Preview

Way in the Middle of the Air by Ray Bradbury

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
816 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Way in the Middle of the Air by Ray Bradbury
Lauren Grimes CP English10 – Period 5 Mr. King Due; December 5th, 2012

Racial Prejudice in America

Racial prejudice is a pessimistic aspect of society that has critically affected many different people around the world. This idea is well demonstrated in Ray Bradbury’s short story “Way in the Middle of the Air”, which is part of The Martian Chronicles (1950). “Way in the Middle of the Air” displays a great amount of inequality and racism within America. This story focuses on the relations of the African-Americans and the white Americans in the South. The African-Americans, other known as “blackies” and “niggers” in the story, are tired of being belittled and treated unfairly by the whites, and so all the blacks in that town decide to pack up and take off on rockets to Mars, in hopes of living a better life not run by the white people. With the word of the blacks leaving town, the white people become not only enraged, but emotional wrecks because they don’t know what they are going to do with themselves without cheap workers and people to abuse. The whites believed that the blacks should be happy because they were finally given the right to vote and the right to have jobs with pay, though in the eyes of the blacks, those rights simply were not enough.

Bradbury sets a sense of arrogance and self-absorption within the white characters in the story, but mostly the main character. The main character was known as Samuel Teece, a white hardware-store owner. He is the man known in the town for his intimidating cruelty towards the “niggers” in the town, along with his ignorance and passionate nature in tormenting the blacks. When he first hears the news of the blacks leaving to Mars, he is filled with doubts and thinks of it as one big rumor; however, when he finally realizes that it is all true, he is enraged and says to his fellow white men, “Telephone the governor, call out the militia! They should’ve given

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Throughout North American history, racism has been a serious issue which has consumed many people a , yet destroyed another. Racism makes other humans beings feel inferior, this is wrong. This is frowned upon in our society, yet accepted in Chapter 15 of The Martian Chronicles. This short narration is called "Way in the Middle of Air", and takes place in a fictional June of 2003. The entire chapter the author has devotes to all aspects of racism in its entirety., Displaying thought uses of extensive symbolism the author depicts the leaving of the African -Americans from their town. "And in that slow, steady channel of darkness that cut across the white glare of day were touches of alert white" (p. 91), the paragraph form which his passage was taken has allegorical characteristics. The use of light and dark ["White banks of the town stores, among the trees silences, a black tide flowed." (p.90)], symbolism ["Brooks of colour" (p. 91)], metaphors [The Blacks ' are the river], similes ["Men sat like nervous hounds" (p.…

    • 1339 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Down to a Sunless Sea is short story written by Neil Gaiman and published in the British newspaper The Guardian on March 22nd 2013. Taking place in London, this story describes a rainy encounter on the banks of the Thames which unlocks a tale of loss and grief.…

    • 1014 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In looking at Derrick Bell's "The Space Traders" as an allegory, the characters personify the abstract subjects of late twentieth-century racial politics. In the text the politics of the United States revolves around anti-black thinking, and many white subjects believe that all the environmental and economical problems in the U.S. is due to the black race. Secondly, "the space trade" comprehends Bell's concept of "the permanence of racism" in the Unites States. Bell believes that "the space trade" is somewhat familiar to the first African slave trade, and that these two events occur because of "the permanence of racism" in our society and the structures that allow this repetition to exist. In this essay I will discuss the political positions of the subjects in "The Space Traders" and the extent in which they personify late twentieth-century racial politics, and then analyze "the space trade" and comprehend it with Bell's belief in "the permanence of racism" in the United States.…

    • 1490 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    "Space Traders" is a short story written by Derrick Bell, a current professor of law at NYU. Bell is not a science fiction writer, nor does he claim to be, but he uses science fiction to portray a story of racism that sounds ludicrous upon first reading. However it does in fact tell a story that is relevant to the issues America faces on racism today. Being a lawyer, Bell approaches this story from a political standpoint, giving symbolic meaning to even the smallest details throughout the story. So how does "Space Traders" apply to the problems the world faces with racism and prejudice? The "Space Traders" solution offers many of the same ideals Hitler shared with the Nazi party concerning his "final solution". Bell uses this analogy to show how African Americans have been sacrificed in the past and how it is in fact still a problem America faces with racism today. "Space Traders" is an allegory that confronts the issues of racism that continues to occur in modern society. Bell uses the analogy to the Holocaust to remind the reader of how America has used African Americans as a scapegoat; also he believes that racism is as prevalent of a problem today as it was at the end of slavery.…

    • 995 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, a science fiction novel explores the lives of the people who are migrating and colonizing Mars in order to escape an atomically devastated Earth. The book is a collection of short stories that are inter-related, and they describe the lives and assimilation processes of a number of settlers that came from earth to the planet Mars. It narrates the difficulties that the settlers face in getting accustomed to the different environment and their efforts to create a new set of values and cultural ethos in an alien environment. Through his commentary on American colonization, Ray Bradbury conveys the theme of metamorphosis in The Martian Chronicles and…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Roughing It by Mark Twain

