Alice Elliott Dark’s fictional story “Rumm Road, ” discusses the influence that one citizen could potentially have on an entire community. Dark’s story talks about a group of girls who all happens to be involved in a conflict down on Rumm Road, which is “one in the richest streets in town.” (Dark 3). The narrator and her friends didn’t pay much mind to these girls due to the conflict didn’t directly affect their neighborhood, until it is discovered that one of these girls originated from their community. Dark’s story “Rumm Road” ultimately takes a position on the responsibility of being a citizen. The position that the story takes is that the responsibility of being a citizen is to be more involved and aware with their society. As for this story, it shows how the characters aren’t following their responsibilities until a critical event happens and awakens them to be more involved and aware. This awakening allows the characters to take forth the responsibilities a citizen should have. Dark uses of pronouns in her writing, awareness of the characters, assumption among the characters, and implanting feelings in the characters, she is able to state how citizens in general should be more aware and involved in their society and carry out that as their responsibilities.
In Dark’s story, She repeatedly uses the pronoun “We” instead of “I”. She does so in order to generally speak upon all citizens it applies to rather than just the narrator. In Dark’s opening sentence of her story she states, “We didn’t pay attention to the sirens.” (Dark 1). This sentence indicates that the citizens, the “we”, are not aware or involve in their society. Aware in the sense that they do not even pay attention to the sirens. As sirens usually indicate a signi...
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...the realization that they’re so detached from their responsibilities of being a citizen arise, those responsibilities of being involved and aware of people and event which is around them in their own society. This quote supports the story’s position that citizens need to be more aware and involve in society such as knowing people in the society and events that are currently happening.
Dark is very skilled in creating a fictional story in order to get her position of a subject across. In “Rumm Road”, she was able to support her position on the responsibility of being a citizen. Her position is being that citizens should be more intertwined with their community in a sense of being more aware and involved in what is happening and going on in it. Her overall writing and narrating of her story effectively and efficiently made it so that her position was clear and vivid.
...nthem, she presents a collectivist society in which a man’s inalienable right of individualism has been revoked, which causes the citizens to render their souls to the strong dictatorship. They conform to part of the programmed group referred to as “We” and compromise their desires to accept the collectivist tenet as true. They possess no free thought and are forbidden to have free will. Gradually, they transform to which they need no palpable shackles because their minds are fettered through the deprivation they suffer. However, she uses the main character Equality to break down the binds of society and form his own individual path. Equality’s story to relates to human existence in which men must lead their own lives or suffer the horrid consequences of interdependence and living for society’s sake.
In a year that remains undefined beneath a small city lit only by candles, a young man is working. He works without the council to guide him and without his brothers beside him. He works for his own purposes, for his own desires, for the dreams that were born in his own steady heart and bright mind. In his society, this is the greatest transgression. To stand alone is to stand groping in the dark, and to act alone is to be shamed by one’s own selfishness. The elegantly simple society that Ayn Rand has created in the novel Anthem has erased all segregation and discrimination by making every man one and the same with those around him; only Equality 7-2521 defies the norm with his ruthless
She leaves behind her family in order to pursue what she believes is the greater good. She leaves behind a family of nine, living in extreme poverty, to live with her biological father—who runs out on her at a young age to satisfy his need to feel big and important, simply based on anxieties about the hardships around him. Moody comes from a highly difficult and stressful situation, but she stands as the only hope for her starving family and leaves them behind for a life of scholarship and opportunity. This memoir leaves the reader with a sense of guilt for Moody’s decisions, and one may even argue that these decisions happened in vain, as the movement never made a massive impact on race relations. Unfortunately for Moody, she would continue to witness atrocious hate crimes up until the year of her
As “The Blue Hotel,” “The Displaced Person,” “Bernice Bobs her Hair,” and In Dubious Battle demonstrate, the outsiders in each story, though instilling an initial fear in the eyes of society, experience a sudden and considerable downfall in the end. Each of these defeats, some more extreme than others, result from a clash of society’s fixed guidelines with an outsider’s challenge of these rules. Whether this rebellion against society constitutes a conscious or unconscious effort, and whether the punishment results in justifiable or unjustifiable consequences, one pattern emerges. The outsider instills fear in the mind of the community, and as a defense mechanism, society takes it upon itself to conquer the stranger, leading to his or her ultimate downfall.
Two ways that citizens react to systems of oppression are by being a bystander or upstander. Citizens represent the role of a bystander by passively watching oppression, as demonstrated by Alex from Forbidden City and the narrator from “The Hangman”. An upstander shows that he or she believes in a cause by taking action against some type of oppression, sometimes risking their lives in the process. Alex eventually transitions into an upstander, and the French Woman from “Pigeon” also shows the characteristics of an upstander. In the case of Forbidden City by William Bell, the Chinese student demonstrators are victimized by the corrupt Chinese government, who are the oppressors in the novel. Alex’s transition between roles in Forbidden
... citizen undergoes their own moral awakening “alone,” they adopt the conviction that every individual’s life has value. Their realization departs the citizen from Omelas and into an altogether new ideology.
