A Literary Analysis Of The Cancer Journals By Audre Lorde
“The Cancer Journals” Literary Analysis
Audre Lorde’s “The Cancer Journals” depicts her struggle to find her identity after her experience with breast cancer-a life altering event. Through Audre Lorde’s own experiences with adapting to a new lifestyle, she emphasizes a strong theme of the importance of finding oneself and the need for a true identity in life. She effectively describes her struggle with cancer and identity primarily through imagery, and diction to create a personalized style.
Throughout the novel, Lorde presents a changed perspective due to her breast cancer and mastectomy. In the journal entries shown before her mastectomy, she exposes her self-doubt and fear: “I can never accept this, like I can’t accept that turning my life
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Her writing is a reflection of herself: open, organised, and expressive. Though it may not seem so, the novel is very organized and detailed so that the reader may gather the gravity of each situation. Lorde inserts a variety of different essays, poems, speeches, and narratives to give the reader a complete image of the situation. One of the speeches introduced in the beginning of the book was taken from her experience at the Lesbian Literature Panel of the MLA in 1977. This covers the entirety of chapter 1, discluding the introduction. This speech, called “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” starts with a dedication to Winnie Mandela who was an exiled South African freedom fighter. The poem dedicated to her is called “A Song for Many Movements” which pays homage to the “black school children who were singing freedom songs, and who were charged for public violence… “(Lorde, 18). Then, in chapter 2, she transitions back to journals and narration. The narration elaborates the situation and explains the logic behind what her journals entailed; therefore giving the reader a complete picture. So, the formatting of this book is unique because the author puts her personality into the style, making it her own. Obviously, the organization contributes to the main theme because her identity is woven into the written words, as well as the way they’re
Head Off And Split Poem Analysis
563 Words | 3 PagesNikky Finney's book Head Off and Split is a work of art in every sense. It combines both historical elements and personal elements. She shines the light on our countries habit of oppressing and enslaving African Americans. She masterfully weaves together the history of the time and her own memories in an unabashed way that lays bare the wrongdoings of our country. Forcing the reader to see part of our history that is often glossed and skimmed over in conventional textbooks.
Lucy Grealy's Autobiography Of A Face
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The Chicana Feminist Analysis
506 Words | 3 PagesAdditionally, these stories reveal the great diversity among women. Generally, women are grouped together, as stated by Lorde: “As women we have either been taught to ignore our differences or view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than forces of change (Lorde, 1979).” Despite the efforts to categorize women’s issues into one mass of problems, White women perceive the world differently than African American women, Hispanic women, Native American women, etc., and vice versa. This conglomeration of “women’s issues” does not address every aspect of being a woman in patriarchal and unjust societies throughout the world.
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Analysis Of Poetry Is Not A Luxury By Audre Lorde
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Comparison Of Identity In Zami And Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
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Analysis Of The Dying Dream Of Paul Kalanithi
1764 Words | 8 PagesIn the first section, he gives numerous examples of how normal his life was before the diagnosis. He recounts his childhood and his beginnings of how he loved to read because of his mother. He tells of when he would stay out late reading in the starlight to come home to his mother worried that he was doing drugs, but “the most intoxicating thing I’d experienced, by far, was the volume of romantic poetry she’d handed me the previous week” (27). He continues with all of his life before cancer, but when he gets the results he says “One chapter of my life seemed to have ended; perhaps the whole book was closing” (120). The rest of the book, the closing of his book as he calls it, focuses on examples of how cancer changed his
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Social Boundaries In The Great Gatsby
2034 Words | 9 PagesBreaking Social Boundaries The era of the 1920s was a pinnacle time in American History and the literature that was produced from this era showcases the social change happening. This was the time of social upheaval where the people were challenging social boundaries. The values that had been sought after in the period before this were becoming less and else prevalent in the new society. There are many viewpoints of this time period so the literature of this time was very diverse and many works showed the changing cultures.
Personal Narrative-It's Time To Forgive My Father
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Art In The Civil Rights Movement
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Redefining Realness By Janet Mock Analysis
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The Theme Of Female Sexuality In Jamaica Kincaid's Girl
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Handmaid's Tale Identity
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Madness In Wide Sargasso Sea
1870 Words | 8 PagesIt was written to be the voice for the silenced and marginalized
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