As part of this task, I decided to discuss the presentation of first person experience of conflict in John Agard’s “Half-Caste” and Benjamin Zephaniah’s “No Problem”. I came to the conclusion after looking through various poems within the anthology to choose these two poems as they share a similar theme of racial discrimination and conflict.
Firstly, in “Half-Caste”, Agard presents his first person experience of racial conflict using ridicule, a mockery tone and intentional use of poor standard English to belittle and be sarcastic to readers whom use racist terms and ideology in the time period he wrote it in 1996. An example of mockery and poor standard English within Agard’s poem is the line “standing on one leg”. The line doesn’t begin or end in any punctuation or capital letters which suggests poor English, stereotypically expected of a person of colour that lived in England by many British people of white ethnicity during the time period of the late 90s. Furthermore; “on one leg” creates ridiculous imagery for the reader and begins to highlight his feelings to racism; that racist people are irrelevant and silly. Also, Agard uses examples within his
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“I am not de problem” strongly connotes this as he very obviously wants to portray explicit stereotypes toward people who have racially motivated hate and are xenophobic. Furthermore, within “No Problem”, uses mockery which is comparable to the way Agard does. The line “Sum of me best friends are white.” Is mockery and is sarcastic in a warm way to how people say things like “I’m not homophobic because I have a gay friend”. Additionally, Zephaniah within this line uses the only full stop in the sentence; “…white.” This structural point implies that racism within society has to stop and that he has finished his argumentative poem on a final and winning
Good evening and welcome to tonight’s episode of Learning Literature. Tonight we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of Gattaca by analysing the techniques text producers employ to construct representations of social issues relating to marginalised groups. We will focus on two classic pieces of literature, Ken Kessey’s, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as well as Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca. Through a range of techniques, the text producers have included representations of freedom and independence, power, as well as discrimination in each of their respective texts.
Ever since the abolition of slavery in the United States, America has been an ever-evolving nation, but it cannot permanently erase the imprint prejudice has left. The realities of a ‘post-race world’ include the acts of everyday racism – those off-handed remarks, glances, implied judgments –which flourish in a place where explicit acts of discrimination have been outlawed. It has become a wound that leaves a scar on every generation, where all have felt what Rankine had showcased the words in Ligon’s art, “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background” (53). Furthermore, her book works in constant concert with itself as seen in the setting of the drugstore as a man cuts in front of the speaker saying, “Oh my god, I didn’t see you./ You must be in a hurry, you offer./ No, no, no, I really didn’t see you” (77). Particularly troublesome to the reader, as the man’s initial alarm, containing an assumed sense of fear, immediately changing tone to overtly insistent over what should be an accidental mistake. It is in these moments that meaning becomes complex and attention is heightened, illuminating everyday prejudice. Thus, her use of the second person instigates curiosity, ultimately reaching its motive of self-reflections, when juxtaposed with the other pieces in
The readings were insightful and had interesting approaches to Negro mood. They had many emotional elements that were for the readers understanding of the different situations Negroes faced. When looking at the writings collectively they create a timeline. The timeline shows the various changes the Negroes mindset has gone through. The reader is exposed to three types of Negroes; one, the compliant Negro who knows his place, two, the Negro with will take his revenge and three, Negro who is conflicted between his desires and his responsibilities to his people.
The world today can sometimes be a hard place to live, or at least live in comfort. Whether it be through the fault of bullies, or an even more wide spread problem such as racism, it is nearly impossible to live a day in the world today and feel like it was only full of happiness and good times. Due to this widespread problem of racism, often times we tend to see authors go with the grain and ignore it, continuously writing as if nothing bad happens in the world. Fortunately, Claudia Rankine, is not one of these authors. Rankine manages to paint a vivid picture of a life of hardships in her lyric Citizen: An American Lyric. In this lyric Claudia Rankine shows that she truly has a very interesting and not commonly used approach to some literary
A dialectic is the process of synthesizing truth by holding contradictory ideas in tension. Since Richard Wright’s short story “Long Black Song” and Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” have opposing arguments they must engage in a dialectic. Both stories examine the oppression of the African American race, but they find different sources for its difficulties and demise. In “Long Black Song”, Silas, while expressing his frustration for the superiority of the white men, articulates that the black woman is the source of African American difficulties. In “Sweat”, Sykes’s encounter with death reveals that the African American man’s arrogance is the cause of the demise of the African American race. Wright’s short story “Long Black Song” and Hurston’s short story “Sweat” engage in a dialectic, in which “Sweat” repudiates “Long Black Song”, and produce the truth that one’s hubris that is the source of the difficulties of one’s race and the demise of oneself.
The poems, “I, Too” by Langston Hughes and “Incident” by Countee Cullen employ visual imagery, tone, literary devices such as hyperboles, symbolism, and foreshadowing in different ways to illustrate the public life interaction between two different races, and the private life of an African American’s internal struggle of not being able to fight against the prejudice towards them. Both poets share racism as their piece of life, and although dealing with racism is the central tension engaged in the poems, Cullen suggests that experiences can affect your view on life and change your attitude. Hughes on the other hand, proposes that with an optimistic attitude you can change the outcome of your future, and that your attitude is independent from past experiences.
The poem with the same title as the collection ’’I am not a racist but…’’ she uses satire to show how easy racism is not recognised or played down. She was hurt at a very young age by racist attitude and words as she wrote about her school years in the poem ‘’Making...
As this poem characterizes the view of a native woman expressing feelings of passion relating to her culture, it also criticizes society, in particular Christianity, as the speaker is experiencing feelings of discontent with the outcome of residential schools. It does not directly criticize the faith, but through the use of a heavy native dialect and implications to the Christian faith it becomes simple to read the speakers emotions.
The poems “Visitors to the Black Belt”, “Note on Commercial Theatre”, “Democracy”, and “Theme for English B” by Hughes all illustrate the theme of staying true to one’s cultural identity and refusing to compromise it despite the constant daily struggle it meant to be black in an Anglo-centric society. In both “Visitors to the Black Belt” and “Note on the Commercial Theatre”, the speaker that Hughes uses combines the use of the first and second person perspectives to show the relationship between how he (Hughes) feels as a black man, towards the white man who doesn’t really seek to understand or help the black community, but instead just appropriates the cultural touchstones. “Visitors to the Black Belt” depicts the romanticism of black culture by whites.... ... middle of paper ...
Benjamin Zephaniah is a Jamaican author and poet. He was born in Birmingham, England, and grew up in east London. His previous experiences from being a victim of racial discrimination and prejudice and being a teenage rebel, involved in theft and drug crimes gave him the inspiration to write the poem ‘No problem’. The author himself, having been discriminated upon, is trying to show us that he is not the problem, but however the problem is in general. The situation, viewpoint and meaning.
There are many different ways to express feelings towards an individual's race, culture, and ethnicity. It is one thing to talk about them, but it is another when everything spoken is nothing but positivity. In Carl Sandburg's poem “Nigger”, he portrays the positive vibes of African Americans. Looking at a title can be very deceiving until actually read. With everything written in free verse, Sandburg expresses the good qualities of individuals through different races, nationalities, and celebrates the common people in the language of the streets.
Thesis: The poems “Negro”, “I Too”, and “Song for a Dark Girl” by Langston Hughes was written around an era of civil inequality. A time when segregation was a customary thing and every African American persevered through civil prejudice. Using his experience, he focuses his poems on racial and economic inequality. Based on his biographical information, he uses conflict to illustrate the setting by talking about hardships only a Negro would comprehend and pride only a Negro can experience, which helps maintain his racial inequality theme.
The novels Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness are illustrations of the baser aspects of human nature, both in their content and the manner in which they deal with the subject of subjugation, violence, and suffering during historical interracial confluences. This fact is illus...
...ites a short 33-line poem that simply shows the barriers between races in the time period when racism was still openly practiced through segregation and discrimination. The poem captures the African American tenant’s frustrations towards the landlord as well as the racism shown by the landlord. The poem is a great illustration of the time period, and it shows how relevant discrimination was in everyday life in the nineteen-forties. It is important for the author to use the selected literary devices to help better illustrate his point. Each literary device in the poem helps exemplify the author’s intent: to increase awareness of the racism in the society in the time period.
Over the years, the notion of discrimination has evolved. In the modern world, it has become more implicit, however, in the early 18th-century discrimination in the form of slavery and racism was evident. Though most people accepted this act, there were some who opposed it. William Blake, a former poet rejected the idea of hierarchy and supported equality. Blake believed that black people were not inferior to white people and treating someone on the basis of his skin colour is ignorance. The essay will look at how Blake’s view is represented in the poem “The Little Black Boy” which is derived from the Songs of Innocence and Experience.