One of the most well-known American Literary Classics is “Little Woman”. Louisa May Alcott’s stirring tale about hardship, loss, and coming of age is appealing to girls and women alike. In an homage to this classic story, Geraldine Brooks gives us “March”. Written for an older crowd, “March” is the harrowing account of Mr. March, the father and wife of the protagonists in “Little Women”. The companion novel details his adventures in the South, and the events that lead to him joining the Union Army in his 40’s. Mr. March is a multi-faceted man, with a head for teaching. However, the once innocent, well-meaning and naïve man who volunteered to be a chaplain in the Union forces was scarred beyond recovery by what he saw during his tour of duty. Throughout the book, he learns and changes from the person that he once was. Facilitators of this transformation include Silas Stone, Zannah the former slave, and his wife, Marmee. For better or for worse, they each changed Mr. Marsh and the way he thought about the world.
When the book opens, Mr. March and his company are being forced ...
In all, Tademy does a great job in transporting her readers back to the 1800s in rural Louisiana. This book is a profound alternative to just another slave narrative. Instead of history it offers ‘herstory’. This story offers insight to the issues of slavery through a women’s perspective, something that not so many books offer. Not only does it give readers just one account or perspective of slavery but it gives readers a take on slavery through generation after generation. From the early days of slavery through the Civil War, a narrative of familial strength, pride, and culture are captured in these lines.
A warrior is a hero, a role-model, fearless, loyal, persevering, brave - there are few that are able to fulfill these standards. Yet Melba Beals, a fifteen year old girl, not only claims this illusive role, but cannot escape it. Through the journey into integration Melba acts as a dynamic juxtaposition, moving from a scared little girl to a fierce soldier, yet never truly satisfied with her position. This conflict arises from her personal, family, and religious values, the impact of integration in Little Rock, and her experiences during her time at Central High. The title Warriors Don't Cry is employed as a command as well as a way of life and later a regret as this memoir progresses.
War slowly begins to strip away the ideals these boy-men once cherished. Their respect for authority is torn away by their disillusionment with their schoolteacher, Kantorek who pushed them to join. This is followed by their brief encounter with Corporal Himmelstoss at boot camp. The contemptible tactics that their superior officer Himmelstoss perpetrates in the name of discipline finally shatters their respect for authority. As the boys, fresh from boot camp, march toward the front for the first time, each one looks over his shoulder at the departing transport truck. They realize that they have now cast aside their lives as schoolboys and they feel the numbing reality of their uncertain futures.
When the war was over, the survivors went home and the world tried to return to normalcy. Unfortunately, settling down in peacetime proved more difficult than expected. During the war, the boys had fought against both the enemy and death in far away lands; the girls had bought into the patriotic fervor and aggressively entered the workforce. During the war, both the boys and the girls of this generation had broken out of society's structure; they found it very difficult to return.
The adjustment from years on the frontlines of World War I to the mundane everyday life of a small Oklahoma town can be difficult. Ernest Hemingway’s character Harold Krebs, has a harder time adjusting to home life than most soldiers that had returned home. Krebs returned years after the war was over and was expected to conform back into societies expectations with little time to adapt back to a life not surrounded by war. Women take a prominent role in Krebs’s life and have strong influences on him. In the short story “Soldier’s Home” Hemingway uses the women Krebs interacts with to show Krebs internal struggle of attraction and repulsion to conformity.
Walker and Marshall write about an identity that they have found with African-American women of the past. They both refer to great writers such as Zora Neale Hurston or Phillis Wheatley. But more importantly, they connect themselves to their ancestors. The see that their writings can be identified with what the unknown African-American women of the past longed to say but they did not have the freedom to do so. They both admire many literary greats such as Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, and Jane Austen, but they appreciate these authors' works more than they can identify with them.
Knowing and understanding social, political, and cultural history is extremely important when reading many novels, especially Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Linda Brent and any short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Both of these authors had many extinuating circumstances surrounding their writings that should be noted before reading their works. Without knowing what was happening both in the outside world and in the respected author's life, one cannot truly grasp what the author is trying to say or what the author truly means by what he or she is saying. In this paper, I will show how important it is for the reader to understand the social, political, and cultural happenings in the writer's lives and in the world surrounding them during the times that their works were written.
