Grandson’s Lesson in Flannery O’Connor’s The Artificial Nigger
“He’s never seen anything before,” Mr. Head continued. “Ignorant as the day he was born, but I mean for him to get his fill once and for all.” P.254
This quote which comes early in the text of Flannery O’Connor’s “The Artificial Nigger,” is of great significance for understanding this novel as a whole. The quote comes from the beginning of this short story when the Grandfather (Mr. Head) is on the train with his grandson (Nelson). Mr. Head utters this quote to the man sitting next to him on the train. Mr. Head decided to take Nelson to Atlanta to see the city where Nelson was born and to teach him some things along the way.
There are countless instances in the text that show that Nelson indeed has not seen anything before and that he is indeed very ignorant. Early in the story, Mr. Head feels the need to warn Nelson about what he will see in Atlanta. “You may not like it a bit (Atlanta),” Mr. Head continued. “It’ll be full of niggers.” Even though this didn’t seem to bother Nelson, the grandfather felt the need to warm him since he was “ignorant as the day he was born.” Shortly thereafter, while on the train to Atlanta, a “tan” man walks down the aisle of the train. Again, Mr. Head has to instruct Nelson that a person, who is tan, is still “considered a Negro.” Its almost as if Nelson has been sheltered his entire life.
That one short quote from page 253 couldn’t sum up Nelson’s life any more. Other examples of Nelson’s sheltered nature include Mr. Head’s insistence on showing Nelson the toilet and sinks in the bathroom of the train and the dinning car and how the city’s sewer system works. Nelson can’t seem to take it all in fast enough. On the train he is in awe of everything he sees and passes, and while walking the streets of Atlanta, all the stores, people and sights leave young Nelson dumbfounded.
While all of this is true, this quote I chose to do my close reading on is significant in its foreshadowing. Granted, Mr. Head showed Nelson much on their Atlanta trip, he also taught Nelson a great lesson in mercy, forgiveness and being like Christ. Toward the end of the story, Nelson bumps into a woman who accuses him of breaking her ankle.
Fredrick Douglass focuses on both ethos and pathos when comes to persuasion. The most powerful example of ethos takes place in chapter one when he says he does not know his birthday, unlike white civilians. Opening with this information tells readers that he can be trusted because of his direct personal experience. Douglass provokes reader’s emotion with use of language in a way that helps audiences empathize with him. For example, he one of his masters have hired a man to have sex and reproduce with a slave woman for profit. He having to live with that and the vivid description shows a lot of
Douglass’s resistance of oppression was much more direct, both mentally and physically. Due to the 1st first person perspective of his Narrative, his tactics come off much more understandable and justifiable to his largely, White, Northern audience. Throughout the narrative, especially in scene between a master and his aunt, he portrays slaves as helpless victims at the mercy of their sadistic master. Witnessing his master beat his aunt into a bloody pulp, for example, emasculated Douglass because he could not prevent the man from asserting his authority over her. In the scene with Mr. Covey, however, Douglass portrayed violence as an act of reclaiming his manhood. Although the “slave-breaker” manages to overwork and beat Douglass until he nearly had no choice but to recover from his anguish instead of pursuing any education or freedom, his fight against Mr. Covey was a physical manifestation of his inner power and identity that even Mr. Covey could not ignore. The two White perspectives in Benito Cereno depict the violence among the slaves and the Whites as the complete opposite. Although the slaves have clearly proven they are far more intelligent and powerful than the other men have presumed, the White men’s internalized racism prevents them from seeing this aspect and draws their attention towards the physical violence instead. They label themselves as the
College athletes should be paid because of the huge amount of money being made off of the use of their athletic ability. The college basketball and football games that everyone watches on TV is no longer just a game, it is a business. The colleges and arenas hosting such events are not doing it solely for the love of sport, they are doing it for the money that will flow generously into their banking accounts. The coaches also, they are not volunteers, they are not there just for their love of the game, coaching is their job. The athletic directors, coaching staff, and event staff are all doing their job to put food on the table. The fans are watching the game, the players, the ones who are making huge sacrifices to be on the court. The athletes are the only ones in this circle of business who are putting in the hours, maybe even the most hours, and not getting a paycheck. It is time for a change, the fans, the players, and the NCAA is ready for it, it just has to be done. However, there are those out there fighting the other side of this battle, saying there is no need for these student athletes to be paid. Both sides have good points but one of them has great points.
After Douglass is lucky enough to be selected out of hundreds of slaves to be shipped to Baltimore he meets his new masters and adopts to slave life in the city. His new mistress is a first time slaveholder and is very compassionate towards Fredrick she even teaches him his ABC’s
“A good man is hard to find”: and the “White Privilege System” Flannery O’Connor’s A good man is hard to find describes the end of the Bailey’s family (the author did not mention their last name) that was caused by the meeting with the escaped prisoner Misfit and the Grandmother’s behavior. Arguments of this short story both agree and disagree with the article White privilege: Unpacking the invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh. O’Connor demonstrated people believe in a privilege of skin color (and the social status in this case) that was given to them “as a default”. The author also showed individuals should reconsider this confidence in the privileges’ presence. This is about the “agreement” point.
