Life is a learning lesson that we all have to experience. In the story "Black Hair" by Gary Soto, the main character learns more than he bargained for. The theme of the story is not completely clear until a deeper look is given. It is easy to understand the story, but the words and symbols play a major role in making this short story have a deep meaning. There are many different ways that one can perceive this story's theme, but it all depends on how one can relate with it. The central theme is how society classifies people into categories in relation to their work. One sub-theme that is apparent, but not obvious, is that one cannot change who they are, and should accept themselves. Also, Soto touches on how the past reflects the future. There are some symbols that relate to the theme of how the main character learns to accept himself, and how he relates back to the past.
The main character goes out, unconsciously, to search for the "American dream." He wants a loving family that does not fight with one another. One evening he walks down a suburban street and watches families interact and desires that love and bond. He remembers his mother crying and his stepfather yelling and believes them to be cruel. "They're cruel, I thought, and warned myself that I should never forgive them. How could they do this to me"(91). He realizes through the arguing family he is staying with, that maybe there is no such thing as the "American dream", and that all families have problems.
When he looks through the Van Deusens daughter's stuff, he begins to have some
sort of obsession with her. He dreams that she falls in love with him. In reality he does not have feelings for her at all; he wants to be like her. He loves the idea of her and ...
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... job. He realizes that his past was not as difficult as current place in life.
The story "Black Hair," touches upon many issues, and the main character learns a lot about himself. He learns how to accept himself and accept his past. He learns that the "American dream" is falsified and has yet to find a person actually living it. He gains
knowledge about hard work and how, for some, it never pays off. He learns that he can not "rub away" his past, and accepts it. He also learns that his past life was not as bad as he thought, compared to working at the factory. In our lives, we always strive for more. It never seems like we have enough. But by reading this short story, we too can learn the same lesson as the main character did; our lives are not that bad, and things could get worse.
Works Cited
Soto, Gary. "Black Hair." No other information provided.
His memory of her is sweet and beautiful so that even without saying it, it is obvious that he was, and possibly is still, in love with her. He remembered the past and convinced himself that it could be like that once again. He became delusional with love, and was blinded by it.
Racism is more than just blatant comments and police brutality. It is also found in the subtle things, like the lack of opportunities in education. Graduation by Maya Angelou and I Just Wanna Be Average by Mike Rose both address this issue of opportunities and race. In St. Louis, Missouri, Maya Angelou went to an all-black school during the 1930s and 40s, while Mike Rose is a second generation Italian immigrant in Los Angeles in the 1950s. Both wrote about their experiences with systemic racism in education. Both authors are given low expectations and have no power over their futures, which shows how systemic racism sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy of underachievement.
The novel explores the predatory nature of human existence. It explores loneliness, isolation and friendship. A major theme is that of the illusionary nature of 'Dreams'. In particular, 'The American Dream'.
A mother drives her three kids to soccer practice in a Ford minivan while her husband stays at the office, rushing to finish a report. Meanwhile, a young woman prays her son makes his way home from the local grocery without getting held up at knife point by the local gang. Nearby, an immigrant finishes another 14-hour shift at the auto parts factory, trying to provide for his wife and child, struggling to make way in a new land. Later, a city girl hails a cab to meet her girlfriends at their favorite club to celebrate her new promotion over cosmopolitans. These people – the suburban soccer mom, the tired immigrant, the worried mother from the hood, and the successful city girl – each represent the different realities or fantasies that exist in the American society. They are all living or working towards what they believe to be the coveted American dream. Some of these people are similar to the Chinese immigrant, Ralph, in Gish Jen’s novel Typical American. However, all are confused as to what the American dream really is and whether or not the dream is real.
Institutionalized racism has been a major factor in how the United States operate huge corporations today. This type of racism is found in many places which include schools, court of laws, job places and governmental organizations. Institutionalized racism affects many factors in the lives of African Americans, including the way they may interact with white individuals. In the book “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Stories” ZZ Packer uses her short stories to emphasize the how institutionalized racism plays in the lives of the characters in her stories. Almost all her characters experience the effects of institutionalized racism, and therefore change how they view their lives to adapt. Because institutionalized racism is a factor that affects how
She believes the American Dream means having family and a home. Her beliefs are not negative, but her attitude regarding obtaining these possessions is negative. She tries to obtain a family or a loving relationship and preserve a home by any means necessary. In the novel, she is portrayed as a separated young woman whom is irresponsible and selfish. She willingly pursues a married man in an effort to have someone she can love and someone to love her back. She does not want to be alone or feel lonely. She disregards the wife and children Lester has at home. After Kathy loses her home, she makes poor choices to retrieve her home. She takes the law into her own hands and disregards the feeling and lives of the new owners of the home. Kathy’s actions are unacceptable, but her view of the American Dream is simplistic and
Each character in the novel has their own interpretation of the ‘American Dream – the pursuit of happiness’ as they all lack happiness due to the careless nature of American society during the Jazz Age. The American Dreams seems almost non-existent to those whom haven’t already achieved it.
