Poem 2!

For the poem Mr. Z by M. Carl Holman, I want to focus on the satire that is used by Holman. The satire specifically covers people who are ashamed of themselves and who are not proud of where they come from. We see that this is evident as the poem begins with, "Taught early that his mother's skin was the sign of error" [Perrine, 848]. In the last line he was portrayed as "one of the most distinguished members of his race." How can someone be ashamed of his race but also be a distinguished member of it? Holman was clearly satirizing that a man could be ashamed of where he came from but was still seen as someone of importance in his race. Also, Mr. Z was ashamed of the food and customs that his mother's race offered to him; "Of pork in its profane form he was wary..." [Perrine, 848]. He would not eat pork and for some reason this proved that he had "exemplary" diet practices. Another thing I noticed when I was studying this piece was that he mentioned his mother's skin being error but his father's was never brought up. Mr. Z was said to have strayed away from anything raceless and "seized whatever ground was Anglo-Saxonized." This brings to point that he was probably bi-racial because he was easier to move to a white point of view. Mr. Z was not a distinguished member of his race if he strayed to be more white and not stand up for his race's rights.