The 1930 's were a conflicting time for race relations in America. Despite the decline of such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan, which had renewed support during the 1910 's and 1920 's, racism was as strong as ever in the Southern states. Literature at this time was affected as authors included the clear distinction within the social class relating to skin color. Authors such as Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston published credible novels containing African prejudice at the time. Another American author, William Faulkner born in 1897, finished writing his novel Light in August. A story dealing with issues such as racism, and social class in the heart of Mississippi in 1932. Other works of his including The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! include the clear African prejudice due to the character’s beliefs, Southern setting, and current segregation time period. In the novel Light in August, William Faulkner demonstrates the struggle to find self-identity within the characters while exploring the idea of racism.
One personal conflict Faulkner puts his characters into is the issue to conform into society 's expectations. Some of the main characters in the novel include Joe Christmas, Joanna Burden, and Gail Hightower. Joe Christmas is the novel’s protagonist who struggles with finding self-identity and fitting into society due to his mixed race. Joanna Burden is a northerner whose relatives are actively voting for black rights and who Joanna herself respects them, “They say she is still mixed up with niggers. Visits them when they are sick, like they was white … Folks say she claims that niggers are the same as white folks. That’s why folks don’t never go out there” (Faulkner 44). Caryl Klein quotes Olga Vickery’s crit...
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...ed, in one way or another with climatic events in the novel. These flashbacks of characters past also gives the reader a sense of a story and more of a connection to the character’s situation. Joanna Burden, Gail Hightower, and Joe Christmas all have relatively impacting personal history that, in time, shapes them to be who they are in the novel. Joanna’s forefathers are not originally from the South, their emigration to Jefferson included them in the coming process of the South’s history. Joanna 's father and grandfather recieved a commission to go to Jefferson "..to help with the freed negroes.." (Faulkner 186). Joanna believes she is doomed because, as her father concluded in his graveside address when she was four, the sins of white prejudice are "the curse of every white child that ever was born and that ever will be born. None can escape it" (Faulkner 252-53).
... during this time. Problem involving the racial order in society caused many deaths not only in the book but in real life. Jane was free but lived as a slave her entire life. Jane tried to escape to the south but failed and work the same jobs as she did when she was a slave. Black people were not slaves but law anymore but they still lived in mental slavery, bound by the racial order. Black people suffered for many years after slavery and fought for civil rights just as Jane, Ned, and Jimmy “The One” did.
...ism and segregation, it is what will keep any society form reaching is maximum potential. But fear was not evident in those who challenged the issue, Betty Jo, Street, Jerry, and Miss Carrie. They challenged the issue in different ways, whether it was by just simply living or it was a calculated attempt to change the perspective of a individual. McLurin illustrated the views of the reality that was segregation in the South, in the town of Wade, and how it was a sort of status quo for the town. The memories of his childhood and young adulthood, the people he encountered, those individuals each held a key in how they impacted the thoughts that the young McLurin had about this issue, and maybe helping unlock a way to challenge the issue and make the future generation aware of the dark stain on society, allowing for more growth and maximum potential in the coming years.
In the story, “The Wife of His Youth,” Chestnutt describes the racial discrimination in America. The author utilizes the primary characters as a gateway to reveal hypocrisy in declaring social equity and identity. Mr. Ryder runs away from his black heritage to become a part in a white society, while his wife from slavery uses her past to assert her faithfulness to her husband. The writer uses Mr. Ryder to reveal hypocrisy in social equity. Sam Taylor was a light skinned slave before the civil war. While his wife was at home cooking, he was always at the field working. During the civil war, he managed to escaped and moved up to north. After being free in north he decided to change his name to Mr. Ryder and joined the group called Blue Veins. Blue
Ethnic group is a settled mannerism for many people during their lives. Both Zora Neale Hurston, author of “How It Feels to Be Colored Me; and Brent Staples, author of “Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space,” realize that their life will be influenced when they are black; however, they take it in pace and don’t reside on it. They grew up in different places which make their form differently; however, in the end, It does not matter to them as they both find ways to match the different sexes and still have productivity in their lives.. Hurston was raised in Eatonville, Florida, a quiet black town with only white passer-by from time-to-time, while Staples grew up in Chester, Pennsylvania, surrounded by gang activity from the beginning. Both Hurston and Staples share similar and contrasting views about the effect of the color of their
Ida B. Wells and James Baldwin were two activists who suggested strategies that advocated for social change. Although they were active during different centuries, they both utilized their writing, describing their experiences to promote equality in the communities they were a part of. Highlighting Wells’ and Baldwin’s experiences and arguments is important to discuss because they were key figures during the fight for civil rights. Although both civil rights activists utilized their creative writing ability to fight for justice, their writing types transcended different outcomes. In other words, Wells and Baldwin describes their encounters with racism and discrimination in several ways.
Alice Walker, through her essay "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens", and Paule Marshall, in "Poets In The Kitchen", both write about the African-American women of the past and how these women have had an impact on their writing. Walker and Marshall write about an identity they have found with these women because of their exposure to the African culture. These women were searching for independence and freedom. Walker expresses independence as found in the creative spirit, and Marshall finds it through the spoken word. Walker and Marshall celebrate these women's lives and they see them as inspirations to become black women writers.
“Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books...” ― Richard Wright, Black Boy this is a quote from the famous Richard Wright an African American author. This quote means that no matter what was placed in his way or what he lacked that others had he hung on to what he had and did what he could. And the more he read about the world, the more he longed to see it and make a permanent break from the Jim Crow South. "I want my life to count for something," he told a friend. Richard Wright wanted to make a difference in the world and a difference he did make. Richard Wright was an important figure in American History because he stood astride the midsection of his time period as a battering ram, paving the way for many black writers who followed him, these writers were Ralph Ellison, Chester Himes, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lorraine Hansberry, John Williams. In some ways he helped change the American society.
The family feud between the Grangerford and Shepherdson families is an example of how fear and prejudice influence man’s unfair treatment of man. When Huckleberry Finn is separated to the
Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. Zora plays an important role for the Harlem Renaissance. Zora Neale Hurston is considered one of the titans of twentieth-century African American literature. Despite that she would later fall into disgrace because of her firm views of civil rights, her lyrical writing which praise southern black culture has influenced generations of black American literary figures. Hurston’s work also had an impact on later black American authors such as Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison.
Thomas Paine was an activist for many causes throughout his lifetime including the abolition of slavery, government rule by democracy rather than a monarchy, and in later years about what he believed were falsehoods in the Bible. He was an advocate for freedom of the people and his writings were often controversial. He believed in democracy and leaned toward rule by the common man. After becoming a friend of Benjamin Franklin, he traveled to the colonies. While in the colonies his writings on the American Revolution caused him to become an enemy of the British Government. When he returned to Great Britain his writings as a proponent for the French Revolution caused him to have to flee to France to avoid arrest. His political stance in France eventually caused him to be imprisoned and he eventually had to flee again to the United States to escape long-term imprisonment. He traveled quite a bit and was able to see firsthand the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Thomas Paine was a gifted writer, and he was very devoted to his causes. He is extremely famous for his pamphlet Common Sense which he wrote about what he felt was the necessity for American independence and later had an input into the Constitution of the United States of America. There were a number of gifted male writers during this timeframe who wrote about the same issues, including Edmund Burke, so even though he was a revolutionary writer, he was not unique.
In the autobiography Black Boy by Richard Wright, Wright’s defining aspect is his hunger for equality between whites and blacks in the Jim Crow South. Wright recounts his life from a young boy in the repugnant south to an adult in the north. In the book, Wright’s interpretation of hunger goes beyond the literal denotation. Thus, Wright possesses an insatiable hunger for knowledge, acceptance, and understanding. Wright’s encounters with racial discrimination exhibit the depths of misunderstanding fostered by an imbalance of power.
Joanna is first mentioned in Chapter Two by a townsman-type narrator as, "a woman of middleage. She has lived in the house since she was born, yet she is still a stranger, a foreigner whose people moved in from the North during Reconstruction. A Yankee, a lover of negroes, about whom in the town there is still talk of queer relations with negroes in the town" (33). It is clearly evident that Joanna Burden has no sense of community with the townsmen, nor they with her. In fact, in regards to the fire at her home, one man says, "My pappy says he can remember how fifty years ago folks said it ought to be burned, and with a little human fat meat to start it good" (35). Furthermore, another character elaborates by saying, "They say she is still mixed up with niggers. Visits them when they are sick, like they was white. . . . Folks say she claims that niggers are the same as white folks. That's why folks dont never go out there" (38).
The characters in Faulkner's southern society are drawn from three social levels: the aristocrats, the townspeople, and the Negroes (Volpe 15). In "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner describes Miss Emily Grierson in flowing, descriptive sentences. Once a "slender figure in white," the last descendent of a formerly affluent aristocratic family matures into a "small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head" (Faulkner, Literature 25-27). Despite her diminished financial status, Miss Emily exhibits her aristocratic demeanor by carrying her head high "as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson" (28). In an equally descriptive manner, Faulkner paints a written portrait of Miss Minnie Cooper in "Dry September." He portrays her as a spinster "of comfortable people - not the best in Jefferson, but good enough people" and "still on the slender side of ordinary looking, with a bright faintly haggard manner and dress (Faulkner, Reader 520). Cleanth Brooks sheds considerable insight on Faulkner's view of women. He notes that Faulkner's women are "the source and sustainer of virtue and also a prime source of evil. She can be ...
William Wordsworth and T.S. Eliot are both excellent and admirable poets from different time periods that have very distinct views on what it means to be a true poet. On one hand Wordsworth strived to be unique, romantic and sentimental in a time where people needed a poet as such. On the other hand, Eliot lived in a time where romanticism and sentimentalism did not satisfy readers that needed something less elevated and more realistic. Although they had opposing views neither is right or wrong and can only speak for the poets of their specific time period, yet one should not dismiss one or the other because each of their perspectives are equally valuable when deciding what it takes to be the ideal poet.
Light in August is a novel about human dilemmas par excellence in which Faulkner tries to account for the importance of childhood experiences in determining the character of individuals as adults. He also emphasizes the role played by society in defining the traits of it members as a result of the views and attitudes it imposes on them.