...why he never found them. He will not allow himself to because by this point he had given up on school and eventually he gave up on the whole world. Tragically though, he gives it all up before he truly has a chance to get it started.
Today in society, people have different perspectives on what is the American dream because we as Americans are all not the same because we all see things differently than what another person sees. Some families with tons of money could be living a horrible life, always fighting with each other and never happy while a not so rich family could just be happy and make due with what they have as long as they stick together; maybe the dream for some people is more realistic than the dream for other people who may have more opportunities. This could be their dream. The House on Mango Street presents good aspects of the American Dream and offers insights on the extension of the American Dream they are living; wanting more than they can achieve with in their means and desires that one must uphold to keep a family together peacefully. The House on Mango Street presents a family that lives right below the American Dream (kind of like an extension of it); they have a house, beautiful family that loves each other, mother and father who are together and love each other and their children the same, but because they still do not have the financial security one must obtain to freely pursue that dream, it just would not be a typi...
When people think of the American Dream, they usually picture a wealthy family who lives in a big house with a white picket fence. They see the husband being the breadwinner for the wife and kids, by supporting and providing the best way that he can. They also picture the wife catering to her husband 's every need. The protagonist Janie Crawford lives this American Dream but soon comes to a realization that this life isn’t her destiny. Crawford learns that love does not involve money but rather being joyful. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie breaks the American Dream myth by living a non-traditional life through belief, happiness, and freedom.
As the story goes we start with a family who appears as a typical family where the desires of the parents are for their children to be smart and successful in life and the desires of the children are those of any typical child. However, as the story unfolds we are given the insight of the true nature of the family that follows most laws of nature that there is greed and deception even among loved ones. That every family has its secrets and that every secret comes with a cost no matter how small.
The American dream has an inspiring connotation, often associated with the pursuit of happiness, to compel the average citizen to prosper. In Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s infatuation for Daisy drives him towards wealth in order to respark his love. Due to Daisy’s rich background, the traditional idea of love becomes skewed because of the materialistic mindsets of people in the 1920s. In the novel the wealthy are further stratified into two social classes creating a barrier between the elite and the “dreamers”. Throughout the novel, the idea of the American dream as a fresh start fails. As Nick, the narrator, spends time in New York, he realizes the corruption pursuing goals. Characters such as Gatsby and Myrtle constantly strive toward an the American dream, which Nick realizes to be fruitless in the end.
The American Dream provides a uniformed idea of a goal that is seldomly achieved. It includes having a successful job, a healthy family, and happiness achieved through hard work and determination. Those born and raised well with strict parents often attain the American Dream, but those raised with abusive parents that live separately often find the American Dream extremely difficult to achieve. However, this idealistic stereotype can be false. Surprisingly, in the book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote the American Dream poses as a difficulty to maintain and achieve by the Clutter family, Perry Smith, Dick Hickock, and Floyd Wells.
The sympathetic humanist might bristle at first, but would eventually concur. For it's hard to argue with poverty. At the time the novel was published (1912), America held very few opportunities for the Negro population. Some of the more successful black men, men with money and street savvy, were often porters for the railroads. In other words the best a young black man might hope for was a position serving whites on trains. Our protagonist--while not adverse to hard work, as evidenced by his cigar rolling apprenticeship in Jacksonville--is an artist and a scholar. His ambitions are immense considering the situation. And thanks to his fair skinned complexion, he is able to realize many, if not all, of them.
In the plays Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet both have the concept of being revolved around family. Both of these plays are revolved around family everything that the men in the plays do is for their families. While it may not seem like it some of the time but it really is for their families. Which ties in to the American Dream and making sure your family is happy and has a house, a car and food in their stomachs. In these plays the characters do everything to make sure their family has what it needs no matter what it takes, try and make their family happy, and shows what the American Dream is.