Michael Cunningham’s “White Angel” is not merely a story about two boys growing up in a small town in Ohio in the 1960s. This is a story about the shattered innocence of America through historical events in their era, such as, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Vietnam War. The narrator of this story is nine year old boy, Bobby or “Frisco,” who symbolizes the somber reality of the history of this decade. This character takes risks although they are thoughtfully calculated. He views the world with great admiration through his older, sixteen year old brother Carlton; yet is still analytical over the choices Carlton makes before his untimely death. In this story, Carlton represents the wild and free innocence …show more content…
He shadows Carlton through nefarious endeavors, such as experimentation with drugs, sex and music. The boys come from an accidental suburban family. A widowed mother from a previous marriage, and a father who is more interesting in assembling a grandfather clock to leave his sons as a family heirloom, rather than spending time with his family citation. This clock comes from a kit and is a symbol of his investment into their family. It is a fake gesture, gluing “fancy moldings” onto an empty box. The two boys have a lack of respect for authority, their home is constantly being patrolled by the local police authority citation; however the boys are un-phased by …show more content…
There is commotion outside when Frank, Carlton’s friend, claims there is a flying saucer in their backyard, everyone runs outside to invite the visitors to stay. Carlton separates himself from the pack and gazes at the moonlit cemetery as the guests retreat inside, disappointed over the false claim Frank had made. Unsuspecting that someone may have shut their sliding glass door, Carlton scores back into the house, shattering the door into a million tiny glass fragments (Cunningham 241). “He is gone by the time the ambulance gets there. You can see the life drain out of him. When his face goes slack our mother wails. A part of her flies wailing through the house, where it will wail and rage forever. I feel our mother pass through me on her way out” (Cunningham 242). The party goers were too busy swilling their gin and swaying their hips to rock and roll music to notice Carlton was still outside, and quickly running towards a shut door. Their naïve mentalities led to the untimely death of a sixteen year old boy. America relates as a naïve nation before the tragic events of the 1960s little suspected that anything could shatter their
The historical context of the book is the story took place in the late 80’s-early 90’s in the streets of Chicago. At this era of time, it had been about 20-30 years after segregation was outlawed, but the effects of years of racism and segregation could be shown in the “hoods” of cities. The author utilizes the two boys’ stories to show what the
The work, the Souls of Black Folk explains the problem of color-line in the twentieth century. Examining the time following the civil war the author, W.E.B. Dubois, explains the African American experience of living behind the “veil”. To fully explain the experience of living behind the veil, he provides the reader with situations that a black race experiences in reconstruction. This allowed the readers to metaphorically step into the veil with him. He accomplishes this with the use of “songs of sorrow” with were at the beginning of each chapter, and with the use of anecdotes.
The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.
Where they grew up, kids as young as 8 years old were recruited into illegal operations; Wes and Tony included. Mary tried everything she could, but had lost her sons to the wonder and curiosity that money brings. The important place a mother should hold in her son’s life vanished and she was left to take care of their mistakes. Later in their lives, both boys were caught in a heist that set them up for an entire lifetime in jail. Their arrest sent “cheering responses” from everyone in their community. The boys were not only involved with a robbery, but a murder as well. The word spread quickly about their sentences and a “collective sigh of relief seeped through Baltimore. At home, Mary wept” (Moore 155). Many families go through traumatic experiences comparable to Mary’s situation. The choices her sons made left her alone, parallel to the isolation the boys were experiencing as
Mat Johnsons novel, Pym challenges readers not only to view his work with a new set of eyes but also the work of all American literature with the understanding that the idea of Whiteness still has a very strong power over literature today. It is unfortunate that in today’s society, the pathology of Whiteness still holds a very strong presence in literary world. Literature from American authors versus literature from African American authors still continues to be segregated and handled with two different sets of criteria. Johnson’s novel engages in different aspects of the argument presented in Toni Morrison’s work entitled Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. One of the main ideals that Pym engages in is the thought that “…a figuration of impenetrable whiteness … surfaces in American literature whenever Africanist presence is engaged” (29). Through the character Chris Jaynes, Johnson’s novel focuses much attention on the Whiteness seen in the literary world and how it still affects literature today. Mat Johnson’s Pym addresses Morrison’s argument by challenging the reader to identify the pathology of whiteness as well as encourages readers not to only identify the problem but try to find new ways to combat it.
