Folk culture and masculine identity Charles Burnett's 'To Sleep with Anger.'

African American Review, Summer, 1999 by Karen Chandler

The film stresses Harry's deficiencies not only through his dealings with women but also through his storytelling. Although his story of murder captivates Babe Brother, his tales are flawed because of their vagueness and inconsistencies. In the kitchen scene with Babe Brother, Harry slyly implies that he may have killed a man, Harker, without straightforwardly asserting it. He tells Babe Brother, "I don't know if I actually did what I did or if I got my life and story mixed in with other folks' stories, but I seem to recall I had to use my crab apple there on a boy from back home." When Babe Brother asks Harry if he has actually used the knife, Harry admits, "I don't know what happened to him in the dark. I know I protected myself and always will." Later, in speaking to Marsh, a fellow Southerner who suspects Harry was involved in Harker's and other associates' deaths, Harry refuses to link himself with them or to express regret. Unlike Gideon's stories, Harry's tales do not illuminate, but instead conceal, his ostensible subject. Yet the stories do expose his egotism: They mark him as a man willing to hurt his own friends and his own community both in the past and the present. Whereas the classic badman tends to fight against questionable authorities (white sheriffs and corrupt black leaders, for instance) who seek to oppress the black community (Roberts 197-98), Harry has no such scruples. When Marsh mentions that Harker's death nearly caused a race riot, Harry comments, "Strange as it may seem, it may have cleared the water. Sometimes the right actions comes from the wrong reason." Moreover, he tells Marsh that the lynching of a former friend, Chick, may have been opportune, possibly because Chick could no longer identify Harry as the murderer of another friend. Although Harry uses stories to create bonds with other men, including Gideon and their mutual Southern friends, as well as Babe Brother, the rampant self-interest that the stories betray oppose the concept of a fuller community. To Sleep with Anger stresses the need to use stories quite differently - to create substantive bonds between community members, not fantastical ones dependent on a presumption of male mastery.

As griot or communal storyteller, Gideon embodies the generative powers of vernacular expression: Through his tales, he represents how an artist can contribute to the welfare of society. As one who is embedded in community, Gideon uses stories both to critique aspects of society and to further the goal of human connectedness. His story about gossiping humorously reveals negative forces in society - disguised self-interest, competition, hypocrisy - but in acknowledging these forces, the story also is designed to educate listeners about how to guard against them. Gideon's story acknowledges a community of creative, critical thinkers and empowers them through encouraged participation, as with Suzie and Sonny. Harry's storytelling, which is more akin to boasting and more committed to obfuscation, cannot fulfill these functions of community building. His stories not only recount splits in the community but also encourage hostility and divisiveness in his audience within the film. In incorporating Gideon's storytelling, by contrast, the film points to a model of folklore that it emulates, one that fosters personal enlightenment and communal responsibility.