Dignity in Southern Society in A Lesson Before Dying, Autobiography of Jane Pittman, and Of Love and Dust
The ante-bellum Southern social system put blacks in a low economic and social class and limited their pursuit of happiness. The aristocracy firmly held blacks in emotional and spiritual slavery. Cajuns, Creoles and poor whites maintained a low status in society, which frustrated them because they felt they should be superior to blacks and equal to whites. Racism was a base of southern society and a hope to improve life and gain respect.
Ernest J. Gaines grew up in Southern Louisiana and his aunt Augusteen Jefferson taught him "the art of living with dignity" (Current 201). In The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, the main character, Jane, narrates her life that spans from the Civil War to the 1960's. She portrays the lives of black people fighting against the stigma of social inferiority in order to live out their dreams. Of Love and Dust depicts rebellious radical characters striving for new standards of equality in the reformation of a small traditional community. A Lesson Before Dying shows Grant Wiggins's and Jefferson's personal battles toward reforming themselves, and their community's battle to earn self-respect. Living in subordination compromises freedoms of socio-economic mobility. Gaines's characters rebel by fighting against suppression to achieve deserved rights and privileges. They achieve dignity through the struggle to hold onto the honor won from society. . Ernest J. Gaines describes people surviving within the social system at the same time as they overcome it to find dignity and freedom from prejudices.
Living in subordination compromises freedoms of soci...
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... Yearbook, 1994. New York: Gale, 1995.
Estes, David C. ed. Critical Reflections on the Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines. Athens: University of Georgia, 1994, 1-29, 89-123, 139-157, 250-264.
Gaines, Ernest J. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. New York: Bantam, 1971.
_____. A Lesson Before Dying. New York: Vintage, 1993.
_____. Of Love and Dust. New York: Vintage, 1967.
Graham, Judith, ed. "Ernest J. Gaines." Current Biography Yearbook 1994. New York: H. Wilson, 1994, 200-204.
Larson, Charles R. "End as a Man." Chigago Tribune. May 9 1993, 5. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Yearbook, 1994. New York: Gale, 1995.
Senna, Carl. "Dying like a Man: A Novel about Race and Dignity in the South." The New York Times Book Review. August 8 1993, 21.
Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Yearbook, 1994. New York: Gale, 1995.
Though often extensive detail may be condemned as mere flowery language, in understanding Sir Gawain and the Green Knight one must make special emphasis on it. In color and imagery itself, the unknown author paints the very fibers of this work, allowing Sir Gawain to discern the nuances of ritualistic chivalry and truth. His quest after the Green Knight is as simple as ones quest toward himself. Through acute awareness of the physical world he encounters Gawain comes to an understanding of the world beyond chivalry, a connection to G-d, the source of truth. He learns, chivalry, like a machine, will always function properly, but in order to derive meaning from its product he must allow nature to affect him.
Poor Southerners also supported the "peculiar institution", because it ensured that even the poorest white man was higher than a black man was. This was why Southerners said it preserved social order. Slavery, essentially, gave poor whites someone to look down upon and mock. To an agrarian society the preservation of a rigid class system is of primary concern, unfortunately, this was the only way the South could preserve it was through slavery.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
The South was built politically, culturally, and economically on slavery. In the Antebellum South, the most important factor was not wealth but power. One theme of the Antebellum South was white supremacy and slavery ensured this through the control of labor which also worked as a system of racial adjustment and social order. Slave ownership elevated the status of the wealthy planters and this allowed the institution of slavery to be accepted due to the paternalistic culture of the South. This paternalistic master-slave relationship was important for slaveholders to maintain their power. The wealthy planters set the tone for the Southern society which maintained this idea of white supremacy through the exercising of hegemony. This infatuation
Aristotle defines tragedy in his respected piece Poetics and many other forms of literature. Many tragic heroes such as Oedipus Rex and Romeo and Juliet fit well into this mold of a tragic hero as defined by Aristotle. For example, they were flawed but well intentioned and their lives ended in a catastrophic death. Those plays, and many others in the genre, had all the elements of a tragedy: plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle. They were fantastic displays of misery that aroused pity and fear in the audience.
Grant and Jefferson are on a journey. Though they have vastly different educational backgrounds, their commonality of being black men who have lost hope brings them together in the search for the meaning of their lives. In the 1940’s small Cajun town of Bayonne, Louisiana, blacks may have legally been emancipated, but they were still enslaved by the antebellum myth of the place of black people in society. Customs established during the years of slavery negated the laws meant to give black people equal rights and the chains of tradition prevailed leaving both Grant and Jefferson trapped in mental slavery in their communities.
