Preview

Annie John

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1421 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Annie John
Dreams play a major role in deciphering subconscious psychological issues, such as fears, desires, and anxieties in Annie John. Dreams "have been interpreted as expressions of infantile desires or considered elaborations of the problems of waking hours". In Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John, Annie’s dreams become a significant element in the way she views herself and the world around her. Annie comments about her dreams: "I had been taught by my mother to take my dreams seriously. My dreams were not unreal representations of something real; my dreams were a part of, and the same as, my real life" (Kincaid 89). Annie realizes that her dreams indicate the issues of her separation anxiety, reveal her conflicting desire to break away from her mother, and reflect her growth and development.
The dream that Annie has about her mother on the rock signifies Annie’s first confrontation with the changing relationship with her mother and Annie’s first feelings of separation anxiety. Children’s dreams have been found to be realistic representations of their lives, their dreams being a follow-up of their waking hours. They represent the most pressing concerns and tasks for children at the different stages of growth. In dreams, children give symbolic expression to their developmental struggles. Furthermore, specialists "maintain that about 50% of dreams are linked with events of the earlier day. Annie’s dreams reveal the struggles she goes through in real life. Before this dream, Annie says her relationship with her mother was "a paradise" (Kincaid 25). However, in Annie’s dream about the rock, she foresees the changes in their relationship. Her mother’s separation from Annie, shown by sitting on the rock, symbolizes their emotional separation that would soon follow. In the autobiography she reads to her class, Annie writes, "I couldn’t find her, a huge black space then opened up in front of me and I fell inside it. I couldn’t think of anything except that my mother was no longer

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    anna j cooper

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Anna Julia Cooper was born in 1858 to a slave and a slave owner in North Carolina. She attended St. Augustine’s Normal School and Collegiate Institute for the colored. After she graduated she began advocating for people of color especially for women of color. Cooper strongly believed that the status and well-being of black women was a central part of the progression and equality of the nation. Throughout her life she fought relentlessly to uplift black women in hopes for a more just society for everyone. She famously wrote in her book A Voice from the South, “only the black women can say when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me”(Cooper 54). Cooper described her teaching profession as “the education of the neglected people,” she felt that education, more specifically higher education, as the path of black women’s advancement (55). She believed that educational development women remove any need for reliance on men (Giddings 138). In 1902 Cooper was promoted to principle at M Street School where she taught math and science. With her firm belief that education was the pathway to progress for people of color, she often rejected her white supervisors’ authorization to teach her students different types of trades, and instead she prepared them for college. Cooper sent her student’s to some of the most respected universities, which helped the M Street School get accreditation from Harvard, but rather than her success be celebrated it was received with hostility from white supervisors and white supremacy that didn’t want to see the advancement of black youth. While Cooper was teaching at the M Street School she was heavily involved in building spaces for black women outside of education. She founded the Colored Women’s League of Washington in 1892, and in1900 she helped open the first YWCA chapter for black women, in…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Annette Smith

    • 1194 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The following information has been provided by the Evans Retail Stores, Inc., for the first quarter of the year:…

    • 1194 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Vivian Murray

    • 295 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Vivian Murray Chambers was born in Salisbury, North Carolina on June 4, 1903. Mr. Chambers received a Bachelor of Science from Shaw University in 1928, then a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University, New York in 1931. He later received a Master of Science from Cornell University in 1935 and a Doctor of Science (Ph.D. in Economic Entomology) from Cornell in 1946. Dr. Chambers worked for the WPA (Works Progress Administration) as a Senior Research Worker in the American Museum of Natural History. From 1936-1937, Vivian Chambers was appointed an Instructor of Science at Lincoln Normal School, Alabama. Between 1937 and 1943 Dr. Chambers worked as a Biologist for the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (Alabama A&M). In 1945, Dr. Chambers was appointed Professor of Biology at Alabama A&M. In 1970, Professor Chambers was appointed Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.…

    • 295 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “She had waited all her life for something.” This quote is significant because it epitomizes the struggle of a woman to reach self-actualization. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston juxtaposes opposing places to emphasize the experience gained by the novel’s protagonist, Janie, in each respective location, and to emphasize the effect of that environment on Janie’s journey to attain her dreams. Through this comparison, the author explores the idea of living and experiencing life as a means of self-discovery. Moreover, Hurston expresses another theme central to the novel’s understanding. This particular theme denounces the belief that achieving life experience should always involve happiness. Through the juxtaposition of Eatonville to the Everglades Zora Neale Hurston depicts the self-discovery of a woman, attained only by embarking on through empiricism.In the novel Eatonville serves as a symbol of the oppression that Janie endured throughout the majority of her life. When the narration commences, prior to the introduction of Eatonville, Janie she is sixteen-years-old and living with her grandmother, Nanny. Nanny is characterized as strong-willed and overbearing. Furthermore, she is the first force of oppression, against which Janie must contend. The audience is provided with insight into Nanny’s perspective of the situation when Nanny remarks, “Ah was born back due in slavery...Ah didn’t want to be used for a work-ox and a brood-sow and Ah didn’t want mah daughter used dat way neither...Ah even hated the way you was born. But, all de same Ah said thank God, Ah got another chance” (Hurston 15). Because of her experiences, Nanny desires to protect Janie from all struggles in life; Nanny believes that by marrying Logan Killicks, Janie will be able to avoid the obstacles that her grandmother endured. Although Nanny’s intentions are virtuous, her actions only cause Janie to further rebel. Immediately after marrying…

    • 954 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Annie uses consciousness and mindfulness to develop her essay. By talking about how others see things differently from other in society . Dillard says, “ I once spent a full three minutes looking at a bullfrog that was so unexpectedly large I couldn't see it even though a dozen enthusiastic camper were shouting direction finally i ask what color am i looking for and a fellow said green at last i pick out the frog i saw what painters are up against the things wasn't green at all but the color of wet hickory bark”(4). Dillard is showing that everyone see and picture thing differently from others. Some people look at stuff with more meaning while other just look at it just for the simple things. We need to start look for more meaning in things because it will give us more understanding of what the…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Marian Anderson

    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Was Marion Anderson a famous singer? Yes, Marion Anderson was a famous singer. She was probably one of the most popular ones in the 1900’s. Marion Anderson played in many soap operas and sang tons of songs in the early and middle 1900’s. She also fought against racism.…

    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Annie E Graham

    • 306 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Unlike the Army and Navy, the Marine Corps barred blacks from its war time Women Reserves. In adopting this ban, it could cite the expense of building segregated quarters and the fact that enough white applicants were available to maintain the organization at authorized strength. The first African-American to join the Women Reserves, Annie E. Graham, did not enlist until September 1949, four years after Japan's formal surrender.…

    • 306 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Annie Oakley 1

    • 3709 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Annie Oakley, legendary sharp-shooter and celebrated member of Buffalo Bill 's Wild West show, was one of America 's first superstars. In the late nineteenth century, her image was known all over the world. She had tea with Queen Victoria, met the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, and was challenged by Grand Duke Michael of Russia to a shooting match. Though the Grand Duke was noted for being an excellent wing shot, Annie Oakley beat him, missing only three birds out of fifty, while he missed fourteen. (AnnieOakleyFoundation.org)…

    • 3709 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Annie’s mother was very unusual, she wasn’t as normal as the other mothers. Andy knew that and she didn’t like that, sometimes she felt proud but at the same time a little embarrassed. Annie knew that her mother was a very liberal woman and she respected that, but sometimes she just didn’t want to be her daughter, like she wanted a “normal” mother, just to put it that way.…

