Sunday, November 15, 2015

How is Granny affected by the intrusion of the men from the county in "Blues Ain't No Mockingbird"?

The intrusion onto the Cains' property is very disturbing to Granny because she values privacy and respect of ownership.


When Granny first spots the men, she tells her grandchildren,



"Go tell that man we ain't a bunch of trees....I said to tell that man to get away from here with that camera."



Then, by the time that the man with the camera cuts across the neighbor's yard into the Cains', Granny has already pushed open the screen door, cutting off the man's words with "Good mornin." When the other man, who smiles in a supercilious manner, asks her, "Mind if we shoot a bit around here?" Granny replies, "I do indeed," and she curtly requests that they turn off the camera.


The men back away. Turning to the children, Granny offers an example of how callous people with cameras can be. She tells the children that there once was a man in despair contemplating a fatal jump off of a bridge, and a man with a camera started to take pictures of him. In fact, he used nearly his entire roll of film, but saved a few in case the other man did jump.


After telling her grandchildren of the callousness of such a man who would take pictures of a suicide, Granny re-enters the house, and the children later hear her



...mumblin real low and grumpy and holdin her forehead like it wanted to fall off and mess up the rum cakes.



When her husband returns with a hawk he has caught as "Smilin and Camera" follow stealthily behind him, Granny calls out to Granddaddy Cain,



"Get them persons out of my flower bed, Mister Cain...."



Again she is moaning as though she were at a funeral because she suffers from the blues. Granny has suffered from these before, and even moved because people would not respect her and her privacy.

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