A question that has been rising to the surface lately is “should college athletes be paid a salary?” One cannot get on the internet now a day and not see some kind of college sport headline. The world of college sports has been changed greatly the past decade due to college athletes. These athletes make insurmountable amounts of money and an unbelievable amount of recognition for the universities. The athletes that provide and make a ton of revenue for the colleges also spend a huge amount of their time practicing and staying committed to sports, and have to maintain good grades in school which requires quite a bit of overtime. Because college athletes generate massive amounts of revenue and put in massive amounts of personal time for their individual universities, colleges need to financially compensate players for their contributions. The colleges that these superstars represent are reaping all of the benefits of the accomplishments the athletes have, yet the big named players are making nothing from what they do.
Narrating these stories informs readers not familiar with slavery a clear idea on how slaves lived and were treated. The novel brings a strong political message to our society. If Douglass explains to people what slavery was about, they would be influenced to make a change. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the story of Frederick Douglass from the time he was born a slave to the time of his escape to freedom. Through years of physical abuse and assault, Douglass overcame these obstacles to become an advocate against
Frederick Douglass was an American slave in the south during the time of the abolitionist movement. During his time in slavery he learned his ABC’s from a benevolent slave owner and from there teaches himself how to read. Using this knowledge he is able to learn about the abolitionist movement in the north and eventually plans his escape from his captivity in Baltimore. Many years after his escape he is able to write and publish the narrative of his life with the purpose of showing abolitionist and those on the fence about slavery in the North that the institution is not all it is portrayed to be. During Douglass’s time many slave owners painted a different view of the South and how kind and just slavery was. In his narrative Douglass fights this claim by depicting frightening violations of human rights that occurred in his own life time to show abolitionist that slavery is blatantly against american justice and liberty.
While writing about the dehumanizing nature of slavery, Douglass eloquently and efficiently re-humanize African Americans. This is most evident throughout the work as a whole, yet specific parts can be used as examples of his artistic control of the English language. From the beginning of the novel, Douglass’ vocabulary is noteworthy with his use of words such as “intimation […] odiousness […] ordained.” This more advanced vocabulary is scattered throughout the narrative, and is a testament to Douglass’ education level. In conjunction with his vocabulary, Douglass often employed a complex syntax which shows his ability to manipulate the English language. This can be seen in Douglass’ self-description of preferring to be “true to [himself], even at the hazard of incurring ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur [his] own abhorrence.” This is significant because it proves that Douglass can not only simply read and write, but he has actually obtained a mastery of reading and writing. This is a highly humanizing trait because it equates him in education level to that of the stereotypical white man, and how could one deny that the white man is human because of his greater education? It is primarily the difference in education that separates the free from the slaves, and Douglass is able to bridge this gap as a pioneer of the
Americans were incarcerated during this time for acts of violence. Police officers would brutally beat those in involvement with the movement if they refused to go along with the social norm of the society and so on. Others were perhaps jumped by white men when the blacks came off as being ‘disrespectful” to their way of living. The acts of Civil Rights continued until Jim Crow laws were uplifted.
Parental figures in Toni Morrison's "Recitatif" and Flannery O'Connor's "The Artificial Nigger" use indoctrination in an attempt to uphold tradition and reinforce racial boundaries. While one adult influence fulfills the mission entirely, the other must settle for inconstant, recurrent success and ultimate failure.
Richard Wright was a novelist who wrote about being black in American. He used his writings as a form of advertisement to civilize communism. Being that he was born into slavery he experienced oppression since birth. His first published novel was Uncle Tom’s Children and the book consisted of different short stories of racial oppression in the South such as lynching and the KKK. One of his most defining novels is Black Boy as he wrote about the cultural, political, racial, religion, and social issues of the late 19th century.
...ent expense the year it incurred. Due to the reporting error, in 2001 $3.055 billion was misclassified and 4791 million in the first quarter of 2002 (Law Maryland). In order to avoid getting caught, WorldCom was trying to be slick by leaving some line costs as current expense so that the error in classifying would not be easily detectible. This error in classifying expenses cause WorldCom to increase net income and assets. This fraud was found by the companies internal audit, Cynthia cooper, on May 2002. This detection was not good news to Arthur Anderson as they were the outside auditors of WorldCom. Anderson had already been affected by Enron scandal and neglecting to do to their job correctly. But with WorldCom they claimed that the chief financial officer Scott Sullivan did not tell them about the line costs being capitalized and they were unaware of this fact.
The economic problem was that WorldCom had a vast supply in telecommunications capacity that emerged in the 1990s, as the industry rushed to build fibre optic networks and other infrastructure based on overly optimistic projections of Internet growth (Lyke and Jickling, 2002)
Today everyone encounters some form of oppression. One of the forms Richard is encountering is called societal oppression. As an example, after Richard sees a "black" boy whipped by a "white" man, he asks his mother why did the incident happen. His mother says, " 'The "white" man did not whip the "black" boy...He beat the "black" boy, ' "(31). This quote is showing racism, which is one way of society keeping Richard Wright, and all other blacks in the South down.