    • 660 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ella Fitzgerald

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages

    There are many major developments that one can consider when discussing the influence that contemporary classical music, particularly the language of chromaticism, pan-tonality, atonality and serialism have had on the impact of Jazz. In this piece I intend to focus on developments in modern and post-modern culture that have seen contemporary classical music flourish into a proliferation of new styles and sounds. To help explain this I will give a brief history as well as use examples from ………… and explore how they have been influenced as well as influenced new styles and sounds in an amalgam of musical genre.…

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In reviewing the case study of Helen and watching the therapy session online it became apparent that Helen was still struggling with feelings of the “benign neglect” she experienced as a child. Murdock (2009) in quoting Sigmund Freud “maintained that the forces of which we are unaware (the unconscious) are the most powerful sources of behavior” (p. 34). Dr. Donavan was successful in using the technique of “Dream Analysis” to help Helen bridge the gap between her unconscious (dream) and her conscious feelings of neglect from her husband. Dr. Donavan helped Helen to realize that in her dream where she is floating alone in a river going pass her husband and kids without any of them noticing her (she did later recall that her son looked up and saw her), is much like her feeling of being taken for granted by her husband in her everyday life. Helen reportedly carries out her duties as wife and mother with little help or gratitude from her husband.…

    • 349 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mary's Monologue

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages

    That's what makes it so hard – for all of us. We can't forget.has hidden deeper within herself and found refuge and release in a dream where present reality is but an appearance to be accepted and dismissed unfeelingly – even with a hard cynicism – or entirely ignored. There is at times an uncanny gay, free youthfulness in her manner, as if in spirit she were released to become again, simply and without self-consciousness, the naïve, happy, chattering schoolgirl of her convent days.…

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Painted Door Analysis

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In this dream she sees John’s face “And in it was not a trace of threat or anger-only calm, and stone-like hopelessness”, John’s expression displays his pain. His lack of understanding about Ann ‘s desires leads to Ann betraying him. Even though Ann does betray John, she immediately realizes that “John was the man. With him lay all future”. She understands that John’s shortcomings did not bother her and that she truly loves John. She clearly sees John is a better man than Steven, because he is there for her. He truly loves and appreciates her. John provides stability in her life that Steven cannot. Ann feels guilty for her actions and realizes that in trying to pursue Steven she ruined her marriage. Ann realizes that John never questioned his love for her, but she got caught up in the moment and questioned her love for him. John always came to meet Ann even in worst of storms before their marriage, even after all those years of marriage he still loved her enough to keep his promise that day. In her attempt to overcome her circumstance she lost the man she loved.…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    yellow wallpaper

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Another quote I found interesting in this passage is when she says “I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So I will let it alone and talk about the house.” Which means that while she was having her own intuition about he illness Johns instructions from previously has come back into her mind, and kind of stops her from thinking her own thoughts, and makes her focus on another subject. Which shows the control that John has over not just the physical aspects of her life but has also put a…

    • 640 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I chose this piece of literature because it follows the life line of a woman from her childhood to her adulthood. By reading the story, we’re able to observe her maturity from a young näive girl into a knowledgeable, mature woman. As well as a complete life line we ultimately have a window into her mind. We are able to know exactly what Janie feels and the way she thinks; it ties us into her journey of maturing from a young girl to a woman. These themes could definitely be tied into my life. One major theme of this book is Janie’s search for happiness and companionship. I can tie this into my life. I don’t like being alone very much; it makes me think about situations and subjects that I would rather not think of, and it puts me in an extremely awkward place. Having companionship could mean being with my sister for as long as I’d like, or being with a friend. Either way, having someone to talk to is very comforting, as I can release my mind and let it wander. Everyone is looking for happiness. I don’t think there’s one person in this world who doesn’t want to be happy. Janie’s happiness is being able to be free and interact with whomever she’d like. Her dream is similar to mine. I want to be free to make my own decisions and choose what I’d like to do; I don’t want to obey one person and do anything and everything he wants, as Jody did with Janie.…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays