ipl-logo

The Antagonist Macon Dead

1545 Words7 Pages

The antagonist Macon Dead is a wealthy business man who uses his wealth to gain and take control over his own race. Throughout the novel Macon lives in a "lost" world of illusion vs. reality where his ignorance affects his conscious into acting as white man when he’s not . Being born in a wealthy family,racial problems are obscured to Macon. He believes that the only way to be free is by becoming rich, in which he isolates himself from being considered a black man. Such power can cause hate upon his family as well. In Pg 10 "His hatred of his wife glittered and sparked in every word he spoke to her" illustrates the hate Macon has upon his family that illustrates Macon's lack of concern by not acknowledging what Ruth had to say. Macon acts as a dictator in which he believes he has full power over his community and people have no freedom of speech. By having so much hate against his wife he's implementing the same actions that white people have used against their slaves during that time period. Macon being the roots and support for his family allows him to have control over them. Pg 10"The disappointment he felt in his daughters sifted down on them like ash" illustrates how Macon forsakes his race in which his daughters are useless to him when it comes to gaining wealth . …show more content…

For Macon family didn’t' matter to him if money wasn't involve , Pg17 'The one person in the world he hated more than his wife in spite of the fact that she was his sister" refers to the idea that he had no love but hate for his sister Pilate but seem to love the idea that Pilate had gold,also shows how not

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of The Poisonwood Bible

    744 Words  | 3 Pages

    Snyder and Kingsoler: Analysis of The Poisonwood Bible Critic Carey Snyder delivers an analysis of Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, picking apart the various narrative elements utilized to establish the novel’s anti-imperialist themes. Spanning a wide range of literary elements within the work, Snyder first begins with her views of Nathan, an ethnocentric patriarch and embodiment of American arrogance, defined as much by his zealotry as by his failure to achieve his goals. Building off this, she uses Nathan’s role in the novel to expound upon his lack of a perspective in the novel’s narrative, examining the thematic consequences of viewpoints from all the female Prices, particularly in regard to the chronological divide between Orleanna’s

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Sweat And Barn Burning

    663 Words  | 3 Pages

    Insecure Men Based off of the traditional marriage roles, a man’s duty was to be the bread-winner for his family. They were supposed to love and cherish them and provide their basic needs while the wives were to stay at home to take care of the children and cook and clean. If a man is not fulfilling their role for some reason, they might feel emasculated. Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” and William Falkner’s short story “Barn Burning” both reveal how a man’s insecurity could cause them to act out through unnecessary abuse and violence.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Criminal Justice System By Michelle Alexander

    1031 Words  | 5 Pages

    As quoted in this novel by an Alabama planter, “We have the power to pass stringent police laws to govern the Negroes—this is a blessing—for they must be controlled in some way or white people cannot live among them.” (Alexander, 2011, p.28). This quote is an example of ideology; the rich plantation owners feel they are above the poor people of color. White superiority was justified in this time period. The people of color were seen as slaves and were less important than the white people.

    Read More

  • The Pitfall Of White Society Exposed In Song Of Solomon

    1006 Words  | 5 Pages

    Being an white person, this is the perfect illustration to use. When Macon first sees the man’s smile in the cave he is disturbed: “Macon saw that he was very old, very white, and his smile was awful” (169). This illustrates how, when a black person is in a vulnerable position, just the sight of a lone white person is enough to strike fear into the person. Even though the man may have in fact been friendly, the history of white violence took that possibility out of Macon’s mind. Adding to Macon’s fear was the murder of his father, Jake.

    Read More

  • Song Of Solomon Identity Analysis

    818 Words  | 4 Pages

    Before obtaining his possessions and wealth, while embracing his black culture on the farm, he was remembered as being a nice and caring person. Despite acquiring the material success he had longed for, he sensed an indescribable hollowness and loneliness. Macon Dead II is never able to get rid of his sense of loss due to the fact that he ignores and suppresses his cultural ties from the

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Frederick Douglass

    444 Words  | 2 Pages

    Frederick Douglass aims to point out the injustices of slavery in his autobiography consisting of personal experiences. Douglass illustrates the struggles that come with being a slave through recollection of experiences and circumstances that he lived through while creating vivid images producing emotion from the audience. Strong word choice and purposeful syntax further push Douglass's argument as well. Douglass’s attempts to create emotions in the minds of the reader through his use of vivid imagery in the descriptions of the slaves’ poor treatment illuminates his most valuable strategy. Not only does Douglass pathetically appeal to the reader in these descriptions but they are also first-hand accounts which make the gruesome depictions stick with the reader.

    Read More

  • Materialism In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon

    850 Words  | 4 Pages

    Pilate and her family did not live in the best conditions, as they lived in “A narrow single-story house… [and] had no electricity because [they] could not pay for the service. Nor the gas”, yet they were still the characters who were the most satisfied with their lives even when they had the bare minimum to survive (27). Compared to Macon Dead, Pilate was much happier with her life in her small house caring for her family than Macon was in his nice house with his family. This was evident to Milkman as he felt more comfort while in Pilate’s house than he ever did in his own house, which was more associated with materialism than Pilate’s house was. Because of the lack of materialism in Pilate’s life, it is simple to see how Pilate was able to thrive and live in

    Read More

  • Blues For Mr Charlie Play Analysis

    699 Words  | 3 Pages

    Since Josephine lied in the stand, saying that Richard sexually assault her, when he only spoke to her. As a result, Lyle the man who killed him was found not guilty. Also, in Emmitt trial the killer was also found not guilty because they couldn’t really prove that it was Emmitt body due to the how badly the oppressors bit him, the family realize it was Till because of the ring he had with his initial. So because of segregation two people died for nothing and not given the opportunity to lives as free mans. The effect of this changes throughout the play shows how unfair, justice was and how some white folks set a point of power toward black as Amzi more said “a white man was superior” in Eye on the

    Read More

  • 'Rhetorical Analysis Of My Dear Fellow Clergymen'

    751 Words  | 4 Pages

    By saying that “I am here because I have organizational ties here but more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here”, he assures the reader that he had researched on the topic. After then he talks about his association with Southern Christian Leadership Conference which helps the readers to make up their mind that the author is not an ordinary man and is credible. Then he appeals to pathos by talking about the trials of black men. He then talks about the discrimination of black men by police as well as people. He used powerful words like “vicious mobs” and also employed parallelism by saying “lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim”.

    Read More

  • Sheriff's Children And Saga Literary Analysis

    779 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tom, the mixed sheriff’s son in Chestnutt’s, is jailed for accusations of murdering a white man. Outraged by the death of their friend, the townspeople of Branson wanted to see Tom lynched for the murder. “The crowd decided to lynch the Negro. . . .They had some vague notions of the majesty of the law and the rights of the citizen, but in the passion of the moment these sunk into oblivion; a what man had been killed by a Negro.” ( Chestnutt 3).

    Read More

  • Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Dehumanization Examples

    819 Words  | 4 Pages

    Dehumanization is the process of making a human feel like they aren’t a human anymore, making them feel like they aren’t worthy. The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass has a lot of dehumanization from one slave to all of them. Slaves are systematically dehumanized as a result of their treatment, their daily life, and their inability to have their basic needs met. Dehumanization is a very big factor in this book and this represents everyone in this book, mainly the slave masters. In the book, the slaves don’t get the privilege to learn how to read.

    Read More

  • Symbolism Of Home In Song Of Solomon

    1043 Words  | 5 Pages

    When Macon reminisces to Milkman of his childhood on the farm “Lincoln’s Heaven” and of his father, the details he includes are rather peculiar. He says that it was a “little bit a place” that “looked big” to him and had a stream that ran into “the heart of a valley”. He vividly described “wild turkey the way Papa cooked it”, what he considered the best part of the farm, saying that you’ve “tasted nothing” before trying it. He completes his description of his past home by offhandedly remarking that they had “fruit trees. Apple, cherry.”

    Read More

  • Milkman's Time At Home Analysis

    1096 Words  | 5 Pages

    The disappointment he felt in his daughters sifted down on them like ash, dulling their butter complexions and choking the lilt out of what should have been girlish voices. (12) In this depiction, Morrison reveals such a truth. Like a tyrant, Macon controls and dominates everyone in his surroundings. Each

    Read More

  • Education In Octavia Butler's Kindred

    1843 Words  | 8 Pages

    The white people viewed slaves as sub-human, and a black woman who was mentally superior was not something they would have encountered before. Dana explains what Margaret, Tom’s wife, may have been feeling; “I don’t think Margaret likes educated slaves any better than her husband does…. He can barely read and write. And she’s not much better” (Butler 82).

    Read More

  • Racism And Violence In Richard Wright's Black Boy

    671 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story represents the culmination of Wright’s passionate desire to observe and reflect upon the racist world around him. Racism is so insidious that it prevents Richard from interacting normally, even with the whites who do treat him with a semblance of respect or with fellow blacks. For Richard, the true problem of racism is not simply that it exists, but that its roots in American culture are so deep it is doubtful whether these roots can be destroyed without destroying the culture itself. “It might have been that my tardiness in learning to sense white people as "white" people came from the fact that many of my relatives were "white"-looking people. My grandmother, who was white as any "white" person, had never looked "white" to me” (Wright 23).

    Read More

More about The Antagonist Macon Dead

Open Document