Essay on Richard Rive's "The Bench" Richard Rive was born in District Six in Cape Town. " The Bench" is taken from his short story collection, "Advance, Retreat " influenced by events during the Defiance of Unjust Laws Campaign from 1952 to 1953. The story starts with an exert from a speech that is held in Cape Town, South Africa. It is clearly part of a demonstration against the apartheid system. A large black man with a rolling voice says," It is up to everyone of us to challenge the right of any law which wilfully condemns any person to an inferior position." The lecture is held outdoors, most of the crowd being coloured. The main character in the story, Karlie, a black man, follows every word the speaker says. He doesn't quite understand the full meaning of them, but realises that they are true words. The speaker tells Karlie that he has certain rights. The picture of himself living like a white man frightens him, but at the same time fascinates him. All he has ever been taught is that God made the white man white, the coloured man brown and the black man black and that they must know their place. The people on the platform behave as if there were no difference in colour. It makes sense, but still only in a vague way. All the time Karlie is comparing what is happening on the platform to his own situation back home. There, people of different colour could never offer each other a cigarette as a white woman does to a black man, up on the stage. The idea makes him laugh, getting him noticed by a couple of people. This shows that Karlie is not completely comfortable or at ease with all this new information. His upbringing is strongly embedded in him. Playing with the thought of being as good as any other man he remembers black opposers of apartheid going to prison, smiling. It confuses him. As a white woman speaker says, " One must challenge all discriminatory laws," Karlie grows more confident, fear and passivity are replaced with determination to act for equality.A white woman jeopardising all her advantages to say what she believes in. Never had he seen anything like this in his home town. A determination starts creeping over his vagueness. Now he wants to challenge, whatever the consequences. He wants to be in the newspaper smiling. This is a turning point in his life. After the meeting, on the way to the station, Karlie is on the receiving end of a nasty, racialist comment from an approaching car. " Karlie stared dazed, momentarily too stunned to speak." By reacting at all, it shows that he now questions this kind of treatment. To " challenge" like the white woman speaker said, he sits on a "whites only" bench at the railway station. Although this story spans over a limited time, Karlie has gone through an extreme change in his life. He is now determined to fight for his own freedom as a human being. He rebels against his former upbringing imprinted in him and wants to find a new place in society for himself. This short story was written during the apartheid system. The bench at the railway station symbolises South African society at that time. Karlie refuses to move from the " whites only " bench and is therefore pulled away by the police. Under apartheid even mixed marriages were not allowed. Schools, restaurants and hotels were segregated. " Bantu education" was enforced for black people in South Africa in 1953. The blacks were taught that they were less intelligent than other races. Karlie`s initial confusion while listening to the speech, can be linked to this form of brain washing. Many were opposed to this oppressive system. Karlie is of course alone in disobeying the police, but he represents all the black opponents of apartheid and racial discrimination. " Karlie turned to resist, to cling to the bench, to his bench." Karlie is not only holding on to a bench, but also to his own existence as an equal citizen of South Africa. " It was senseless fighting any longer. Now it was his turn to smile." Although Karlie looses his grip, he is not defeated. He smiles as he`s taken away. Karlie wins the battle with himself and is proud of showing his victory.
Once again, Roberta and Twyla meet at and uppity grocery store; Roberta has climbed up the social ladder and tries to play nice. However, when Twyla brings up Maggie, Roberta tells a different story than what Twyla remembers and then tries to defend her past behavior towards Twyla by saying “‘You know how everything was (141).’” Roberta’s defense mechanism by blaming the times shows the reader just how prevalent instilled racism is between the two. Likewise, the plot reaches a climax when the women meet a third time at their children’s schools during integration. The two begin a full-on picket war with one another because Twyla catches Roberta protesting the integration of schools and when confronted, believes she is doing nothing wrong. Tensions rise when the two mirror the phrase “’I wonder what made me think you were different (143).’” This admission to social and racial differences expresses the theme of the story and opens one another’s eyes to what has really happened between the
...aines, occurs while living in Wayne County Mississippi at his home named Peachwood. Gaines started a nursery business that would be his last financial venture. Before Gaines could become entangled in his business, he decided to run for the Mississippi House of Representatives and won a term for two years. The major importance of this term was his vote for the secession from the union of the state of Mississippi. After his term in office, Gaines went home to Peachwood and settled into the nursery business. Although returning home from the war was an exciting time for Gaines’ business expansion, he went through another trial by losing his wife of fifty-six years. Gaines went through many trials and tribulations throughout his life and will always remembered as a true statesman for both the states of Alabama and Mississippi.
Racism is a disease that limits the freedom of a group that shares one exact common thing, for example the African-American people in the 1800’s. First example that proves racism limiting the freedom of particular group was presented in the novel, where the majority of the white people thought of black people as slaves and that the black people do not deserve anything in life. In the novel, this was addressed in the beginning of the novel, where Janie who was the “protagonist” in the story that mostly represented the author out of all the characters in the novel, was made fun off and teased when she wore the old clothes that were given to her from her neighbour Mrs. Washburn because her grandchildren did not need them anymore. This shows how the whites view the black people, and how it affected the children as well. This example can be analysed using the social constructivism, where this theory can be used to identify that rac...
In Richard Wright’s novel, Black Boy, Richard is struggling to survive in a racist environment in the South. In his youth, Richard is vaguely aware of the differences between blacks and whites. He scarcely notices if a person is black or white, and views all people equally. As Richard grows older, he becomes more and more aware of how whites treat blacks, the social differences between the races, and how he is expected to act when in the presence of white people. Richard, with a rebellious nature, finds that he is torn between his need to be treated respectfully, with dignity and as an individual with value and his need to conform to the white rules of society for survival and acceptance.
Blacks encroaching upon the power structure which is integral to her behavior have forced her to either reassess her behavior, or substantiate it. She is an old woman, whose meaning to life is reliant upon segregation, and she will, in every case, opt for the latter, In her discourse with her son, Julian, she proudly refers to a great-grandfather who was a slave owner, the tragedy of "half-whites", and, as proof for not riding integrated buses alone, a large Black passenger sitting adjacent to her, reading a newspaper. Her mani...
The novella The Call of the Wild is a story of Buck overcoming challenges while being thrown into the real world and learning new traits like persistence and resilience. Protagonist Buck is a colossal St Bernards cross Scotch shepherd dog, transforms from a humble house dog and then eventually returns to a primordial state as a best of the wild. Along the way he is faced with an endless array of challenges. London achieves this by portraying Buck’s change in character in a manner that explores and incorporates diverse motifs.
But unlike Gregory’s tale, Wilkins’s story lacks figurative language. Though he does use descriptive language, like when he described what his white neighbors thought about him and his African American family moving in: “The prevailing wisdom in the neighborhood was that we were spoiling it and that we ought to go back where we belonged (or, alternatively ought not intrude where we not wanted.)” (Wilkins). The main problem is that there are no metaphors, similes, symbols, alliterations, and so on. But a strong point of this piece is that it is to the point. All the details he put in his story made sense and helped make his point of equality clear. One such example of this is when he describes his teacher Dorothy Bean, “I later came to know that in Grand Rapids, she was viewed as a very liberal person who believed, among other things, that Negroes were equal.” (Wilkins). This detail helps to establish her as a guiding force to help the other students see Wilkins as an equal. Another great strength in this story was its clear organization of the events that took place. It began with an explanation of the setting, how he was treated, how the teacher treated him, and ended with him being accepted by the other students. Everything was chronologically ordered and easy to follow, which also made it a more enjoyable
In Brent Staples’ "Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space," Staples describes the issues, stereotypes, and criticisms he faces being a black man in public surroundings. Staples initiates his perspective by introducing the audience in to thinking he is committing a crime, but eventually reveals how the actions taken towards him are because of the fear linked to his labelled stereotypes of being rapists, gangsters and muggers. Staples continues to unfold the audience from a 20 year old experience and sheds light onto how regardless of proving his survival compared to the other stereotypical blacks with his education levels and work ethics being in the modern era, he is still in the same plight. Although Staples relates such burdens through his personal experiences rather than directly revealing the psychological impacts such actions have upon African Americans with research, he effectively uses emotion to explain the social effects and challenges they have faced to avoid causing a ruckus with the “white American” world while keeping his reference up to date and accordingly to his history.
