When A Southern Town Broke A Heart By Jacqueline Woodson
When a Southern Town Broke a Heart In the short story When a Southern Town Broke a Heart by Jacqueline Woodson, the reader learns about Woodson’s memories of being a young black girl in the early 70’s who travels to the south every summer and she feels that even though she lives in Brooklyn, her real home is there in the southern town of Greenville, South Carolina where her grandmother lives. A central theme of the short story is that the innocence of youth protects us from reality. One way Woodson starts to convey the theme is when early in the story she brings up what “home” was to her when she was young. How Woodson thinks about what her home is to her changes when the reality that has been hidden from her while being a little kid is revealed at age 9. According to the author when talking about “home” she says, “Because for me South Carolina had always been home. Even years after my family joined the Great Migration and my mother moved us from Greenville to Brooklyn, each summer we returned to the southern town of my mother’s childhood.” (1). The quote is saying that …show more content…
Woodson notices that “for so many summers, we’d been warned to stay away from the small patch of poison ivy that grew around the base of the one tree in my grandparent’s backyard. But until that year, the consequence had been as theoretical as the segregation surrounding us.” (2-3). The quote is explaining that when Woodson was younger, she didn’t ever think she or anyone else would touch the ivy, just like how she didn’t think that she would ever be subject to racism in Greenville. This quote includes an example of an analogy between racism and the itchy poison ivy rash from touching it. This is further emphasized later in the story when she realizes that both exist in Greenville, her special place. She realizes that being young has protected her from this
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Summary Of Fifth Business Reading Journal By Robertson Davies
760 Words | 4 PagesThe main character is completely changed by the places he visits. His time in his small-town home shapes his adult life very obviously. The residents are stereotypical small-town inhabitants, out of place if the story was set in the city or suburbs. More importantly, however, is the time. The author acknowledges this several times throughout the novel, writing passages like "…but this was far less common in those days than it is now.
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Analysis Of Jacqueline Woodson's When A Southern Town Broke A Heart
433 Words | 2 PagesIn the story, When a Southern Town Broke a Heart, Jacqueline Woodson uses a variety of symbolism and metaphor to show that when you get wiser, your perception of things change. One example of Woodson conveying this theme is when she writes, “When the deep green beauty revealed my place and time in history and laid claim to that moment all children know, when the tendrils of adulthood move toward us, showing themselves long before we are ready to see.” This quote describes when she realized the nostalgia of her home was masking the bitter and unfortunate side that “adulthood” is showing her. This directly relates to the theme because as she becomes wiser and more experienced, (the tendrils of adulthood) her perception changes. (showing themselves long before we are ready to see.)
Coming Of Age In Mississippi By Anne Moody
592 Words | 3 PagesAlthough she is young, she can comprehend the financial state of her family and the instability they live with. Moody watches her father start gambling, pick up with a new woman and leave her mother, who she calls Mama. As a result, Moody’s family is left traveling to relatives, attempting to scrape up any work Mama can find. They eventually settle near Centreville, Mississippi. At this point in Moody’s growth, her African-American identity is not on her mind.
Coming Of Age In Mississippi By Anne Moody
1111 Words | 5 PagesAnne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi takes place during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. During this period of time African Americans did not have much say in society. Most African Americans acted as if they were deaf and blind puppets that had no reaction to anything that the White man said or did due to fear. Anne Moody, takes the reader through her personal journey, enduring extreme poverty growing up to joining the Civil Rights Movement where she found “something outside [herself] that gave [her] meaning to life” (Moody 286).
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When A Southern Town Broke A Heart Analysis
656 Words | 3 PagesInstead, she realized she was living in a town more flawed than expected, with many racist people. At the end, Woodson no longer feels secure in a town that used to be the safest place possible. By observing how her character changes over the course of the plot, it seems evident that Woodson is trying to convey to the reader that when growing up, one becomes aware of new things that used to be hidden from them. One example in the story happens when Woodson is nine and beginning to see Greenville as not an amazing and sheltered place, but more of an unsafe town. “The summer I was nine years old, the town I had always loved morphed into a beautifully heartbreaking and complicated place” (pg.1).
Coming Of Age In Mississippi By Anne Moody
950 Words | 4 PagesAnne Moody’s autobiography “Coming of Age in Mississippi” describes different sections of her life stretching from childhood to a student in college. From the time she was four years old, she experienced racism and discrimination. She thrived through these situations and allowed it to mold her into the civil rights activist that she became. Childhood, High School, College, and The Movement all contain vital events in Moody’s life. Anne Moody, despite going to school, and doing exceptionally well in her academics, had to work to help support her family.
To Kill A Mockingbird, By Harper Lee
1404 Words | 6 PagesFrequently in life, it is said that the harmony and relationship between positive and negative must coexist in every situation. To Kill A Mockingbird, a novel written by Harper Lee, tells the story of a young girl, Scout, and her brother Jem, as they grow up in a segregated American south. Their critical coming of age lesson can be seen in the children’s experiences with Mrs. Dubose, an angry, insulting woman who is later revealed as a courageous figure that battles her morphine addiction by her own means. In chapter eleven of To Kill A Mockingbird, Jem acts out against Mrs. Dubose in defense of his father and family through destroying her prized, beautiful camellia bushes. As punishment, Jem’s father Atticus condemns Jem to read to Mrs. Dubose
Antebellum South And Kindred By Octavia Butler
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Song Of Solomon, Pilate Dead Exile Analysis
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On Going Home Joan Didion Analysis
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Racism In A Worn Path
883 Words | 4 PagesBeyond the Walk to Natchez A historical great piece of literary art, “A Worn Path” published in 1941, is a story of an old woman’s journey to town through the forest. The setting is rural Mississippi in the 1940’s, a time when racism was a way of life and a trip to town, especially for an old black woman, was often a long journey and thus a trip not often taken. The old woman’s name is Phoenix Jackson and she has quite an adventurous trip through the forest to town. One is made to believe this is just an average walk down the path for this old woman; however the reader is entertained by Phoenix’s mannerisms and realizes there is deeper meaning of the story.
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