In bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, the author emphasizes the importance of the liberation of a more advanced education system. hook asserts her career aspirations and the awareness that she wants to bring to society. Her concerns and passion displays the feminist viewpoint that she obtains. Whereas, in Bone Black, hook revealed her experiences and challenges that she faced throughout her childhood. She did not incorporate the usual rhetorical tactics that most authors utilize in their writings. hooks used a personal tone in both stories to prevail the significance of the meaning behind African American history. Overall in Teaching to Transgress and Bone Black, bell hooks presents to society about the eagerness for equality, justice, and …show more content…
Some individuals might believe that hooks does not use an informal writing style, but she slightly tricks the audience into connection and becoming more familiar with her message. For example, at one point of Bone Black, hooks describes a fight that has happened between a couple and a young child is watching these fights. She states that “all that she does not understand about marriage, about men and women, is explained to her in one night” (hooks 150). The context behind this statement reveals how this young girl’s viewpoint of marriage is between the two genders. Hooks displays the views and pain of the young girl visualizing her mother becoming less powerful and this discloses the casual writing that hooks illustrates. hooks does not profess the social location differences to the audience, she puts the audience in the little girl’s viewpoint to see how impactful it is to initiate awareness of the unequal treatment of women. hooks uses this same strategy in Teaching to Transgress to express the acceptance and justice of liberal education. Furthermore, hooks social and political views for this situation with the young girl exemplifies that social locations are taking in consideration to her writing. hooks incorporates that society has different standards of race, gender and class, but she indirectly she …show more content…
Rhetorical strategies were ignored in her writing to allow reader’s to build their own perceptions of her message. Informality is technically not a form of rhetorical strategies because it is a style of writing. Additionally, indirect and informal writing tie together in hooks writing because she didn't want any pity from anyone, but she wanted attention to the issues that women of color face. Therefore, hooks creates a personal connection to the audience to enhance her credibility to her fight for justice and equality. In addition, rhetorical writing is more structural and I believe that informality and indirect writing is more conceptual. I believe that the audience were not tricked with the usual rhetorical devices, but hooks altered the cons of other individual’s opinion to become aware of the issues that woman of color face. Additionally, others can argue that hooks wants society to feel bad for the struggles that African American face, but she did not express that through the style of her writing. hooks made sure to uncover her passion and values in a way where the audience could connect to her as well as develop their own opinion on her situation. Even though some readers may not believe that hooks did not create an impactful symbol from informal and an indirect style of writing; I believe
Detrimental stereotypes of minorities affect everyone today as they did during the antebellum period. Walker’s subject matter reminds people of this, as does her symbolic use of stark black and white. Her work shocks. It disgusts. The important part is: her work elicits a reaction from the viewer; it reminds them of a dark time in history and represents that time in the most fantastically nightmarish way possible. In her own words, Walker has said, “I didn’t want a completely passive viewer, I wanted to make work where the viewer wouldn’t walk away; he would either giggle nervously, get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful”. Certainly, her usage of controversial cultural signifiers serve not only to remind the viewer of the way blacks were viewed, but that they were cast in that image by people like the viewer. Thus, the viewer is implicated in the injustices within her work. In a way, the scenes she creates are a subversive display of the slim power of slave over owner, of woman over man, of viewed over
hooks believes, " The racial politics of Hollywood is such that there can be no serious representation of death and dying when the characters are African-Americans" (99). By stating this, she implies that black life in movies is thought of as useless. She finds that the majority of black death in movies is done through violence. An example of such a film is Paris Trout in which a young girl is brutally murdered and her relatives "too cowardly to save or avenge her life, ...willingly show the lawyer who will defend her killer the blood stains left by her dragging body, the bullet holes in the walls. Her life is worth nothing"( hooks, 100). Not even the girl's own family could find worth in her life. Her relatives cared so little that they were willing to accept money to show her kil...
Bell Hooks is a well-known Feminist. She has achieved a lot through her lifetime, and is still going strong. Bell Hooks is mostly known for her fight for feminism and for mainly African American females. She is also known for the many books she has written and for her public speaking. But besides all the major facts above, there is a lot more to Bell Hooks then you think. Throughout your readings you will learn a little more about Bell and her accomplishments. The main resource I used to do my research was the internet.
Authors use rhetorical strategies to express themes in their writing. Different rhetorical strategies help convey different themes with varying degrees of effectiveness. One way to measure the effectiveness is to rhetorical analyze two pieces of writing to each other and see which is best.
She starts talking about how she started to see herself as poor. She had no money for school, and the only way she went was by loans and scholarships. She thought of the world as two categories, who had money to spend and who did not. Hook talks about how she went to college knowing there was no connection between poverty and personal integrity. She relates this word poverty to an experience she had in her past. This encounter took place in her college classrooms. She pointed out the professors and even the people in the class viewed the poor as unworthy. Some labels were put onto the poor such as laziness. College also came with stereotypes against the poor. Hooks was so shocked to see that people believed these stereotypes and listened to them. The poor people soon began to feel worthless they became ashamed of where they had come
In the book Bone Black, Bell Hooks gives a vivid look into her childhood. She starts off by talking about a quilt that her mother gave her from her mother. She thinks that this is special because her mother gave it to her and not one of her other sisters. Then she goes into describing how the children in her family never knew that they were poor until they grew up. They liked the dolls that they played with and the food that they ate. They never wondered why they didn’t have the things that their white neighbors did have. You would seldomly hear them complain because they had to walk to school and the white kids rode the school bus. She thought that they had a pretty normal family.
In her novel called “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center” one of the many areas bell hooks speaks of is the perpetual racial confinement of oppressed black women. The term double-bind comes to mind when she says “being oppressed means the absence of choices” (hooks 5). The double-bind is “circumstances in which choices are condensed to a few and every choice leads to segregation, fault or denial” Therefore, this essay will discuss how hooks’ definition of oppression demonstrates the double-bind in race relations, forcing the socially underprivileged minority to “never win,” and as a result allowing the privileged dominate “norm” to not experience perpetual segregation.
“…it is said that there are inevitable associations of white with light and therefore safety, and black with dark and therefore danger…’(hooks 49). This is a quote from an article called ‘Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination’ written by bell hooks an outstanding black female author. Racism has been a big issue ever since slavery and this paper will examine this article in particular to argue that whiteness has become a symbol of terror of the black imagination. To begin this essay I will summarize the article ‘Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination’ and discuss the main argument of the article. Furthermore we will also look at how bell hooks uses intersectionality in her work. Intersectionality is looking at one topic and
There are many ‘norms’ and values expressed throughout hook’s writing. In the early part of the twentieth century survival belonged to the fittest. Not necessarily meaning fittest as ‘strongest,’ but able to produce, work hard, and make a secure life for yourself and family. On the other hand, in today’s society the message is that survival belongs only to the greedy. Also many young kids have the notion that in order to ’live the good life’ you must be wealthy of material possessions. Younger kids have to deal a lot more with the pressures associated with wealth.
The novel covered so much that high school history textbooks never went into why America has never fully recovered from slavery and why systems of oppression still exists. After reading this novel, I understand why African Americans are still racially profiled and face prejudice that does not compare to any race living in America. The novel left a mixture of frustration and anger because it is difficult to comprehend how heartless people can be. This book has increased my interests in politics as well and increased my interest to care about what will affect my generation around the world. Even today, inmates in Texas prisons are still forced to work without compensation because peonage is only illegal for convicts. Blackmon successfully emerged the audience in the book by sharing what the book will be like in the introduction. It was a strange method since most would have expected for this novel to be a narrative, but nevertheless, the topic of post Civil War slavery has never been discussed before. The false façade of America being the land of the free and not confronting their errors is what leads to the American people to question their integrity of their own
inequality in schools, race and gender roles that are portrayed in Peggy Orenstein’s Schoolgirls and
Since its publication in 1951, The Catcher In the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger has served as a conflagration for debate and extreme controversy. Although the novel has been the target of scornful criticism, it has also been the topic of wide discussion. The novel portrays the life of sixteen year old, Holden Caufield. Currently in psychiatric care, Holden recalls what happened to him last Christmas. At the beginning of his story, Holden is a student at Pencey Prep School. Having been expelled for failing four out of his five classes, Holden leaves school and spends 72-hours in New York City before returning home. There, Holden encounters new ideas, people, and experiences. Holden's psychological battle within himself serves as the tool that uncovers the coming-of-age novel's underlying themes of teen angst, depression, and the disingenuous nature of society. The novel tackles issues of blatant profanity, teenage sex, and other erratic behavior. Such issues have supplemented the controversial nature of the book and in turn, have sparked the question of whether or not this book should be banned. The novel, The Catcher In the Rye, should not be banned from inclusion in the literature courses taught at the high school level.
In her article Touching the Earth, Bell Hooks describes how african americans have been negatively impacted by disconnecting themselves from nature. She begins by describing how even in their darkest times, the early african americans found union and peace in nature. Hooks states that “it has been easy for folks to forget that black people were first and foremost a people of the land, farmers” and that their later migration to the industrialized north has had a heavy impact on their psyche. By removing themselves from the the agrarian south, blacks have “altered [their] relationship to the body.” This has allowed blacks to harbor an unhealthy self loathing for their own race. The author believes that there is a strong connection between the
The Catcher in the Rye is not all horror of this sort. There is a wry humor in this sixteen-year-old's trying to live up to his height, to drink with men, to understand mature sex and why he is still a virgin at his age. His affection for children is spontaneous and delightful. There are few little girls in modern fiction as charming and lovable as his little sister, Phoebe. Altogether this is a book to be read thoughtfully and more than once. It is about an unusually sensitive and intelligent boy; but, then, are not all boys unusual and worthy of understanding? If they are bewildered at the complexity of modern life, unsure of themselves, shocked by the spectacle of perversity and evil around them - are not adults equally shocked by the knowledge that even children cannot escape this contact and awareness?
We, the audience, are entertained and interested by the interviews, the balls and the featured persons. bell hooks sees audience enjoyment as exploitative and says, "...It is this current trend in producing colorful ethnicity for the white consumer appet...