The idea that unequal treatment and social mistreatment are still constant struggles is addressed in Angelina Price’s essay “Working Class Whites” and bell hooks’ essay “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance. Both authors explain how racial and social controversy affects today’s society. This is done through Price narrowing her focus on how class structure and media relations affects this issue while hooks’ essay concentrates more on public perception with relation to this issue. Both authors use a significant amount of evidence to support their logic as well as ideas that allow the reader to draw their own personal conclusions. In both essays, the idea of social class fueling thoughts and perceptions of either the “Other” or “poor white class” in today’s society is drawn upon multiple times.
Zora Neale Hurston’s world view was that of a cynical tirade that would sweep the nation’s shortcomings for lack of diversity, and openness to growth. With such vivid and depict voices in her book Their Eyes Were Watching God Hurston tackles life’s most intriguing problems of isolation, society, culture, religion, and sex. Their Eyes Were Watching God is most often celebrated for Hurston’s unique use of language, particularly her mastery of rural Southern black dialect. Throughout the novel, she utilizes an interesting narrative structure, splitting the presentation of the story between high literary narration and idiomatic discourse. The long passages of discourse celebrate the culturally rich voices of Janie’s world; these characters
Post colonial experiences. Political, cultural, social and religious changes. Conflict between colonizer and colonized Post colonial writers often focus on victimized. Racial discrimination. Marginalization Social identity Feminism Social injustices Class difference Emotional conflict (mental instability) Post colonialism Plot Character’s action Setting Momma Welfare Roll by Maya Angelou.
Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits is a family drama where there is a strong influence of Feminism and Magic Realism, it has the multigenerational family sagas using autobiographical elements, and the families are divergent into race, class and gender. This essay will investigate certain characters in both novels who struggled to cope with power and the ways in which they either succumbed or retaliated to the authority. Desire, Rape and Race are some of the main themes of Disgrace. J.M Coetzee’s novel dealt with the after-math of the Apartheid in Africa, his bold statements implicated to the tension and social issues that was occurring in most rural areas and was neither documented nor acknowledged at the time. Coetzee’s bold statement earned him critical acclaim in the literal world but also flak from his home country: “Coetzee’s fiction has, as we have noted, always had a mixed reception in South Africa, and
You’re gonna be the darkest, poorest one there.” The pressure society has put Mrs Simmons feeling the need to make Judy’s night of the ball feel like a ‘battle’ demonstrates the real effects that racism has. It encourages the readers to think twice about not only their own approach towards the issue of racism, but also to their own community’s approach. The text opened my eyes to how these issues were not only present during the time of the text but also allowed me to see how inequality, due to your race or cultural difference, is still seen
How does Andrea Levy explore the themes of discrimination and prejudice through the distinctive voices within her unique characters? Andrea Levy’s novel Small Island encompasses the themes of discrimination and prejudice through the distinctive voices of her characters. Through Levy’s extensive depth of characterization, divides within post World War two England are evident. Her book conveys the divide through the use of both Jamaican and English characters, contrasting not only the injustice and hardships faced by the ‘black’ society but also highlighting the divide within class due to the colour of one’s skin. Through the use of monologues through the characters of Hortense, Gilbert and Queenie Levy is able to segregate the individual characters points of view, exploring the themes of discrimination and prejudice.
Connie Turner Period 2 Ms. Larkin Colonial Time Period White Americans had a strong resentment for African Americans during the colonial time period. Whites had made a strong assumption about the African Americans just by leaning towards the harsh comments that were constantly being said about them, and also the stereotypes that the Africans were involved in as well. African American writers such as Olaudah Equiano, Benjamin Banneker, and also the Slaves of Boston, used their strength in writing including imagery, diction and details, and historical/biblical allusions to challenge the prevailing notions, regarding race, freedom, and African American enslavement. Olaudah Equiano, wrote a slave narrative titled, “Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano” using a
In ‘A question of Black or White’ Sara Upstone reflects upon a person’s self. She cites the many reasons for Shahid’s apparent difficulty in belonging. Also in ‘The search for identity in The Black Album’ Ulla Ambursley discusses Shahid’s religious and sexual identity with reference to how it shapes him as a young Asian male. The main theme that links the two pieces of work is how Shahid is emotionally torn between his Pakistani and Muslim background and his newly discovered world of artistic and sexual freedom courtesy of his feminist tutor Deedee Osgood. Ambursley states that Shahid’s father’s death prompts him to move away and find himself a new start “The city would feel like his; he wouldn’t be excluded; there had to be ways in which he could belong” (The Black Album – p16).
In Olaudah Equiano’s Equiano’s Travels and Charles Johnson’s Middle Passage, both authors address the horrific nature of the middle passage, which was the triangular route of the trade of Africans into the Americas. Yet, both authors produce a different discourse on this subject, as both protagonists, within the stories, struggle with “looking at one’s self through the eyes of others”, as Du Bois so eloquently wrote. Bressler also defines binary oppositions as the “western philosophy … of opposing centers, [in that] one concept is superior and defines itself by its opposite or inferior center” (Bressler 111) It can also be viewed, within the context of African-American literature, in that binary oppositions are indeed in affect and within those binary oppositions, an understanding can be found within the two stories. By examining the double voiceness, the double consciousness, and the binary oppositions, found within the texts of the two books, a deeper understanding of the horrors and the implications of those horrors of the middle passage may be
Furthermore, they inquire for justifications of this movement of racial and social division while implying similar notions to the audience by using collective societal context, structure, imagery, opposites, ironic language and literary devices. The poem “Half-Caste” is written by John Agard who was born in Guyana with mixed racial backgrounds or ‘light an shadow’ (13): his mother is white and father is black. After immigrating to England, Agard had to cope with an impasse due to his cultural backgrounds. Therefore, it is evident that “Half Caste” is delineated by his personal experiences of confronting a generalized, yet invisible barricade. Accordingly, the poem demonstrates the reality of England where multiculturalism and equality fail to establish together.