Preview

August Wilson

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1158 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
August Wilson
Khadiyah gist
Mr. Alston
English 3
18 May 2012
The Literature and Life of August Wilson August Wilson was born as Fredrick August Wilson on April 27, 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father Fredrick August Kittel was a German immigrant baker who later abandoned his family. His mother Daisy Wilson was from North Carolina. August Wilson was one of six children by his mother who also was the youngest by 13 years. He grew up in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother and siblings. August Wilson was the only black child in his school so he was the target of fierce racism. As a teen Wilson mother married David Bedford. The family moved to Hazelwood, a white working class neighborhood. He “left school at the age of fifteen when his teacher refused to take his word that a twenty page paper on Napoleon was his own work” (Norton 2). Wilson and his family faced threats and racial hostility. In 1945 Wilson decided to become a writer and adopted his mother’s maiden name. August Wilson’s goals were “to concretize the black cultural response to the world to place that response in loud, action, so as to create a dramatic literatures as powerful and sustaining as black American music” (Norton 3). August Wilson was first a poet but later became a writer. Wilsons sensitivity to the problems of black America shows the influence of the black power movement of the late 1960’s, and he referred to himself as a black nationalist” (Taylor 1). After Wilson’s father death in the late sixties Malcolm X and the Blues influenced Wilson. The same year he purchased his first typewriter and began to write poetry. 1968 he founded the Black Horizons theatre company in Pittsburgh. Some of his poetry was published in black literary journals, such as Black World. Two trains running set focused on death and entitlements. In 1969 august Wilson converted to Islam to insure the survival of his marriage to Brenda Burton. Wilson began writing one act plays in the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The dehumanizing oppression of African Americans in the southern states of America during the first half of the 20th century is regarded as one of the saddest chapters in the history of the nation. They were denied their Human and Civil Rights to a most severe degree, including the regulation of the very basic right of suffrage. African Americans were also denied equality in the classroom, stemming their ability to develop as a race. Ruth touches on this subject on various lines such as being “not so educated” and “riding the bus”. Ruth does a magnificent job of using poetry to describe this social injustice.…

    • 337 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pudd'Nhead Wilson

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The novel Pudd’nhead Wilson takes place on the banks of the Mississippi River and in the first half of the 19th century. David Wilson has moved into town and a misunderstood comment gives him the nickname “pudd’nhead”. Pudd’nhead Wilson doesn’t become a significant figure until the end of the story while the focus switches to the slave Roxy, her son, and Percy Driscoll. Roxy is only 1/16 black and her son Valet de Chamber is only 1/32 black. Slaves had got caught stealing and are almost sold “down the river” to another master, and Roxy is scared for her and her sons life. She almost decides to kill herself and her son Chambers but then decides to switch her son Chambers and her masters 2nd child Tom, in their cribs so her son can live the life of a white person. Chamber then believes he is white and is raised as a spoiled child, who has grown up to be a selfish person. Throughout the novel Twains tone is racist which is evident in Roxy’s treatments, Percy’s harsh discipline towards the slaves and Tom being black and the antagonist of the novel.…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    August Wilson’s famous play “Fences” is a drama set in the 1950’s. Being a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for the best play of the year, this play has had many positive responses to blacks and whites in this society. It is about protagonist Troy Maxson as well as his african american family that is filled with drama and excitement. In Wilson’s Fences by Joseph Wessling he expresses, “Fences is about the always imperfect quest for true manhood. Troy’s father was less of a “true” man than Troy, but he was a hard worker and a provider. Troy, even as a runaway, carried with him his father’s virtues along with a considerable lessening of the father’s harshness and promiscuity”(5). In this essay you will learn about the characters, the author’s background, the meaning of the play’s title, Fences, and the conflicts between the relationships in the family and life.…

    • 1720 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    August Wilson

    • 3685 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Being the 1st African-American playwright to be produced in mainstream American theatre, and in 10 years having 6 of his plays become major Broadway productions, August Wilson is a serious literary force. He has had two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama accredited to his name, which is significant in itself, as he is "the 6th playwright to have achieved this honor twice and the 3rd black playwright to have ever received it. He has won every major award for theatre and drama in the country at least once and is one of the most honored playwrights in America."2 His list of awards contains tittles such as: the McKnight, Bush, Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships, the Drama Desk Awards, and the Chicago Tribune's Artist of the Year. He has received several New York Circle Awards, the Edward Albee Last Frontier Playwright Award, the Whiting Foundation Award, and the Jerome Fellowship. His play Fences was the first play in 30 years to win all of the major…

