ipl-logo

Society And Oppression In The Glass Menagerie

783 Words4 Pages

Society and Oppression Society seems to think that being a Native American is just like being a Caucasian, it’s not. Arnold is a Native American teen who goes from a school on his reservation to an all white school. While there he meets new people and starts to see the world differently. He sees that despite the image people may put off, everyone has their own problems and feelings. A white girl named Penelope shows Arnold that anyone can be sad , money can't buy happiness, but poverty does not either, along with privilege does not make up for affection, yet even with affection they’re still problems, and finally that you may never know what you have until it’s gone, but you also won’t know what you’re missing unless you’ve had a taste. The …show more content…

Two different worlds as it seems, Arnold and Penelope. But both want something they cannot have. Alexie writes, “ Penelope starts crying, talking about how lonely she is, and how everybody thinks her life is perfect because she’s pretty and smart and popular, but that she’s scared all the time” (108). Despite that Penelope has ‘everything’ she is dismal, and lonely and scared to let it show. Arnold on the other hand has drunk parents, and no money, he doesn’t know what it’s like to be popular, until he meets Penelope and steadily gains popularity. He is so scared to let them know about him and his life. “ I couldn’t lie to her anymore, ‘Yes I said, I am poor” (Alexie 127). Arnold, hanging out with the popular kids and becoming one of them, finally let go to one of the people he cared most about, and she didn’t shun him, she accepted it. Oppression, it’s a big deal no matter how you are, there is something weighing down on everybody. Whether is be, money, parental love, or even just acceptance, and artificial popularity, it is there. Through the challenge of simply being yourself, Arnold gets through it, and helps people along the way. He shows Penelope it is okay to be scared or unsure, and she accepted him and helped him in turn. Being yourself is the only person to

Show More
Related

  • Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine Analysis

    255 Words  | 2 Pages

    The way that they are represented in the novel provides an insight into modern day native American culture unparalleled by any history book. The way women, children, men, religious figures, and senior citizens are represented in the book allow readers to see the way native Americans interact with others. These interactions allow us to see how native

    Read More

  • Discrimination In Richard Wagamese's Indian Horse

    1188 Words  | 5 Pages

    The detrimental and unfair categorization of people by race, gender and more, commonly known as discrimination, affects many in society both mentally and emotionally. Many instances of this act of hatred occurred among Aboriginal and Native Canadians in the 20th century. However, for a little Native Indian boy stepping onto the rink, this is the norm that surrounds him. Saul Indian Horse, in Richard Wagamese’s “Indian Horse”, faces discrimination head on, where his strengths for hockey are limited by the racial discrimination from the surrounding white ethnicity. Consequently, this racism draws him into a mentally unstable state, where he suffers heavy consequences.

    Read More

  • Arrival 1960 Summary

    510 Words  | 3 Pages

    I had never thought of my skin, let alone considered it a mark of foreignness” (73). In the moment, he did not realize that because he was colored, he was any different. Just as the snow grayed and lost it’s purity, Medina felt as because he was also not pure white that he was looked down on. As Medina reflects on the situation, now as an adult, he understands what made him different. This story shows a different view of America that people do not typically see.

    Read More

  • Dothead By Amit Mammadar

    513 Words  | 3 Pages

    Amit Majmudar’s poem “Dothead” demonstrates the stigma that the speaker experienced—as well as what many foreigners still undergo—while living as a child in a different culture by utilizing figurative language and a shift in tone from descriptive to agitated. This poem begins with a discussion format to portray an expressive tone in which he tells both his grammar school peers and the reader what his mother’s “dot” truly is (1). Though the speaker sees this colorful mark as something beautiful, the speaker’s fellow classmates see the red dot as a figurative “Chernobyl baby” because it is so strange and unfamiliar to them (5). While this dot—more properly named a bindi—has a significant meaning that the speaker understands, the other schoolchildren are unaware of this knowledge and begin to laugh at the sight of such an absurd-looking object (11-12).

    Read More

  • Black Like Me Essay

    1381 Words  | 6 Pages

    The book challenges Americans and how they treat American Values. The book exposed the truth of the white race and how they treated the black race. Throughout the novel white Americans did not value equality or progress and change. In Black Like Me whites did not believe in having a society the ideally treats everyone equally. When John Howard Griffin gets a ride from a white hunter, he tells him “I’ll tell you how it is here.

    Read More

  • Movie 42 And The Indian Horse Comparison

    709 Words  | 3 Pages

    The book Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese, tells the tale of a young boy named Saul Indian Horse who goes through the struggles of trying to fit in, in a society controlled by white people. Saul tells the story of his life and the challenges he goes through. The change and abuse he receives, and the supports he rarely gets, Saul really showed how he was treated and what it was like to be a First Nations in the 1960s. Just like the book, the movie 42 by Brian Helgeland showed struggles of trying to fit in, in a society controlled by white people. The main character, Jackie Robinson, also showed the changes and abuse he received throughout the movie.

