ipl-logo

Betsy Anna Character Summary

1723 Words7 Pages

“In the early summer of 1960, there began a rumor among the children of Betsy Ann’s age that the railroad people were planning to take all the land around Myrtle Street” (Jones 15). The early 60s was a very unsettled period when the African-American Civil Rights Movement was at its peak. Betsy Ann lived in a small, tight-knit neighborhood in Washington, D.C. where everyone knew one another and was aware of everything that was happening around them. “To the west, … was the high school Gonzaga, where white boys were taught by white priests. When the colored people and their homes were gone, the wall and the tracks remained, and so did the highschool, with the same boys and the same priests” (11-12). Discrimination and rasicm was prevalent …show more content…

Flat and static, these persons’ character traits are not that fully developed and their personalities did not change throughout the story. Although this is the case, these people are essential in the characterization and formation of the plot. For example, FOIL characters Darlene and Ralph both function to highlight certain traits of Betsy Ann’s personality. Darlene, unlike Betsy Ann, is a very unruly and liberal character. She is not as controlled or intently looked after by her guardian. When Darlene started crying after being caught stealing candy, the assistant manager turned to her and said, “That didn’t work the last time I told you to stay outa here, and it ain’t gonna work now” (19). This implies that this was not the first time that Darlene attempted to steal candy bars from People’s Drug. The other FOIL character, Ralph, contrasts Betsy Ann by having a mother who looks after him. Ralph’s mother, Thelma, is the older sister of Clara. Thelma’s appearance was described to be just like that of Betsy Ann’s mother. “The girl had never had an overwhelming curiosity about her mother but it fascinated her to see the face of the lady in all the pictures on a woman who moved and laughed and did all mother of things” (11). Her Aunt Thelma served as the closest mother figure she could possibly have. Her interest to discover the role mothers play in society explain her frequent visits to Ralph’s

Show More
Related

  • Ella Baker Chapter 3: Harlem During The 1930

    288 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this book, it discusses Ella Baker and her involvement in the civil rights movement. In one chapter of the book, Chapter 3: Harlem During the 1930s, it touches base on Baker’s involvement in radical activism during the Great Depression. Specifically, Ransby explains how Baker began her involvement in the activist community after she graduated from college and moved to New York City, where she was emerged into an environment with left wing views. In Harlem, she would participate street corner discussions in regards to the black freedom movement and radical visions.

    Read More

  • To Kill A Mockingbird Prejudice Essay

    644 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee argues that prejudice can affect people's decisions. She uses people like the Cunninghams, Ewells, Aunt Alexandra and Tom Robinson to develop her argument. One event that shows that prejudice can affect people's decisions, is when Miss Caroline, the school teacher tried to give a quarter to Walter Cunningham because he didn’t have a lunch. “Went to her desk and opened her purse. “Here’s a quarter” she said to Walter.

    Read More

  • Southern Horrors Lynch Law In All Its Phases Summary

    1195 Words  | 5 Pages

    The chapter covers various cases in which there were lies that were being told by the white women regarding them being raped by the Afro-Americans. The chapter covers the how the white women who had black children were treated in the society, and this is regarding being considered as outcasts, and they were divorced, disgraced, and in other cases, they were cashed from their homes. The third chapter of the book is “the new cry.” This chapter covers the plea of sympathy that was done by the southerners towards the northerners and this is because the whites who had sympathy for the lunching were deemed to have no sympathy for the white women who were victims of rape from the Afro-Americans.

    Read More

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates A Case For Reparations Summary

    1277 Words  | 6 Pages

    Coates tells the story of Clyde Ross, a child born in Mississippi to a family who onced owned 40 acres of farming land. This testimonies entails a recurring cycle of racial infused events that would simply be added into Cydle Ross’ many losses. In 1920, Jim Crow was in full effect and many black families in the south were simply looking for protection from the law. At a young age, Ross witnessed the lack of power his family and families like his actually had. As a child, Ross witnessed state authorities take advantage of the misfortunes inherited by his father and his family.

    Read More

  • Anne Moody Civil Rights Issues

    366 Words  | 2 Pages

    Civil rights issues stand at the core of Anne Moody’s memoir. However, because my last two journal entries centered on race and the movement, I have decided to shift my focus. In her adolescent years, Anne Moody must live with her mother, her mother’s partner Raymond, and her increasing number of siblings. As she reaches maturity, she grows to be a beautiful girl with a developed body. Her male peers and town members notice, as does her step father Raymond.

    Read More

  • Madam J Walker Biography

    444 Words  | 2 Pages

    Imagine growing up on a cotton plantation to former slaves in Delta, becoming an “orphan at the age of 7, becoming a wife at the age of 14, a mother at 17 and a widow at 20?” This all describes the early life of Sarah Breedlove, better known as Madam C.J Walker. “She supported her family by washing laundry and she used her earning as a laundress to pay for her daughter’s education at Knoxville College” .In 1889, Madam C.J Walker moved to St. Louis in search of a better future.

    Read More

  • Coming Of Age In Mississippi By Anne Moody

    1140 Words  | 5 Pages

    Her work didn’t go unnoticed as she earned a scholarship to Natchez College to play basketball. After her two years at Natchez, she transferred to Tougaloo, a prominent African American college. After graduating college Annie returned to New Orleans to find a career. To her amazement, even with a college degree she couldn’t find a job. She searched New Orleans up and down but could only use her degree to get a teaching job at black schools, which she noted as “awful, segregated, inferior Uncle Tom Schools” (Moody 381).

    Read More

  • Political Challenges Of The Chicano Movement

    319 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the 1920s, the Chicano movement faced many political challenges. One of the many problems was many teachers didn 't put in effort to teach Chicanos. In addition, schools had student’s graduate high schools without even being ready for college. One example of the political challenges the Chicano movement suffers is discussed in the History of a Barrio by Richard Romo the author asserts; “the Los Angeles School District maintained separate schools for Mexicans on the premise that Mexicans had special needs” [Romo 139]. In other words, this demonstrates that school districts separated Chicanos from normal classes because they had trouble learning.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of 'The White Album' By Joan Didion

    990 Words  | 4 Pages

    2) This extract is found in “The White Album” written by Joan Didion, who is the creator of many significant different literature pieces, both novels and essays. “The White Album” was published in 1979, and is the first and longest essay in the book. In this essay Joan Didion essentially uses a women as a connecting thread to describe what was happening in America at that time. I believe that the woman may even be herself to a certain extent, trying to externalize all her thoughts. What is perceived from the essay is that Didion was submerged into the focus of some big events that were happening in that year, not only as a journalist but also as a bystander and a normal Californian.

    Read More

  • The Metaphor By Budge Wilson Literary Devices

    651 Words  | 3 Pages

    Charlotte, thus, could freely make metaphors without her mother’s knowledge. However, she had no need to hide her true personality when she finally grew up. Charlotte makes her metaphor of Miss Hancock right in the open because she is no longer afraid of showing her creative

    Read More

  • The Importance Of News Media In Little Rock

    975 Words  | 4 Pages

    For many people school is something they take for granted, but for Elizabeth Eckford it wasn’t that easy. When Elizabeth got to Central there was a large mob of protesters trying to keep her from entering Central. Even though she felt helpless there was a large group of news reporters who captured the event. Benjamin Fine who was a New York news reporter said, “It’s one of these almost incredible things, to see normal people, many of them-most of them-churchgoers, and if you’d get them in their homes, they would be the kindest, nicest people, but in a mob group, something happens when that group gets together” (LRG 1957 7). The news reporters showed the world how bad Little Rock had gotten which made many people aware of the events in Little Rock.

    Read More

  • Time And Distance Overcome Analysis

    857 Words  | 4 Pages

    She draws parallels between the war on telephone poles and the racism towards the African American, criticizing the American civilization and society. She says that the war on telephone poles was powered “by that terribly American concern for private property and a reluctance to surrender it to a shared utility”. The Whites’ dislike of the poles is possibly a symbol of the dislike towards the African American. The typical white American of this period is portrayed as evil and close minded and the telephone poles are interfering with the white territory – just like the African American. A “fear, that distance, as it had always been known and measured, was collapsing” which can be read as if the white Americans of that day feared that segregation at one point might collapse and evaporate.

    Read More

  • Flannery O Connor's Use Of Setting Analysis

    724 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story takes place at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in America, when desegregation is finally achieved. Flannery O’Connor’s use of setting augments the mood and deepens the context of the story. However, O’Connor’s method is subtle, often relying on connotation and implication to drive her point across. The story achieves its depressing mood mostly through the use of light and darkness in the setting.

    Read More

  • Ethical Dilemmas In To Kill A Mockingbird

    1399 Words  | 6 Pages

    Humans live in a world where moral values are very clearly set determining what is good and what is bad. We know what scares us and how racism should be treated. Nevertheless, this was not the case back in Alabama during the 1950s. In the famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee narrates the lives of the people of Maycomb, Alabama, focusing on the story of Scout and Jem Finch, and the case of a said to be rape. In this emotion filled narrative, readers learn how life was back then not only in general, but for the separate social statuses that there was.

    Read More

  • Black Women In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

    714 Words  | 3 Pages

    Introduction Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” led a great quest for the Younger household. Raisin is set in subsidized housing in Southside Chicago, in which three Black female relatives live and interact with their brother, husband, and son Walter. African Americans were frowned upon before the writing of “A Raisin in the Sun”. However, it her notorious story provided individuals of multiple races new hope for life. In 2006, Diana Adesola Mafe provided the world with her opinion of “A Raisin in the Sun”.

    Read More

More about Betsy Anna Character Summary

Open Document