Although miscegenation is not a new topic, the effects that this phenomenon has on people’s lives has been the source of inspiration for many literary works. “Miscegenation” by Natasha Trethewey is an autobiographical poem that expresses the difficulty that mixed-race people face in accepting their identity in a society that discriminates people who are different. That is, this poem expresses how racial discrimination can affect the identity of those people who do not identify as white or black. Besides, in this poem, Trethewey narrates her origin, as well as how her parents were victims of a society that did not accept their relationship. Therefore, the speaker starts by saying “In 1965 my parents broke two laws of Mississippi” (Trethewey 1); those two laws that broke the Trethewey’s parents were that they were married and had a daughter. According to Politidou, “before 1967 interracial marriages were illegal in sixteen states and children born of these unions were regarded as illegitimate” (13). One of these sixteen states was Mississippi, which the speaker indicates that there is something wrong in this place making use of a pun with the State’s name. The wrong thing was that African-descent people were treated as second-class citizens and that they did not have the same rights as white citizens in this place. Furthermore, for the population of this place an interracial marriage went against all the social precepts that were established. Consequently, the Trethewey’s
Even to this day, shame about one’s sexual orientation remains a prominent topic. Whether one identified themselves as gay, lesbian, and transgender, society viewed them and their actions as a sin, a crime, and a disease, which only increased the amount of shame–a painful feeling of distress or humiliation caused by the consciousness of wrong or fooling behavior–they saw within themselves. Then changes began to occur as a group of gays, lesbians, and transgender people confronted police in an event known as the Stonewall Riots or the Stonewall Uprising, which became a turning point for gay liberation. Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home is a 1980s, family tragicomic-graphic memoir that addresses this perspective turning point through the use of the labyrinth
In this essay I will touch on what intrigues me about Alison Bechdel’s creative and powerful art in Fun Home. Specifically this essay will look at a couple of pages that include her most interesting panels in the whole book. I compare the panels to others and discuss the feelings I have toward her choice of drawings and dialogue. By looking closely at and analyzing her artwork, I will show how Bechdel arouses curiosity with only two pages.
In society, everyone needs to be treated with respect regardless of what they race, and gender they are. Brent Staples was born in 1951 and received a Ph.D. in psychology. Jennifer Boylan was born in 1958 but as James Boylan. Brent Staples and Jennifer Finney Boylan discuss the difficulties they went through. Although they faced different types of obstacles, both authors display how their lives were affected. Each author has written about their experience growing up with prejudice in their style.
Arlene Stein’s book “Sex and Sensibility” is a literary masterpiece that develops the framework of content that was essential towards explaining the rise of the lesbian movement; though solid in its message, Stein’s bias is recognized throughout the text, she was cognizant of issues and factors that affected the movement but she fails to piece together the entire spectrum. Stein captures three fundamental factors displayed throughout the text: (1). The recognition of new sexual identities and their associated orientations (2). The separation of the Feminist and Lesbianist movements, and (3). The differentiation of the “Old Gay” and “New Gay”lesbian identities. Though these factors are important, she consistently neglects specific fragments
In such a society, everything we took for granted is gone and she is able to portray after a fallout, making the novel a realistic future if a pandemic were to strike. She also conveys the message that even in a dystopian, survival may be
Stone Butch Blues is a novel written by LGBT activist Leslie Feinberg about Jess Goldberg, a young girl growing up in pre-stonewall America. The novel follows Jess’s from her early life as a child, all the way into adult life. Jess realized very earl1y on that she is fundamentally different from the girls around her in school, home life, etc. These differences are what makes her life so difficult, with her parents and other authority figures constantly trying to “fix” her differences and mold her into the idea of a woman they think is acceptable. Through therapy and even hospitalization for what is being framed as a biological or mental deficiency, Jess learns from a young age that her identity is problematic and will not be easily accepted.