    Read More

  • Residential Schools Thomas King Analysis

    1871 Words  | 8 Pages

    Native Americans in Canadian society are constantly fighting an uphill battle. After having their identity taken away in Residential Schools. The backlash of the Residential Schools haunts them today with Native American people struggling in today 's society. Native Americans make up five percent of the Canadian population, yet nearly a quarter of the murder victims. The haunting memories of Residential Schools haunt many Native Americans to this day.

    Read More

  • The Glass Menagerie Compare And Contrast Essay

    1527 Words  | 7 Pages

    Tennesse Williams wrote the play The Glass Menagerie and Lorrain Hansberry wrote the play A Raisin in the Sun, which both similarly talks about families that are very much alike and different consecutively. Two characters really caught the attention of being different and similar in many aspects. These two characters are Laura Wingfield, from The Glass Menagerie, and Beneatha Younger, from A Raisin in the Sun. Laura and Beneatha both live in a fatherless household where their mother’s reign above the household and where their brothers are a primary source of income along with their mother’s income. Though I concede that both Laura and Beneatha are capable of working hard and achieving goals, I still insist that Beneatha has a brighter future

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian By Sherman Alexie

    1121 Words  | 5 Pages

    In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Social Determinants Of Health

    1707 Words  | 7 Pages

    The

    Read More

  • Motorcycle And Sweetgrass Analysis

    2148 Words  | 9 Pages

    Marcus Garvey said, “People without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” For the citizens of Otter Lake, a fictional reserve set in Drew Hayden Taylor’s Novel Motorcycles and Sweetgrass, they are disconnected from their cultural roots. Much of the older generation is suffering psychologically from the effects of residential schools, where their culture was taken from them. The younger generations in return feel no ties to their past as they were raised by people who feelings towards it were conflicted as they spent years being abused and told that their culture was wrong. As an author, one of their main roles is to convey a message.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes In The Earth Shall Weep By James Wilson

    579 Words  | 3 Pages

    History is what we learn in school about the past, about people’s culture, their way of life, their beliefs, their fight and their dreams. However, history is not an absolute truth. In fact, every story has more than one version. The History of the native American in the United States still one of the most controversial subjects in history, not only because of all the ambiguity filled in the story, but also and more importantly because the it was written by only one side. Indeed, it was written by the winners, the invaders, and the dominants.

    Read More

  • Banned Book Research Paper

    859 Words  | 4 Pages

    The book focuses on a young boy named Arnold Spirit who shows persistence and bravery as he defies all odds and strides towards a happier more successful life than his parents and ancestors before him. Arnold is a bright, inspiring young boy who grows up with little fortune and is destined to continue down the path of a poor, misunderstood Indian. However, his fate changes for the better when a spark lights the fire inside of him to strive to pursue a better, more flourishing life as he makes an extraordinary decision to transfer to an all-white school for a worthier education. However, the drastic change of schools puts a burden on his family to get him to school as well as leads to extreme bullying from not just kids at his new school but also from his fellow Indians in his hometown. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I learned that it doesn 't matter what your situation is and what you are expected to accomplish in your lifetime or what standards have already been set for you because you can be whoever you want to be with hard work, ambition, and confidence.

    Read More

  • Comparing The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven

    571 Words  | 3 Pages

    Writer Sherman Alexie has a knack of intertwining his own problematic biographical experience with his unique stories and no more than “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” demonstrates that. Alexie laced a story about an Indian man living in Spokane who reflects back on his struggles in life from a previous relationship, alcoholism, racism and even the isolation he’s dealt with by living off the reservation. Alexie has the ability to use symbolism throughout his tale by associating the title’s infamy of two different ethnic characters and interlinking it with the narrator experience between trying to fit into a more society apart from his own cultural background. However, within the words themselves, Alexie has created themes that surround despair around his character however he illuminates on resilience and alcoholism throughout this tale.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes In The Film Imitation Of Life

    418 Words  | 2 Pages

    Moreover, demonstrate consequences are taken to oppress racial and ethnic minorities to keep them in a subservient position. Overall, this film has provided me with a visual depiction of how stereotypes are a mental tool that enforces racial segregation and self-hate. The label of “White” became a necessity for Sarah Jane to achieve in society. To attain it she needed to move to a new city, change her name and deny her mother.

    Read More

More about Society And Oppression In The Glass Menagerie

Open Document