Hedda is a product of the nineteenth century, when women were ordained to become either proper old maids (like George's aunts) or modest housekeepers (like Mrs. Elvsted), however Hedda is an anomaly. She has been raised by a dominating father and rebels against his leadership at the same time she revels in his power. General Gabler taught Hedda to ride and shoot, which symbolizes the origin of her attraction with the violent and the romantic, Hedda's intense preoccupation with pistols, her desire to have control over the fate of another individual and take part in the public life of men, her rejection of family life shown in her at times mal...
Everyone has faults, some people are greedy, some don’t know how to use manners, and others neglect a person’s feeling all together. Most of the time people just have one “fault” that they try to get better at. In Hedda’s case, she has all three problems but she encourages them instead of trying to learn to control them. In the play Hedda Gabler the author Henrik Ibsen shows that Hedda’s ill-behaved manners, greed for power and lack of emotional understanding of others will come back and bite her in the butt.
Social status, gender, and misguided intentions render Hedda Gabler and Emma Bovary alienated individuals. One question remains, who deserves the title tragic hero or villain? Hedda commits suicide to avoid being caged and blackmailed by Judge Brack, while Emma commits suicide to avoid the public shame that will inevitably come from soiling her husband’s name and acquiring unimaginable debt. Hedda refuses to commit adultery because she “has made her bed, and now she must lie in it” she knows that every action or fib has its consequences. Emma on the other hand commits adultery with two different men, trying to find her hopes and dreams. Both had a choice when choosing whom they wanted to marry. Hedda Gabler wins, because although she is rude, manipulative, and vindictive; she accepts the consequences of her actions unlike Emma.
The next hunt results in the boar. The Book of Beasts, states that boars are wild and brutish, thus when someone is called boorish it refers to the nature of a boar. In the seduction scene, the Lady becomes impatient and somewhat rude. She is trying to force Gawain into a relationship by saying he is mean for not teaching her what he knows, and for leading ...
To begin, Willy’s methods of searching for likeability are erroneous. He believes that the superficiality of attractiveness goes hand in hand with being well liked. Willy’s downfall started with his impression of Dave Singleman, an 84 year old salesman. According to Willy, he had “…the greatest career a man could want.” Sure this man was liked in cities around the world, but Willy’s altered perception of the American dream masked the realities of his life. Willy failed to see that instead of being retired at 84, Dave Singleman was unwed, still working, and in the end “dies the death of a salesman”; alone and without love. Believing in this dream, ultimately leads Willy to his hubris; too proud to be anything but a salesman. Throughout the play, Charlie often asks Willy, “You want a job?” Instead of escaping his reality of unpaid bills and unhappiness, Willy’s shallow values lead him to refuse the switch from him attractive job, to that of a carpent...
Many animals were thought to have qualities of human emotions, spirituality and even intelligent qualities; the three hunted animals in Sir Gawain included. To begin, "Certain facts about the animals which formed the quarry of the medieval huntsman...and certain popular beliefs about their habits and temper" (Savage 32) will allow the reader to draw parallels between the hunt, happening outside the castle; and the "hunt" happening inside the castle between Gawain and the Lady of the house.
Works Cited Knapp, John V. “Nineteen Eighty-Four” Critical Survey of Long Fiction. Ed. Carl Rollyson. Hackensack NJ: Salem Press Inc, 2000. 2451-2452.
Hedda asks herself, “Oh, why does everything I touch become mean and ludicrous? It’s like a curse!” This comment emphasizes the fact that her ennui is affecting all of those around her. It has caused her to become nihilistic and wreak havoc on the lives of others for her own amusement.
The character of Hedda Gabler in Ibsen’s play is a unique and extraordinary person. There has been a lot of public dislike towards her and seen as a very manipulative, cold and even masculine portrayal of a woman. As stated by Jones “has imagination, and an intense appetite for beauty, she has no conscience, no conviction: with plenty of cleverness, energy, and personal fascination she remains mean, envious, insolent, cruel in protest against others ' happiness, fiendish in her dislike of inartistic people and things, a bully in reaction from her own cowardice." (2). Her personality was considered to be too different for the time that she lived in; it was seen as obstinate, and people went as far as to say she was less of a woman for the way