Analysis of The Necessary Knocking on the Door by Ann Petry
Ann Petry was born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She is white and was living in a neighbourhood where the majority of the people were black. Anyhow, Ann Petry when through her childhood without any prejudices against racial difference. It was only later that she encountered racism. Then, she studied and became a pharmacist but in 1938, she decided to move in Harlem with her husband and to write. She began by writing short stories and poems that exposed the treat of racism. The Necessary Knocking on the Door was one of them. Particularly, Ann Petry denounced this scourge of society by using setting, characterisation and conflict.
First of all, the setting adds depth to the theme of racism. Right in the introduction, the author carries the reader in a dark and mysterious environment. An unusual emphasis is made on the moon light and the building's walls. These elements of the setting convey all this fear and repudiation towards racism. The "pale, cold light making grotesque patterns on the floors, walls and ceiling" gives an idea of the felling of insecurity that the main character is suffering from. In addition, the stillness and old age of the place makes the reader realise that things are not going to change. The author is making it more obvious when she says that the wood is "protesting against age". Then, Ann Petry carries her character Alice Knight in the long corridor. Mrs. Petry uses a very important word in that part of the story: "The moon light is superimposing the walls". Roughly, it means that the white light is on the dark walls. Ultimately, the use of such word could be interpreted as the superiority of the whites over the blacks, a...
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...d for help. Although, there could be none: everyone was white, like Gib Taylor. These examples are all products of racism that led Alice to return to her room and fall asleep without remorse.
In conclusion, racism was omnipresent throughout three elements of the story. The setting enhanced racism, the characters where led by racist attitude and the conflict is racism. When Ann Petry wrote her fist novel, it sold over 1,5 million copies, showing the interest the Americans had for the theme of racism. The critics said that it was shocking, deep and leading to question society. Ann Petry had simply written about the normal life of a mother in Harlem. Finally, racism is still a treat today but it is less important than it was fifty years ago. Ann Petry is one that contributed to make the people alive to this problem.
The author illustrates the “dim, rundown apartment complex,” she walks in, hand and hand with her girlfriend. Using the terms “dim,” and “rundown” portrays the apartment complex as an unsafe, unclean environment; such an environment augments the violence the author anticipates. Continuing to develop a perilous backdrop for the narrative, the author describes the night sky “as the perfect glow that surrounded [them] moments before faded into dark blues and blacks, silently watching.” Descriptions of the dark, watching sky expand upon the eerie setting of the apartment complex by using personification to give the sky a looming, ominous quality. Such a foreboding sky, as well as the dingy apartment complex portrayed by the author, amplify the narrator’s fear of violence due to her sexuality and drive her terror throughout the climax of the
Janie’s first discovery about herself comes when she is a child. She is around the age of six when she realizes that she is colored. Janie’s confusion about her race is based on the reasoning that all her peers and the kids she grows up with are white. Janie and her Nanny live in the backyard of the white people that her Nanny works for. When Janie does not recognize herself on the picture that is taken by a photographer, the others find it funny and laughs, leaving Janie feeling humiliated. This racial discovery is not “social prejudice or personal meanness but affection” (Cooke 140). Janie is often teased at school because she lives with the white people and dresses better than the other colored kids. Even though the kids that tease her were all colored, this begins Janie’s experience to racial discrimination.
All through the story, the yellow wallpaper acts as an antagonist, causing her to become very annoyed and disturbed. There is nothing to do in the secluded room but stare at the wallpaper. The narrator tells of the haphazard pattern having no organization or symmetrical plot. Her constant examination of and reflection on the wallpaper caused her much distress.... ...