Pat Barker's riveting World War I novel Regeneration brilliantly exemplifies the effectiveness of fiction united with historical facts. While men aspired to gain glory from war and become heroes, Regeneration poignantly points out that not all of war was glorious. Rather, young soldiers found their aspirations prematurely aborted due to their bitter war experiences. The horrible mental and physical sicknesses, which plagued a number of soldiers, caused many men to withdraw from the battlefield. Feelings of guilt and shame haunted many soldiers as they found themselves removed from the heat of war. Men, however, were not the only individuals to experience such feelings during a time of historical upheaval. Women, too, found themselves at war at the dawn of a feminine revolution. One of the most contentious topics of the time was the practice of abortion, which comes to attention in chapter 17 on pages 202 and 203 of Barker's novel. Through Baker's ground-breaking novel, we learn how men and women alike discovered that in life, not all aspirations are realized; in fact, in times of conflict, women and men both face desperate situations, which have no definite solutions. Illustrated in Barker's novel by a young woman named Betty, and many broken soldiers, society's harsh judgments worsen the difficult circumstances already at hand.
Suburban life in the 1950s was ideal, but not ideal for the women. Women were continuously looked at as the typical suburban housewife. In Richard Yates’ novel, Revolutionary Road, we are given the chance to see the dynamics of the Wheeler family and of those around them. Through the use of theme, tone and major symbolism in the novel, we are shown the perspective of gender roles in the 1950s. The author shows the reader the struggles of strict gender roles and how the protagonist of the story will do just about anything to escape from it.
Over 200,000 demonstrators participated in the March on Washington in the nation’s capital on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to gain civil rights for African Americans. There was a wide diversity in those who participated, with a quarter of all the demonstrators being white (Ross). Even southern people came to contribute which caused them to be harassed and threatened for coming to the march. The March on Washington became a very successful event for the rights of African Americans, and amended several peoples’ view-points towards the topic, even President John Kennedy’s. “The president feared that it might make the legislature vote against civil rights laws in reaction to a perceived threat. Once it became clear that the march would go on, however, he supported it” (Ross). The event took over a year to plan with heaps of organizations’ assistance. The event soon became the largest demonstration for human rights in Washington D.C. (Official Program). How did the March on Washington’s planning and set up help influence so many people and grant them the rights they fought for?
One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, African Americans were still fighting for equal rights in every day life. The first real success of this movement did not come until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which was followed by many boycotts and protests. The largest of these protests, the March on Washington, was held on August 28, 1963 “for jobs and freedom” (March on Washington 11). An incredible amount of preparation went into the event to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people attending from around the nation and to deal with any potential incidents.
The Civil Rights Movement marked a crucial moment in United States history. African Americans fought for their right to be treated equally and to put an end to discrimination and segregation. Toni Morrison’s short story “Recitatif” features two girls of the opposite race and how their friendship was affected during this time period. The United States has come a long way since the days of slavery, but African Americans’ rights were still not being fully recognized. As a result of this the Civil Rights Movement developed to peacefully protest for equality. Toni Morrison’s short story, “Recitatif”, takes place during the Civil Rights era of the United States to show the reader how stereotyping, discrimination, and segregation affected two girls,
Watson, N. (2009) ‘Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868-9) Introduction’, in Montgomery H and Watson N (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University, pp.13-17
...as Mary Ann in the novel show that women can do so much more than sew and cook. Without women, all wars would have been a lot harder. Although men tend to keep a macho facade in order to calm others (such as the women in their lives), inside they may be like glass, easy to break. A society set on the ideal stoic, fearless warrior who acts ruthlessly and saves the damsel in distress (also showing that women are weak) obviously is one where doomed to sexism. Without the comfort and inspiration, men would have deteriorated in the face of death. All and all, women provided the needed comfort, nursing, “manpower”, and love that the soldiers of Vietnam need, something that helped them endure the havoc of war. O’Brien’s expert use of the feminist lens allows the reader to know that women indeed were a powerhouse in the Vietnam war, without whom, men would have perished.
Very few novels in American Literature can earn the title of timeless. These novels transcend the ages, because they possess a greater meaning. Their stories teach people about life, the glory of the human soul, and all it can endure to overcome. Three novels in particular get to the very heart of feminine struggle. Though they touch not on women’s struggle to vote, they reach the higher plain of women’s struggle to be seen as who they are and not what society wants them to be. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple and The Bluest Eye all deal with the topic of women trying to overcome society. Although these novels were written in the mid to later half of the twentieth century, they go back to a time when the Great Depression was touching all walks of human life. Each of the main characters in these novels does not fit society’s view of femininity during the time period. Although the main characters in the three stories do not fit society’s idea of femininity, they each, in their own way, overcome this and show a greater beauty of strength.