The queer historical past has been characterized positively, with aspects such as identification, desire, longing, and love highlighted (31). In contrast, Heather Love seeks to focus on the negative aspects that characterize the relationship of queer history amid the past and present, in her work, “Emotional Rescue: The demands of Queer History,” the first chapter in her book, “Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History” (31-32). According to Love, some queer critics have failed to include the harsher accounts when studying queer cross-historical relations. The negative aspects of the past that queer figures can relate to makes it relevant. In her article, Love critiques various works to identify the negative aspects present within the queer history.
For the longest time, I couldn’t explain or even understand the importance of representation, it was something that I unconsciously wanted. Growing up I felt this disconnect, like there was this wall between me and everyone else and I didn’t understand why until I hit my teens and understood that I was gay. I was raised Lutheran, so accepting my orientation wasn’t easy for me and it made me angry. I just didn’t understand what I was feeling, and that’s where being a huge bookworm helped, I turned to books to try to find myself. I remember the first time I read The Miseducation of Cameron Post, I never connected to a character’s experiences like that before. It helped me realize that I’m not alone, and at the same it made me realize how there weren’t many good LGBT+ stories out there, whether in literature or in the media and the more I looked the more discouraged I became, there are millions of books, movies, and TV shows with purely straight characters but I could never hope for a show with more than a few or, god forbid only queer characters. It’s like there’s an unspoken rule that I can’t hope for more and that’s why I want to attend ClexaCon, I want to help break the
The Red Tent was published in 1997 and written by Anita Diamant. Anita was born in 1951 in Brooklyn New York, but she grew up in Newark, New Jersey until the age of 12, when her family moved to Denver, Colorado. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in comparative literature and earned a Master’s in American literature from Binghamton University in New York. She has been a journalist for magazines, and newspaper. She has written several other books, including the Jewish Wedding Now, Good Harbor and The Boston Girl.
Adoption is typically an option that is thought about when the process of conceiving a biological child is out of the question. For some couples it may be infertility, potential hereditary health problems, or that carrying a child would be dangerous to the mother and unborn child. Those are just some issues that would cause a heterosexual couple to contemplate the idea of adopting a child, but what about couples of the same-sex? Same-sex couples do not have the means to reproduce together so many opt for adoption, which sounds easy, but typically is not. Adoption is a long and hard drawn out process for any couple, but for couples that are of the same-sex, they typically get the shorter end of the stick. Most people believe that for a child
The purpose of my paper is to scrutinize closely the concept of social satire, revealing and thereby amending the society’s blight in relation to the novel, The Edible Woman by the Canadian author Margaret Atwood.
The short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid was published in 1978. The entire story has to do with mother talking to the daughter. The daughter does not say much. The subject matter of “Girl” has to do with being a female and how one should act. The theme of female sexuality is used throughout “Girl” to show the danger of female sexuality, power of domesticity, and sexual reputation.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is written by a popular writer, Oscar Wilde. Oscar Wilde are famous because of his poetry and short stories but this is his only novel. The genre of this story are classic horror story. This story show us how a man turned to be a killer for his own personal needs and desire. He desire for his portrait will get aging instead of him and he will remain young forever. This story grabs reader’s attention by Dorian Gray itself. He changed a lot because of the idea of someone he barely knew.
The young generation is the hope of future. Whenever related to children, there will be a heated discussion. Advocators of gay adoption first of all believe that children adoption is an equal right for gay couples and it can not be discriminatory only because of their sexual orientation. The UK government makes a rule about who can adopt a child, it says: one may be able to adopt a child if you are aged 21 or over and either single, married, in a civil partnership, or an unmarried couple no matter you are same sex or the opposite. (UK Gov n.d. ) The National Adoption Center also claims that a number of adoption organizations are supposed to consider lesbians and gay men, both singles and couples.(National Adoption Center n.d. ) Besides, gay parents have the same ability to raise children. They tend to be more motivated and more committed because they actively choose and had to work hard to be parents. Many gay couples, who offering themselves as adoptive parents, are more likely to form relationships that are more stable than many other heterosexual marriages. Thus gay parents mostly give adopted children a secure emotional home. And gay parents will spontaneously be more open minded when it comes to accepting their child’s lifestyle choices, and they will teach children to have broad minds of everyone in this world regardless of