The windows are barred, symbolizing the restrictive nature of the narrator’s mental condition. She is imprisoned within her mind. Her room was once a nursery, symbolizing that she is helpless and dependent on her husband’s care, similar to how a parent is reliant on the care of it’s parents, “… for the windows are barred for little children,” (Gilman 2). The narrator is not only trapped by her own mind and mental condition, but her husband’s wishes and expectations as well. The most significant symbol within the story is the yellow wallpaper. Initially, the narrator only views the wallpaper as something unpleasant, but over time she becomes fascinated with it’s formless pattern and tries to figure out how it’s organized. She discovers a sub-pattern within in it in which she distinguishes as a barred change with the heads of women that have attempted to escape the wallpaper like the woman she has been “seeing” moving within the wallpaper, “And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads” (Gilman 8). The yellow wallpaper is symbolic of a women’s place in society within the nineteenth century. It was not commonplace, or deemed acceptable, for women to be financially independent and/or engage in intellectual activity. The wallpaper is symbolic of those economic, intellectual, and social restrictions women were held to, as well as the domestic lives they were expected to lead. The narrator is so restricted by these social norms that her proper name is never given within the story, her only identity is “John’s wife”. At the climax of the story, the narrator identifies completely with the woman in the wallpaper and believes that by tearing the wallpaper, both she and the woman would be freed of their domestic prisons, “…there are so many of those
Ann Petry’s The Street is more than a story of racism and poverty in America. This novel is about how the intersectionality of identities limits African-Americans from achieving equality in the dominant race’s society. The protagonist, Lutie Johnson, has three barriers dragging her down. She is not only a woman, but a black woman who is also a lower class single mother.
As the narrator’s mental state changes so does the way she perceives things around the house. The most prominent example of this is the imagery of the wallpaper and the way the narrator’s opinion on the wallpaper slowly changes throughout the story; this directly reflects what is happening within the narrator’s mind. At the beginning of the story the narrator describes the wallpaper as “Repellent...revolting... a smoldering unclean yellow” (Gilman 377). As the story continues the narrator starts to become obsessed with the wallpaper and her opinion of it has completely changed than that of hers from the beginning. Symbolism plays a big part in “The Yellow Wallpaper” too. This short story has a multitude of symbols hidden in it but there are specific ones that stand out the most. The recurrence of the wallpaper definitely makes it a symbol. An interesting interpretation is that the wallpaper represents women, in the sense that the 18th century woman was considered almost decorative and that is exactly what the purpose of wallpaper is. Another prominent symbol that runs parallel with the wallpaper, are the women the narrator would see in the wallpaper. The women appear trapped behind bars in the paper and one could argue that the women the narrator sees represents all women of her time, continuously trapped in their gender
Symbolism “acts as webbing between theme and story. Themes alone can sound preachy, and stories alone can sound shallow. Symbolism weaves the two together” (Hall). Symbolism uses the story to convey the theme. Darkness is used in the novel to show the secrecy and lies that the story has. The whole story involves secrecy among two women and a man. Without symbolism the story would just have a very dark house and two very mysterious and disturbed women. Instead there is a feel of secrecy right from the beginning. Symbolism gives the story excitement, while also providing the reader with a good read. The author can read the first few pages and determine the story is not a happy
Janie Crawford, the novel’s main character, is an African American woman who eventually married three times throughout her lifetime. Her mother was raped by her schoolteacher and eventually gave birth to Janie, leaving her behind for Janie’s grandmother to raise her. A research article focused on Their Eyes Were Watching God concluded that “The devastating impact of the white discourse on black people which has targeted their identity is an integral part of this paper” (J Nov. Appl Sci. 1). It is evident in the novel that Janie (along with several other African Americans) are mistreated because of their skin color. This novel was set in the early 1900s, when although slavery was abolished, African Americans were not treated equally; the whites still held an unwritten superiority towards them. Although an imbalance of equality between whites and blacks is present, this novel should not be banned from the classroom because it teaches the cruel but true history of our nation. Our country’s history cannot be ignored like this, because it is a part of a valuable piece of literature and it makes society appreciate our new customs of equality that currently
In our society of today, there are many images that are portrayed through media and through personal experience that speak to the issues of black motherhood, marriage and the black family. Wherever one turns, there is the image of the black woman in the projects and very rarely the image of successful black women. Even when these positive images are portrayed, it is almost in a manner that speaks to the supposed inferiority of black women. Women, black women in particular, are placed into a society that marginalizes and controls many of the aspects of a black woman’s life. As a result, many black women do not see a source of opportunity, a way to escape the drudgery of their everyday existence. For example, if we were to ask black mother’s if they would change their situation if it became possible for them to do so, many would change, but others would say that it is not possible; This answer would be the result of living in a society that has conditioned black women to accept their lots in lives instead of fighting against the system of white and male dominated supremacy. In Ann Petry’s The Street, we are given a view of a black mother who is struggling to escape what the street symbolizes. In the end though, she becomes captive to the very thing she wishes to escape. Petry presents black motherhood, marriage and the black family as things that are marginalized according to the society in which they take place.
...demonstrates the oppression that women had to face in society during the nineteenth century. The nursery room, the yellow wallpaper, and the windows, all symbolize in some way the oppression of women done by men. She bases the story on one of her life experiences. Charlotte Gilman wrote the story because she believed that men and women should be treated equally.
When she first is confronted by the problem or race it hits her with a thump. Bob takes Alice to dinner where she states, “I don’t want feel like being refused” (55). Alice does what she can to avoid the face of racism. She lacks the integration within the different community, which gives her a one-path perspective. While going to the restaurant with Bob, he asks, “Scared because you haven’t got the white folks to cover you” (55)? She doesn’t have the protection of her friends or her parents to shy away from the truth of her being African American. She is hiding behind a mask because she’s passing as white. She’s accepting the assumption that she belongs to their culture. When she goes out, “with white folks the people think you’re white” (60). But, when she goes out with Bob there is nothing to hide behind. She’s confronted with the truth. Already feeling low about the restaurant, and getting pulled over by the cops, she uses her wealth to get out of the situation. She says, “I am a supervisor in the Los Angeles Welfare” (63). The power of her family shows that she be treated better by the cops and others in the
Flannery O’Connor was an extremely revered author for his writing techniques that may be examined throughout almost all of his pieces, especially in: “Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “Greenleaf”. Both of these short stories hone in on the two most controversial topics in societal history: religion and race. And with that, “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, a short story in the collection Everything That Rises Must Converge, is a brief tale from a third person point of view, set in the late 1960s; that of an old mother and her young adult son, Julian, who the story focuses on. He is a College graduate that’s too caught up in his own self-proclaimed brilliant mind and knows his mother is too bigoted to deal with the integration of African Americans into white communities. The story moves with an argument between the two about how African Americans really behave. All the while, he is helping her get to The Y for her weekly weight-loss class. She whimpers often about her terribly ugly hat and wanting to return it, but stubbornly gets on the bus continuing to discuss African American integration being wrong. After they board the bus and the whites make comments about it lacking any blacks, An African American gentleman in a suit enters and Julian sits by him to attempt to spite his mother, and then an African American lady and her son enter who ironically dons the identical hat to Julian’s mother. She is playful with the child but is seen as a racist when she tries to offer him a penny. She is denied when the child’s mother views it as an act of pity and Julian thinks that he has finally won the argument but is interrupted when his mother has a stroke. The story ends with Julian shouting for help. While this story focuses ...
What I liked most about this book was the reality it revealed. It showed how brutal and cruel the society was. This book made me realize that racism is deeply embedded in the life and history of the nation, and it still exists in today’s society.
Upon moving in to her home she is captivated, enthralled with the luscious garden, stunning greenhouse and well crafted colonial estate. This was a place she fantasized about, qualifying it as a home in which she seemed comfortable and free. These thoughts don’t last for long, however, when she is prescribed bed rest. She begins to think that the wallpaper, or someone in the wallpaper is watching her making her feel crazy. She finally abandons her positivity towards what now can be considered her husband’s home, and only labels negative features of the home. For example, the narrator rants about the wallpaper being, “the strangest yellow…wallpaper! It makes me think of… foul, bad yellow things” (Gilman). One can only imagine the mental torture that the narrator is experiencing, staring at the lifeless, repulsive yellow hue of ripping
Similarly, the furniture in the house is as sullen as the house itself. What little furniture is in the house is beaten-up; this is a symbol of the dark setting. The oak bed is the most important p...