred was because Garner has been known to cause such cruel acts towards his slaves he believes in order to make them men you must not be afraid to do such cruel acts.

Although these are all interpretations, i’m able to confidently infer because of the social classes these characters are in. I interpret the literature a certain way because of Gardner's social place for example when he said you can’t be “scared” Garner could have been referring to how the slaves would revolt on a way, but because of Gardner's social class I interpret the work a whole other way. This is the beauty of reading through literature through the use of different lenses, it creates doorways that lead to an endless amount of ways you can interpretations.