Cultural Confusion in Moses Ascending essays

Cultural Confusion in Moses Ascending essays While Moses Ascending takes place in a tumultuous historical time period the books main focus seems to be on internal divisions within the main character. It traces the transition of Moses from an apathetic recluse to a man determined to claim his identity and his ascendancy in a hostile world. This transition is the product of the clash of cultural worlds within this book and the changes in Moses as a person and as a writer are a byproduct of this conflict. The Moses of the beginning of the novel is a character who is struggling with a sense of broken identity. His life is a strange dichotomy where he enjoys the economic privileges of a white man but is susceptible to the prejudices common toward black men. He is the epitome of Braithwaites false dream Tall, with slow dignity/(so goes the saying/so went the dream. (103) Even with the economic status of a white man and further privileges such as employing a white right hand man who is basically a servant, Moses initial ascendancy is illusionary. As we see with Moses false imprisonment and his lack of knowledge about the illiteracy of Bobbie, Moses understanding of himself and those around him is not the same as the reality of the outside world. These illusions crumble throughout the novel as Moses self-imposed isolation is harbored by the influx of the real world. Moses attempts to break all cultural ties in order to have the peace he feels he needs to write his Opus. However this peace is disturbed by a black power movement in his very basement. Moses had wanted to live the end of his life free of drama. But by both force and coercion he is drawn into a world that makes him question his own complacency with his condition and the condition of the world. Progressively throughout the novel Moses realized that through his seclusion from his own heritage he had limited both the scope of his memoirs and his own develop...