It is evident from the book that Ward and her family have been subjected to institutional and individual racism. “I listened to my grandmother when she was worried about her sons,” Ward writes, “about them being stopped by the police for no other reasons than they were black and male”(19). This sentence from the author presents the issue of racial profiling within law enforcement and introduces a new kind of fear to Jesmyn, one that her older family members know all too well. The intersectionality of race and gender and class are also abundantly seen in the parts of the book where Ward talks about her mother and how when she was younger she had been forced by her own mother to assume the role of an adult and caretaker of her younger siblings. Ward’s mother came from a poor, one parent household in which the mother was employed full time. This family setting was not uncommon within the rural south, especially for African American families. Because they were discriminated against for their skin tone, they were paid less and were overlooked when it came to new job opportunities. Ward’s ancestors were freed from slavery only to find that the generations to come would still be facing a certain type of oppression based on
She was a young African American girl. At the age of 7 she had the opportunity to merge into an all-white school. Her teacher, Mrs. Henry, was a white woman. She helped her through the big change of integrating into an all white student school. Everyday, when Ruby would go to school, there was a mob of white people that threatened her and would scream horrible things to her. Every morning when Ruby entered the door to Mrs. Henry’s class, Mrs. Henry was always standing there to greet Ruby with a giant smile. Mrs. Henry also stood up for Ruby. She stood up to the principal who wanted to change Ruby’s test score on her year end test. Ruby had done excellent on the test, but the principal was going to lower Ruby’s score, so that she would not be accepted into the school the following year. Mrs. Henry stood up for Ruby and told that principal that changing her test score was not right and that she was making a fool out of herself. At the end of the year, a group of kids started playing with her. One young boy would always stare at her and be rude. One day he said, “My mama said I can’t play with you because you’re a nigger”. Young children were raised to think that racial discrimination was okay and they did not know any other way to act. Ruby accomplished many things throughout the remainder of her life (list a couple thing.) She was
The English arts and crafts movement, modernism and constructivism were main influences of the Bauhaus. Walter Gropius idea was to merge these influences, to make the reigning principles of form and function. The idea that design is a service of the public, and a belief in the perfection and efficiency of geometry. [1] Gropius aim was then to bring artist and craftspeople together, in order to take on technological developments. It was evident that technology was the future and with the use of machines brought opportunities to mass-produce beautiful products for everyday use. The Bauhaus embraced the ‘machine aesthetic’ as artists began to create prototypes for industrial production, the designs were based on simple geometric shapes and primary colours. These designs were to be mass-produced using modern technology and were to be available to all people. [2]
Founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, the Bauhaus was a German art school that initiated the combination of art and crafts innovatively to produce goods for everyday use, which influenced and shaped modern life. The Bauhaus value is still effective today since we can still see the impact of the Bauhaus. For example, contemporary furniture are mostly minimalist, which is one of the values from the Bauhaus. This essay will discuss the failure of the Bauhaus in achieving its mass-produce ideal through examining three Bauhaus production, the Wassily Chair, the chess set and Model No. MT49 tea infuser. Through the aspects of artistry and utility, the Bauhaus pursued to generate reasonably priced mass-production by taking the forms and materials into
In the 19th century, Creativity and manufacturing started drifting apart, and as a result the Bauhaus aimed to unite them one more time, bringing back to design for everyday life. The school had for initiative to resuscitate every single aspect of art that started to fade away; everything that contributes to the beauty of art and gives it its
...fective in presenting both sides of their story accenting the differences in life standards, opportunities and rights. However Callum’s despair still affects Sephy, even when you are the wealthy daughter of a respected politician, Sephy will never be happy until she can be with Callum in an equal society. I think the authors values and attitudes are clearly shown through Sephy’s unhappiness. Blackman believes love and family to be more important than business, material goods, money and skin colour.
The speech was deliver in the school auditorium at shadowland Elementary school with about 100 to 150 students between the ages of 9 -13. (Grade 4th to 5th Grade). As it comes out, the director of the school was given the speech about black history. He, himself was a black African American born in the United States. The student enter in the one entrance door quietly and sat on the floor. Little by little, more kids join in. As soon as the door close, the director shows up and cheer the kids up. I could tell that the students had a connection with the director. On the screen was his name and the tittle of the speech “Now and back then” Black history speech.