Mark Ledezma English Literature Professor Acker March 21, 2018 Phillis Wheatley Critical Response Based on what if read about Phillis Wheatley, it talks about how Phillis Wheatley expresses her life as an enslaved African American through a poem, how she astonishes authors about her achievements and determination of being the only African American to learn to read and write at that time and how she has inspired other authors and African American people. In my opinion I would agree about how she astonishes author on her achievements and determination and how she expresses her life in the form of a lyric poem.
In the 1970’s African American women created the Combahee River Collective to address the unique struggles that African American women face in their day-to-day lives. In 2016, black activists founded The Movement of Black Lives to advocate for all black people more generally. Both groups incorporated at least some intersectional ideas into their arguments and used similar stylistic strategies to communicate their ideas. However, these groups differed in the ways that they established target audiences, the breadth of institutions that they addressed, and in the ways they used word choice to further their causes. Both The Combahee River Collective and The Movement for Black Lives incorporated intersectional ideas into their arguments by acknowledging
Literature is often credited with the ability to enhance one’s understanding of history by providing a view of a former conflict. In doing so, the reader is able to gain both an emotional and logistical understanding of a historically significant event. Additionally, literature provides context that can help the reader develop a deeper understanding of the political climate of a time period. Within the text of The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead’s, the use of literary elements such as imagery, metaphor, and paradox amplifies the reader’s understanding of early 19th century slavery and its role in the South of the United States of America. Throughout the novel, Whitehead utilizes a girl named Cora to navigate the political and personal consequences of escaping slavery, the Underground Railroad, and her transition from the title of fugitive to freed. Cora’s ability to convey descriptions of events both tragic and hope-filled such as the dehumanization of slaves or the truth of freedom, while utilizing literary elements, create an emotional understanding of the 1800’s of the United States.
Jean Toomer’s “Georgia Dusk” reveals the remaining influence of slavery on a newly freed African American society. The title is especially relevant within Toomer’s poem, as it signifies a motif that exhibits lightness and darkness within the poem. “Georgia Dusk” signifies this fusion through the word “dusk”, or the time when day transforms into night. This has a possible relation to Toomer’s identity as a mixed-race person, in that he has several racial identities.
Walker uses Woolf’s ideas as a feminist scaffold upon which she builds up blackness. Alice Walker quotes and adapts Virginia Woolf’s writing to reframe it for black women. She inserts and changes words to reshape Woolf’s writing to reach black feminists and to tell the painful narrative of black women’s history. It is clear that Alice Walker has respect for Virginia Woolf, and while she does not tear Woolf down in her essay, she also does not sing Woolf’s praises.
First, the Harlem Renaissance occurred around the time of the African American civil rights movement. Much of the literature was inspired by African Americans and their goals of achieving civil rights. All of these literary works that are published around this this serve as a foundation for African American culture seeing as they had
I have chosen to analyze the literary piece of Alice Walker using the context of historical criticism. Historical criticism includes understanding the occasions and encounters encompassing the creation of the work, particularly the life of the creator, and utilizing the discoveries to decipher that work of writing. The author of “Everyday Use” takes up what is a repetitive topic in her work: the representation of the agreement and additionally the contentions and battles inside African-American culture. Alice walker utilizes portrayal and imagery to highlight the contrast between these elucidations and eventually to maintain one of them, demonstrating that culture and heritage are parts of daily life.
Some of the significant subjects were music, literature, poem, and art. The poets Langston Hughes and Claude McKay were some of the most influential poets from the renaissance. The poems “The Harlem Dancer” by Claude McKay and “I, Too” by Langston Hughes will be used to compare and show how two poems form the same era could be similar yet different based on their subject, purpose, style, tone, and rhythm. “I, Too” creates the world where people are treated equally. With so much discrimination and segregation occurring in the 20th century, it was a world that people wished for.
Nella Larsen, one of the major woman voices of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, when many African American writers were attempting to establish African–American identity during the post-World War I period. Figures as diverse as W.E.B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, A. Philip Randolph and Jessie Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston along with Nella Larsen sought to define a new African American identity that had appeared on the scene. These men and women of intellect asserted that African Americans belonged to a unique race of human beings whose ancestry imparted a distinctive and invaluable racial identify and culture. This paper aims at showcasing the exploration of African American ‘biracial’ / ‘mulatto’ women in White Anglo Saxon White Protestant America and their quest for an identity with reference to Nella Larsen’s Quicksand.
Novels written by Toni Morrison are rooted in themes that are fundamental in order to appreciate the African American life, background and struggle. These themes delve into problematic relationships, and hardships encountered by African American people. Love as a recurring theme in the novels of Toni Morrison has a noteworthy place. This kind of extreme love not only happens as parental love but also shows itself as others forms of love. In this paper, I will deal with The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Song of Solomon, and Jazz.
Zora Neale Hurston wrote “Sweat” during the Harlem Renaissance. A time when writers, artists, and musicians were exploring and greatly influenced by the events taking place in their social and cultural environments. There is plenty that can be taken away from the story. Hurston use of symbolism with sweat, laundry, and a snake give so much more meaning to the story.
John Sekora notes Martha K. Cobb’s thoughts in regards to the formation of black literary tradition, when she says “the first-person voice presents the particularity of point of view that allows the narrator-protagonist the distinctive advantage of projecting his image, ordering his experiences, and presenting his thoughts in the context of his own understanding of black reality as it had worked itself out in his own life … it is a persistent defining and interpreting of personal, human, and moral identity, hence one’s worth, on the slave narrator’s own terms rather than on terms imposed by the society that has enslaved him or her (Sekora 484).” This is exactly what Douglass is doing in this text. In this narrative, he presents so many different
Zora Neale Hurston shares her experience from moving from an all-black community into a mixed racial community, in her essay entitle, How It Feels to Be Colored Me. Within Hurston’s essay, she exclaims that she was aware of her racial identity, however, no behavior or outcomes came into her view whilst she was exposed to the same race, only until she realized when she was exposed to other races and saw how she was treated and viewed differently. To put it another way, she grew up familiarized by her neighbors, and when she came into contact with outsiders, she realized how they displayed different behavior towards her, from this, she realized there is a boundary made from color. Supporting this claim, Hurston asserts that “they liked to hear
”Diversity is about all us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.” Was stated by Jacqueline Woodson and is referred to millions of people from different religion, culture, color, etc. Diversity is just like a one of the most important spice in food . If there is no diversity than life will be so boring. Not everyone in a family has the same likes and dislikes; everyone is unique either by behavior or lifestyle or thoughts.
In Sharon Olds’s poem “On the Subway,” a white woman details her observations of a young black male as they sit across each other on the subway. Through her observations, she lists distinct differences between herself and the boy. Olds uses imagery, tone, and mood to identify the contrasts that develop the characters of the poem. Throughout the poem, Olds uses vivid imagery to create a reality of the appearance of the boy and the woman.