In Black Boy blacks were treated as less than humans. The whites wanted to be superior in every way and they forced the blacks to follow their rules. In one of the jobs that he had, Wright witnesses how awful his boss treated a customer because she did not pay. “They got out and half dragged and half kicked the woman into the store…later the woman stumbled out, bleeding, crying, holding her stomach her clothing torn.” (Wright, 179) Whites treating blacks like this was normal. When the woman was being mistreated there were whites around, but they did not even look at them because they did not care. There was also a policeman who arrested the woman after she was assaulted Wright was mistreated in many ways because he was black and did not know how to give in to the rules. Because of the way society treated him, Wright became angry and with that anger grew a motivation to become better. He wanted to change the destiny that the whites had set for all blacks. In Separate Pasts McLaurin grew up in the South with blacks around him since he was a child. While there was still segregation in his city, blacks and whites still lived together better than with Wright. McLaurin recalls how he spent so much time with blacks and to him it was normal. “From the fall I entered the seventh grade until I left for college…every working day I talked and
Michael Cunningham’s “White Angel” is not merely a story about two boys growing up in a small town in Ohio in the 1960s. This is a story about the shattered innocence of America through historical events in their era, such as, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Vietnam War. The narrator of this story is nine year old boy, Bobby or “Frisco,” who symbolizes the somber reality of the history of this decade. The narrator’s point of view is strong, Frisco believes his own voice is weak and un-wise, however he shows great bravery, humility and control throughout this piece. Frisco takes risks, although they are thoughtfully calculated. He views the world with great admiration through his older, sixteen year
Narrative is a form of writing used by writers to convey their experiences to an audience. James Baldwin is a renowned author for bringing his experience to literature. He grew up Harlem in the 1940’s and 1950’s, a crucial point in history for America due to the escalading conflict between people of different races marked by the race riots of Harlem and Detroit. This environment that Baldwin grew up in inspires and influences him to write the narrative “Notes of a Native Son,” which is based on his experience with racism and the Jim-Crow Laws. The narrative is about his father and his influence on Baldwin’s life, which he analyzes and compares to his own experiences. When Baldwin comes into contact with the harshness of America, he realizes the problems and conflicts he runs into are the same his father faced, and that they will have the same affect on him as they did his father.
The award-winning book of poems, Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson, is an eye-opening story. Told in first person with memories from the author’s own life, it depicts the differences between South Carolina and New York City in the 1960s as understood by a child. The book begins in Ohio, but soon progresses to South Carolina where the author spends a considerable amount of her childhood. She and her older siblings, Hope and Odella (Dell), spend much of their pupilage with their grandparents and absorb the southern way of life before their mother (and new baby brother) whisk them away to New York, where there were more opportunities for people of color in the ‘60s. The conflict here is really more of an internal one, where Jacqueline struggles with the fact that it’s dangerous to be a part of the change, but she can’t subdue the fact that she wants to. She also wrestles with the issue of where she belongs, “The city is settling around me….(but) my eyes fill up with the missing of everything and everyone I’ve ever known” (Woodson 184). The conflict is never explicitly resolved, but the author makes it clear towards the end
Many writers focus their works of written art on life situations. They focus on drugs, poverty, stereotypes, young adults living in a difficult world, and of course a topic that has been present for many years, male domination. Abraham Rodriguez Jr. in “The Boy Without a Flag” captures all these themes and more in his Tales of the South Bronx, that relate to the lives of many Hispanics and minority residents of the United States.
Today, blacks are respected very differently in society than they used to be. In “The Help”, we see a shift in focus between what life is like now for the average African American compared to what it was like for them to live in the 1960’s.“The Help” teaches readers the importance of understanding and learning from our history. The novel is a snapshot of the cultural, racial and economic distinctions between blacks and whites in a particularly tumultuous time in American history. “The Help” encourages readers to examine personal prejudices and to strive to foster global equality.
The two Wes Moores in this narrative share a common identity. They have the same name, are from the same place, and they are both black males. As children, they both had the same kind of personalities and traits that are beginning to put them down an unsuccessful path. However, as the two boys begin to grow older, they begin to change differently. Their identities begin to differ when you examine their lives and their incredibly different futures. To begin, the author Wes Moore’s future was one that was positive, due to the choices made by him and his family. His family dynamic and support was strong, and became stronger after his father died of acute
In his novel, A Gathering of Old Men, Earnest Gaines summons the readers into has world. Based in the 1970s, this coming of age novel talks about how the death of a white man, somehow bring old black men to come together. Two characters, Mathu and Charlie, encounters a major change or realization that results from a shooting. This situation occurs during the times of extreme racial tension, Mathu stands firm his ground in a land full of whites. Charlie, om the other hand, is nothing like Mathu, in
Richelle Goodrich once said, “To encourage me is to believe in me, which gives me the power to defeat dragons.” In a world submerged in diversity, racism and prejudice it is hard for minorities to get ahead. The novel “The Other Wes Moore” is a depiction of the differences that encouragement and support can make in the life of a child. This novel is about two men, with the same name, from the same neighborhood, that endured very similar adversities in their lives, but their paths were vastly different. In the following paragraphs, their lives will be compared, and analyzed from a sociological perspective.
The main character is completely alienated from the world around him. He is a black man living in a white world, a man who was born in the South but is now living in the North, and his only form of companionship is his dying wife, Laura, whom he is desperate to save. He is unable to work since he has no birth certificate—no official identity. Without a job he is unable to make his mark in the world, and if his wife dies, not only would he lose his lover but also any evidence that he ever existed. As the story progresses he loses his own awareness of his identity—“somehow he had forgotten his own name.” The author emphasizes the main character’s mistreatment in life by white society during a vivid recollection of an event in his childhood when he was chased by a train filled with “white people laughing as he ran screaming,” a hallucination which was triggered by his exploration of the “old scars” on his body. This connection between alienation and oppression highlight Ellison’s central idea.