Flyin’ West by Pearl Cleage, is a play about free African-American women who move out west to Kansas to commence a new life away from the white people in Memphis. Throughout the play I have come to learn that there are some bits and pieces that growing up we were not taught as part of our historical education. I believe it is important to know what happened in our country’s history to help us appreciate how far along in we have come as a society, but also appreciate where we come from and be proud of who we are. In the play the character Miss Leah is very important because she gives us more of a vivid image of what it was like to be a slave. She tells her story to Minnie about how the overseer of the plantation would force her at the age of fourteen to have sexual relationships with this man named James in order to have children. She remembers her first time to be the most painful thing in the world and later on falling in love with James. Miss Leah worked on the field even she was pregnant, even while in labor. Soon after that, the newborns were soon sold off to another plantation. In this time period, slaves conceived children as a way for their owners to make a profit out of them. We would think that a woman in labor would give birth to her child laying …show more content…
The play encourages people of all different types of races to be proud of where they come from because it is what makes you as a person. There are certain subjects that won’t be taught to students of younger ages but it is important to know because we cannot hide the history that could benefit our personal intellect. Flyin’ West by Pearl Cleage is a play I highly recommend because she depicts the lives of these women vividly and opens your mind to all these possible outcomes of what may have happened if blacks were not
The black women’s interaction with her oppressive environment during Revolutionary period or the antebellum America was the only way of her survival. Playing her role, and being part of her community that is not always pleasant takes a lot of courage, and optimism for better tomorrow. The autonomy of a slave women still existed even if most of her natural rights were taken. As opposed to her counterparts
It shows that there is no difference between white and colored people, but it’s so hard for people to get past the physical features to realize that we are all equal. Ethel was right when she said two colored men would help two white women, and those white men knew she was right. Those men knew Ethel had a point and now they had no choice but to help her and her friend. When Ethel was in the hospital, she had two doctors who mistreated her leg injury. Her wound was severely infected because the two doctors never helped her, and her leg could have been amputated.
The play depicts the feelings and thoughts of the people of their time. Their feelings are different then what we see today in our lives. The family had to deal with poverty and racism. Not having enough money and always being put down because of the color of their skin held them back from having a lot of self-respect and dignity. I think that Mama was the one who had the most pride and held the family together.
Initially, Elisabeth is the matriarch of the four generations of women talked about in the story. Elisabeth works in the house, but she’s married to a field slave and has three daughters. Not much insight is given on Elisabeth and her feelings, yet through the narration it is as if she lived vicariously through her youngest daughter, Suzette: “It was as if her mother were the one who had just had her first communion not Suzette” (20) Even though Elisabeth too worked in the house, Suzette had more privileges than her mother and the other slaves. Elisabeth represented the strength and the pride of her people: “You have a mother and a father both, and they don’t live up to the [plantation] house” (25). She would constantly remind Suzette of her real family, which signifies the remembrance of a history of people and their roots. It is up to Suzette to keep the heritage even through the latter miscegenation of the generations to come.
... middle of paper ... ... Men were no different, but they were forced to mate with choice slaves to produce optimal offspring like livestock. Her experiences with slavery were in different ways, but the underlying result of it is the same for anyone else at the time.
In her book, Jubilee, Margaret Walker tells the story of slavery from American history, based on real narrative from her family. Walker’s real great-grandmother, Vyry, was born to Hetta as her youngest child with Masters John Morris Dutton. Vyry was two years old, when Hetta died. Mammy Sukey took care of Vyry until the day she left to the Big House. Seven year old Vyry began her duty in Masters House; however, Big Missy Salina, John’s wife hated her and bullied her for she knew her husband cheated on her with Hetta. Master John found out how Salina mistreated Vyry; thus, he changed Vyry’s duties to work in the kitchen under the command of Aunt Sally. During the time spend with Sally, Vyry learned a lot about cooking, food preserving and herbs using, which enormously helped her later in her life. Because of her cooking skills, which she gained during work with Sally, Vyry became the main cook after Sally was sold away and stayed in the Big House kitchen till the day of emancipation. Throughout the years of her service, Vyry met a free black man Randal Ware, who imposed her the idea of freedom, saying he can buy it for her. Neither Master John nor his wife want to set Vyry free, thus she stayed in slavery with her two children. Ware had a plan of escape for her, but Vyry didn’t want to leave without children, got caught, and punished. The years of Civil War came, Ware was gone, and Masters family started dying out. Finally, only Miss Lillian, who was losing her mind after head injury, stayed alive, when the war ended and emancipation was brought. Vyry, alone with her children and a new man she met – Innis Brown, had to leave the Big House and start a new life. There were many obstacles they had to overcome. Although being free, it...
Wilson does a very great job to make sure that both sides, Black and White audience can benefit from Ma Rainey’s untold story, however, question who would benefit the most from viewing this play? Ultimately, I believe that both audience would benefit from viewing it. With a black audience it would beneficial to see the effects of racial decimation which caused their over usage of ‘Nigger’ by band members and Ma Rainy and self hatred. Examples can be seen here from Levee and Slow Drag.
In Laboring Women by Jennifer Morgan, the author talks about the transformations African Women suffer as they become slaves in America. The author explains how their race, gender and even their reproduction of African women became very important in the sex/gender system. She explains the differences of European, African and Creole and how their role was fit and fix in the sex/gender system in regards of production, body and kinship. Morgan explains the correlation of race and reproduction as well as how this affected the Atlantic World. She also explains the differences between whites and blacks and how they experience reproduction differently. Morgan also elaborates on how sex is a sexual disclosure. This gave us the conclusion on how the ideologies of race and reproduction are central to the organization of slavery.
Because this woman is a slave, she has no right to her own child, therefore she cannot claim him as her own. No matter how much she loves him or how much joy that he brings into her dreary life, he can never be hers, and her heart breaks when he is taken away from her. Mothers have a very special bond with their children; they feel a love that can be described as much stronger than any other kind of love in the world. This love that is felt by the slave mother in this poem literally changes the tone of the poem when the narrator speaks about the mother and her son. Despite the anguish and despair that she feels, the thought of her child can lift her spirits, only for the child to be taken away from her. Because of her race, she cannot claim any right to love her own child. As a woman, her right to be a mother and raise and love her child was taken away from her. The slave mother had no rights to herself or her own children, and her race and gender are the main causes for
... were changing, but being African American could prevent a person from reaching their goals and achieving success and in doing so, completely forget the importance of family and tradition. Through this play, Hansberry affirms that America’s values are constantly changing and evolving. The American Dream is constantly morphed, and people will take different actions according to their beliefs, but factors such as racism can prevent a person from becoming successful and achieving their dreams.
Its shows why things are cultural appropriation by showing the response of different public figures who have been accused of cultural appropriation. It gives examples of actions that’s are cultural appropriation. Its show how things that seem to be stereotypes are more than that it’s a form of racial oppression put upon only the African American community.
Some say that this play is racial in that the family is black, and what the family is going through could only happen to people of that race. One prominent racial is...
As female slaves such as Harriet Jacob continually were fighting to protect their self respect, and purity. Harriet Jacob in her narrative, the readers get an understanding of she was trying to rebel against her aggressive master, who sexually harassed her at young age. She wasn’t protected by the law, and the slaveholders did as they pleased and were left unpunished. Jacobs knew that the social group,who were“the white women”, would see her not as a virtuous woman but hypersexual. She states “I wanted to keep myself pure, - and I tried hard to preserve my self-respect, but I was struggling alone in the grasp of the demon slavery.” (Harriet 290)The majority of the white women seemed to criticize her, but failed to understand her conditions and she did not have the free will. She simply did not have that freedom of choice. It was the institution of slavery that failed to recognize her and give her the basic freedoms of individual rights and basic protection. Harriet Jacobs was determined to reveal to the white Americans the sexual exploitations that female slaves constantly fa...
life in the mid to late twentieth century and the strains of society on African Americans. Set in a small neighborhood of a big city, this play holds much conflict between a father, Troy Maxson, and his two sons, Lyons and Cory. By analyzing the sources of this conflict, one can better appreciate and understand the way the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work.
This movie is a wonderful production starting from 1960 and ending in 1969 covering all the different things that occurred during this unbelievable decade. The movie takes place in many different areas starring two main families; a very suburban, white family who were excepting of blacks, and a very positive black family trying to push black rights in Mississippi. The movie portrayed many historical events while also including the families and how the two were intertwined. These families were very different, yet so much alike, they both portrayed what to me the whole ‘message’ of the movie was. Although everyone was so different they all faced such drastic decisions and issues that affected everyone in so many different ways. It wasn’t like one person’s pain was easier to handle than another is that’s like saying Vietnam was harder on those men than on the men that stood for black rights or vice versa, everyone faced these equally hard issues. So it seemed everyone was very emotionally involved. In fact our whole country was very involved in president elections and campaigns against the war, it seemed everyone really cared.