From a traditional housewife in a white middle-class family, Mother has become a strong woman with independent minds. Her character becomes vivid step by step. Mother and Father represent an ordinary family in society. If their lives can change so much, what about millions of others? Their changes indicate the upcoming revolution taking place in this world.
Nancy Lee is very proud of who she is and where she comes from. Until the scholarship she received was taken away from her, she holds her head high as an African American and loves who she is and the country she lives in. Even after the scholarship is taken away from her she promises to make a difference in the world. As the pledge comes to an end and the words “one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” are spoken, Nancy Lee thinks to herself “That is the land we must make.” She keeps confide...
The narrator and her husband’s interactions shows her as submissive in terms of gender equality. Although John perceives the narrator as a child with no volunteer ideas, it is shown in her journal that this theory is not valid because she was shaped to comply by the society and the norm. The narrator’s inferiority negatively impacts her mental and physical health to the point she had to rip off the wallpaper to break free. Nevertheless, when read critically, the story also unveil the women’s suffrage movement and its struggle. Since this story was published, women are slowly breaking away from men’s suppression and gaining more rights. In short, society and culture define gender roles; however, the changing economic, social, and education environment open up a new path for women. Nowadays, women are given the chance to prove themselves and can act beyond their gender roles. However, the equality between genders has not been achieved yet. Therefore, women should continue to fight for their rights and freedoms until they are treated with respect and enjoy
The people in this country have been embedded with the idea to have power and ability to govern themselves to a life that is exceptional. This fire burns within the minds of governments, companies, average men and in this case what is considered the lowest class: African Americans. In a country where there is constant struggle for racial equality, whether in an urban or back-woods country setting, race dictates power for characters like Emmett Till in “The Ballad of Emmet Till”, by Bob Dylan, Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, and Mama in A Raisin In The Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry. All these characters vary in how they are persecuted yet are bonded by their struggle. Depicting the idea that there is a constant battle to control their own lives.
This book teaches the importance of self-expression and independence. If we did not have these necessities, then life would be like those in this novel. Empty, redundant, and fearful of what is going on. The quotes above show how different life can be without our basic freedoms. This novel was very interesting and it shows, no matter how dismal a situation is, there is always a way out if you never give up, even if you have to do it alone.
Ever since she was a young girl. Jeannette had set high goals for herself. Since she was so advanced in school and genuinely enjoyed learning, it made sense that she would want to do big things with her life. Whether it was being a veterinarian or a geologist, her dreams extended far beyond her homes in little desert towns or Welch, West Virginia. However, because of her poverty-stricken home life, many people believed it didn’t seem likely that she would be so successful. One day, while living in Welch, Jeannette goes to the bar to drag her drunk father back home. A neighborhood man offers them a ride back to their house, and on the ride up he and Jeannette start a conversation about school. When Jeannette tells the man that she works so hard in school because of her dream careers, the man laughs saying, “for the daughter of the town drunk, you sure got big plans” (Walls 183). Immediately, Jeannette tells the man to stop the car and gets out, taking her father with her. This seems to be a defining moment in which Jeannette is first exposed to the idea that she is inferior to others. Although this man said what he did not mean to offend her, Jeannette is clearly very hurt by his comment. To the reader, it seems as if she had never thought that her family’s situation made her subordinate to those
How does this text either help you to explore and understand the possibilities of belonging or exclude you from connecting with the world it represents?
"Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,We, the people, must redeemThe land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.The mountains and the endless plain—All, all the stretch of these great green states—And make America again!” The free America is actually not free, the words on the constitution are just words. The dream has fade away. All these hard working people, all of their bloods and tears had really make the 1 percent of the American’s American dream came true. The reality is such a chaos for the narrator. he has suffered so much from this reality, so he now wants to share his idea to all the readers and try to wake them up, this is not the America that want, this is not the society they want. The American dream does not exist.
For this assignment I decided to read the book Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city by Elijah Anderson. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. The code of the streets is basically morals and values that these people have. Most of the time it is the way they need to act to survive. Continuing on within this book review I am going to discuss the main points and arguments that Anderson portrays within the book. The main points that the book has, goes along with the chapters. These points consist of Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, decent daddy, the mating game, black inner city grandmother. Now within these points there are a few main arguments that I would like to point out. The first argument is the belief that you will need to accept the street code to get through life. The other one is the belief that people on the street need “juice”. For the rest of this paper we will be looking at each one of main points and arguments by going through each chapter and discussing it.