The duality in this poem creates an illustration of the poet’s struggle which refers to the rising and falling of the African American culture; Johnson wonders how the world sees African American during this period as a people or things. It shows that the poet is worried about the direction the African American culture will be moving. Men or things is the comparison which is “Do they really think that African American people are worthless than white american people?” So the poet uses the word “thing” it mean that whites do not appreciate and insult African American people that they do not value as a human. It might be a question the the poet wants to ask others if it will take a long time to change their thinking or if it will take great efforts, strides, and sacrifices.…
As the colors of the trees changed throughout the different seasons, the life that Sunny has grown to know was about to change colors exactly like the leaves on the trees. On June second…
Born in Notasulga, Alabama and raised in Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated all-black town in America, Hurston knew this black culture firsthand. Not only did she grow up in all black community in the south, but she traveled throughout the South and in the West Indies as an anthropologist collecting folk materials independently with funding from private patrons or fellowships, as a doctoral student wording under Franz Boas, father of American anthropology (Cataliotti, 1995:100). She has been primarily interested in collecting the folk songs and sayings of her people.…
Leaves which was written by David Ezra Stein tells the story of a bear in his first year of life. Since it is his first time experiencing the seasons, he has to deal with the fear that comes with change. The little bear, has only ever known a world where the leaves are always on the trees and the weather is always good enough to play but with autumn comes the leaves changing colours and falling. This is reminiscent of children that have to deal with the change that occurs in their lives once summer comes to an end and they go back to school. The bear soon learns about hibernation, when he starts to get very tired while the weather gets colder. When he finally wakes up to spring’s arrival, the bear believes that the leaves have started growing…
Darken against the contrasting white snow, the darken bark show a toughness of weathering the storm. The tree bark also shows harden ing of the wearing of life but also show a perseverance. Showing a readiness for whatever is to come. The lines of the tree branches spread out in all directions having a wildest about it, but all branches no matter how far they reach out, they all come back to there base. The heart which gives them the ability to survive and maintain life. Mean while the pure white snow covers oh so sweetly and gently over it. Casketing off the branches with such beauty and elegance. Like a new silk garment kiss the body of the tree. Simulating a cleansing or new birth, a new beginning in a glories brightness of light. Giving off a sense of hope and joy to what to come. The snows’ brilliant ness leaves at utter joy on your face, giving a euphoric feeling of hope. Completely overloading senses which gives the ability to what more and the courage to pursue the…
Romare Bearden was an American artist who was born in the South in 1911. As an African American, Bearden sought to convey the experiences shared by Americans of color. Bearden’s early work consisted of more oil paintings, but his work evolved into collage art around 1964. Bearden began using spray paint and other techniques to make the collages seem almost like an oil painting themselves, which added to their complexity and intrigue. The colors and layers of his works were meant to provoke tension and to encourage discussion of the inequality and challenges that Americans of color faced, while also capturing the feel of authenticity of universal black cultures. Using his collage technique, Bearden managed to shine light on how constructed views…
The book Night, written by Eliezer Wiesel is about his experience in the holocaust and the pain and suffering him and the jews went through. He was taken from his home as a young boy and put into multiple ghettos before he was shipped off to Auschwitz. There he was separated from his family and left with his father, Shlomo Wiesel. He was sent to different camps and stuck with his father until the end. But at the last camp they stayed at, his father was sent to the crematorium and burned to death. Elie was liberated a few days after that and was able to write this book to tell his story to the reader. In his personal narrative Night, Elie Wiesel’s uses symbolism and very detailed description of the setting with a deep and profound tone to show the story of his hellish time in the Holocaust concentration camps.…
Speaking from your own life experience and observations, which writer least accurately represents what it means to be American? I would have to say it is Walt Whitman least accurately represents my life experiences in America. Why? Well in his poem “America” he talks of a “Centre of equal daughters, equal sons” (Whitman). There is nothing equal about America. There are those who have connections, networks of people, families of support that provide all with certain advantages or disadvantages. When I was in my late teens my mother worked for an eye doctor in Chicago. I needed a job so she told my mother to have me go and apply at the hospital were she was on staff. So…
To be successful you cannot let anything or anyone get in the way of that. There is going to be a struggle and a “hill that you must climb” to get where you would want to be. Some people might be more challenging than others, but that does not make a difference you still have to perceiver and get through it. In the essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” and the poem “Mother to Son” written by Langston Hughes both have a common image of “climbing” to represent that the African Americans had to struggle to find their place in American society during the 1920’s.…
The Civil War was not the first war where blacks would participate, nor would it be the last. Butler’s policy to allow blacks into Union forces, opened the opportunity for not only Virginian slaves, but other slaves throughout the South, to escape their masters. The Union army allowed a form of social elevation for the black race, influencing military duties and a form of schooling, but most importantly, offering certain legal rights that no slave could possess. The use of colored men, began with Butler’s began to use these me as a labor source for his camp. Secretary of War’s approved a contraband policy. Simon Cameron, who was Secretary of War at that time, approved Butler’s request of in taking blacks, informing him that “You will employ such persons in the service to which they may be best adapted, keeping an account of the labor by them performed, of the value of it and of the expense of their maintenance.” They were to be used as help for Union laborers and not as soldiers.…
In "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," Langston Hughes begins his argument with a quote from a young black man who declares that he "want[s] to be a poet -- not a Negro poet;" Hughes does this to inform the reader of the perceptions of young black artists in the 1920s. Hughes believes that artists like this man think "white is best," which carries into the theme of the essay, that self-love as an African American shapes the basis of your self-identification. Hughes uses this quote because it embodies the central idea of self-love, no matter your skin color. He carries this quote through the piece, by shaping his argument around it. The quote infers that being African American is not good enough, or how Hughes puts it, that "his own…
When analysing American society through postcolonial theory, the basic division shows how imperialism created a binary construction in society's mindset and the creation of a group identity rather than a personal identity. Due to the focus of this paper on African Americans and their relation to the dominate Euro-Americans, other ethnics groups, such as Native Americans, are not included in this society analysis. Moreover, this paper does not presume that the position between coloniser and colonised is a stable one, as, how the novel will highlight, it is undergoing a change and reflects many gray areas in this binary opposition. This analysis is to provide a simple first step in understanding a complicated issue in the relationship between African Americans and Euro-Americans.…
In the poem, "Misgiving" (1923), Frost creates a metaphor by comparing the narrator's death and afterlife to the lifecycle of the leaf. When the leaf is finally released from its bondage to the tree, he implies that it has the option of flying free with the wind and exploring the world. Frost has shown the human protagonist identifying in some way with the trees, feeling somehow related to them because of mood, emotion, fear, or desires that are being projected onto the trees, creating relationships that are more than analogy, that approach an expression of identity. But, unfortunately, most leaves tend to fall straight to the ground and lie motionless against a wall or in a ravine. His hope is that his own impending departure from this mortal spiral is not equally as anticlimactic.…
My name is Michelle Williams-Agwagu and my ethnicity group is African American. African Americans came here by forced immigration. They were not invited here to America, and they certainly did not come here by choice. They were forced and taken on ships that brought them to America just to become slaves to the white people.…
It derived from the Greek verb dran, meaning “to act” or “to do”, refers to actions or deeds as they are performed in theatrical setting for the benefit of a body spectators. More limited than the related concept of theater, which also comprehends such forms as opera and dance, the term drama refers essentially to dramatic literature—the text composed by playwrights to be spoken in a theater. Because the heritages of Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and African drama have had little influence on one another and even less on the theaters of the English-speaking world.…