    • 3685 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Piano Lesson

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages

    From the 1880s to the 1930s, the lives of African Americans had developed drastically. The Civil War, Reconstruction, and Great Migration happened during this time period. The development of civil rights did not come along easily. New laws were made for the improvement of civil rights such as the 13th and 14th Amendment. Unfortunately Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws were also apparent during this time period. This restricted many African Americans from gaining more equality and they had many struggles in their lives because White Americans generally did not accept for them to be on the same level. These changes were seen through the perspectives of characters in the play, “The Piano Lesson”, written by August Wilson. Although there was social…

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    August Wilson Biography

    • 517 Words
    • 3 Pages

    August Wilson was born Frederick August Kittel on April 27, 1945 to Daisy Wilson and Frederick Kittel. His father was a German immigrant, who rarely visited his family. His mother had walked up from North Carolina to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania on foot where she cared for August and his five other siblings, while at the same time, she worked as a cleaning woman. August went to school, all the while delivering newspapers to provide what little income possible.…

    • 517 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Robert Louis Stevenson was born on November 13th, 1850 to his parents Thomas and Margaret Stevenson., he was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Stevenson studied civil engineering at Edinburgh University at age seventeen, he was expected to follow the same footsteps of his father Thomas, who was a civil engineer and designed lighthouses. Stevenson was never interested in civil engineering or designing lighthouses in his father's business, he decided to stop studying civil engineering and instead study law at Edinburgh University. In 1875, Robert Louis Stevenson believed his profession should be writing, with that he quit studying law and focused on writing. As Stevenson progressed in his life, he had to face a tragical challenge, he suffered from…

    • 1380 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    August Wilson was an influential 20th-century playwright and the most prominent African American of that craft. Born on April 27, 1945, August Wilson grew up in the Hill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His childhood experiences in this black slum community would later become part of his dramatic writings. Though he lived much of his adult life in St. Paul, Minnesota, and in Seattle, the characters and plots of his plays were inspired by realities he experienced growing up in Pittsburgh 's Hill District and Oakland neighborhood. August Wilson’s, Fences set in the late 1950 's tells the story of Troy Maxson, an uneducated trash collector who has become resentful by a racist system that has deprived of him the baseball career he feels he deserves. This resentment has also caused turmoil in his relationship with his sons Cory and Lyons. Cory 's disobedience and Lyons insensible, irresponsible attitude were caused by their father’s indifferent attitude towards them.…

    • 1768 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Andrew Wyeth

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Andrew Wyeth was born July 12, 1917 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. He was the youngest of five children. Andrew was a sickly child and so his mother and father made the decision to pull him out of school after he contracted whooping cough. He received schooling in all subjects including art education.…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Nadel, Alan. May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson. University of Iowa Press, U.S.:1994.…

    • 1968 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Harm has inflicted the black community and race in many ways. Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, shows the violence put on the African American race and women during the early twentieth century. Walker demonstrates life during these hard times and how some things still haven’t changed; making the violence and harm inflicted on the black community a major theme of the story. The stereotype of violence inflicted on and in the black community, clearly shown through the characters in The Color Purple, helps achieve the author’s educating purpose.…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Henry Louis Gates Jr. general editor, Nellis Y. McKay general editor 2nd edition The Norton AnthologyAfrican American Literature noron2004 new york…

    • 1720 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Art is an expressive outlet for people to be able to get an important point across. That could either be affected by social/political issues taking place at the time or their personal experiences. These events and experiences have led to the breakthrough of many texts. Langston Hughes, the author of poems, Mother to Son and Let America be America again captures the Harlem Renaissance period, which was a social and artistic revival of the African American community. His poems explore the themes of stereotyping and taking action. John Lee Hancock also reinforces these themes through his moving film The Blind Side. The social contexts in which these texts were made help the public dive into and have an understanding of these events.…

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Analyzing three different African American writers, I have become aware of three viewpoints in which African American artists should express themselves. Each writer made there points clear in there respectable articles. Langston Hughes expresses his views in “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” W.E.B Dubois in ”Criteria Of Negro Art,” and Richard Wright in “Blueprint for Negro Writing”. After comparing the three writers, one can find many similarities in each writers messages for the African American writer, and see which writer had the strongest and most persuasive stand.…

    • 1039 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    August Wilson was an American playwright who received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama fpr the ten plays he had written called the “The Pittsburgh Cycle” In the play Gem of the Ocean, Wilson illustrates people with authority abusing their power. Wilson showing this in the play has relevance to the real world by demonstrating the racial stereotyping on African Americans. Every other day in todays’ it is as if we see another African American child or child getting verbally or physically abused by police officers. It emphasizes the issues and heartache of police hurting their love ones or even worst, taking…

    • 979 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays

Related Topics