    • 1024 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Roughing it was written by Mark Twain. This book is a journal of Mark Twain and his brother's trip to Carson City, Nevada. They went because Mark Twain's brother had a job as the Secretary of Nevada. This book, journal, started when they were leaving to go to Carson City; and ended when Mark Twain decided to move to New York instead of living in San Francisco or any part of the wild west. In between this time he talked about how they became rich and how they lost it and how they became rich again and lost it. He also talked about their trips to different places and they also talked about Slade and Indians and Mormons, which brings me to my topic. My report is on the Mormons and their history, their part in the book and many other things.<br><br>The Mormons have been a group for over 40 years and they have hated "Gentiles" for their whole existence because wherever they go they are hunted or chased by these "Gentiles". Joseph Smith was the founder of the Book of Mormons and the religion of Mormonism. After being kicked out of everywhere they finally settled in Ohio. There they built a church and they stayed there for a while. While they were there a man by the name of Brigham Young joined them. He did so many things for the Mormons that they said he was one of the Twelve Apostles. Then later he became the president of the Twelve. The people of Ohio then drove the Mormons out of their state and so the Mormons had to settle somewhere else. They were kicked out of many different states until they found safe haven in Illinois. Here Joseph Smith, the president of the Mormon Church, was killed; and a Mormon named Rigdon was made the president of the Mormon Church. Then after a little while Brigham Young came and seized power of the Mormon Church and kicked Rigdon out of his seat as president.<br><br>They then moved to Salt Lake City, Utah to escape the Americans, because the Americans did not have control of Utah back then. Then after they settled in Utah the Americans…

    • 1024 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Everything That Rises Must Converge" is a short story, written by Flannery O'Connor, about Julian and his mother and their way to the Y. One of the main ideas of the background of this story is racism. The short story "Everything That Rises Must Converge", by Flannery O'Connor tells the story of Julian, the main character and his thoughts and feelings toward his mother. Julian is a college graduate who has a fair understating of the world he lives in, and because of this finds difficulty dealing with his mother and her views of the world.…

    • 1463 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The following story I am about to write on is "Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed" by Ray Bradbury, which follows the lives of Earth people stranded on Mars during the war on their own planet. This is not a stereotypical science-fiction story due to the uniqueness of the Martian theme. At first, a family of five (the Bittering family) are the only people on the planet, but are soon joined by many others. The chilling story begins with Harry Bittering's thoughts:…

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    thought-provoking short story about prejudice and racism. The story is set in a small town on Mars in…

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Wave by Morton Rhue

    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In the novel The Wave by Morton Rhue we see change occur in this novel when a classroom experiment designed to show students how to make people change and conform their behaviour to fit certain rules. The classroom experiment that the teacher created was the catalyst that caused throughout the schools behaviour and the students behaviour and attitude.…

    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fat by Raymond Carver

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages

    I am deeply ambivalent about Raymond Carver. My beef with this particular dead guy has less to do with his fine stories than with his 1980s-era apotheosis into an academic demigod, his canonization as St. Ray of the MFA programs, the way his works and style became paradigms to be slavishly imitated by a generation (maybe two generations now) of American writing students, a process of sowing that came to barren fruition in the bland, flat, snowy fields of zero-degree Minimalist prose. All this has been enough to keep me away from Carver for about a decade--a fruitful separation that weaned me from the stylistic Jonestown Kool-Aid of "See Spot run. See Jane drink. See Dick screw" Minimalism.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Since their creation, humans have always had a natural inclination for invention, For instance, utilising stones, they created tools and weapons to increase their efficiency and survival chances. However, humans could have still survived without their inventions such as the wheel and the engine, albeit with a lower quality of life. In, “The Flying Machine,” by Ray Bradbury, new inventions are condemned because they could potentially be used in violence or crime. Emperor Yuan believes that if a civilization functions adequately, new inventions risk the safety of its people unnecessarily.…

    • 809 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ghassan Kanafani is one of the famous Arab writers who represent resistance literature. His writings were mainly devoted to depict the struggle of his people and ignite new resistance acts against Israeli forces of occupation. The writer affirmed the strong determination of the Palestinian people to liberate their occupied lands whatever the cost would be. Kanafani was a writer and journalist from Acre, the editor of al-Hadaf. A member of the Political Bureau of PFLP and its spokesperson, he published their newspapers (Al-Ray, The Opinion). Kanafani was killed by a car bomb on July 8, 1972 in Beirut.…

    • 1081 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    “Life has no plot. It is by far more interesting than anything you can say about it…” –Erica Jong, Fear of Flying…

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Babbit by Sinclair Lewis

    • 1800 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Only once during the two years that we have him under view, does he venture…

    • 1800 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays