More handpicked essays just for you.
The portrayal of women in literature
Thesis statement the portrayal of women in literature
Thesis statement the portrayal of women in literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral by Jessie Redmon Fauset was published in 1928. Fauset was an African American woman who for many years served as the literary editor of The Crisis, a publication of the NAACP. The book is considered one of the significant texts that contributed to the literary and artistic movement that became known as the Harlem Renaissance, a period often referred to as the golden age of African American culture encompassing music, art, theater, and literature.
On the surface Plum Bun is constructed with the traditional trappings of the romance and the fairy tale. The book goes beyond what might seem typical by dealing thematically with racism, capitalism, and sexism. The main character is a light-skinned young African American
…show more content…
In an epigraph the novel quotes a nursery rhyme that provides the book’s title. “To market, to market/to buy a plum bun/Home again, home again/Market is done.” A plum bun is a pastry similar to an American cinnamon roll or an English Chelsea roll. It is sweet and made of white flour which has colored currents, raisins, or plums baked within. The term “plum bun” is also a hint at sexuality as it can also suggest an attractive piece. Angela needs to deal with black and white heritages and with her understand femininity beyond common stereotypes. Eventually she can then grapple with her psychological makeup. Stereotypically women of color were presented as typically sweet with terms such as jellyroll and brown sugar used to reference them. Angela cannot continue to see herself as a conduit of sweetness and must find self-worth …show more content…
She vows to embark on this new phase of her life by fully hiding her African American lineage. She has no problem being accepted in the avant-garde artistic circle inspired by the Greenwich Village of the 1920s. She enters a relationship with a young white man named Roger who appears to be part of the city’s upper class. Virginia arrives at Pennsylvania Station in New York from Philadelphia. When Angela goes to the station to meet her sister, she ends up avoiding her for fear that racism will cause Roger to reject her upon seeing her dark-skinned sister. Angela and Roger are both lying to each other in their relationship. Angela wants Roger for financial support while he turns to her for a physical relationship and does not want his father to meet her because of the interest he will have in her
As strong, independent, self-driven individuals, it is not surprising that Chris McCandless and Lily Owens constantly clashed with their parents. In Jon Krakauer’s novel, Into the Wild, Chris was a twenty-four-year-old man that decided to escape the materialistic world of his time for a life based on the simplistic beauty of nature. He graduated at the top of his class at Emory University and grew up in affluent Annandale, Virginia, during the early 1980’s. In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily was a fourteen-year-old girl who grew up in the 1960’s, a time when racial equality was a struggle. She had an intense desire to learn about her deceased mother. Her nanny, Rosaleen, with whom she grew very close over the years, raised Lily with little help from her abusive father. When her father failed to help Rosaleen after three white men hospitalized her, Lily was hysterical. Later, Lily decided to break Rosaleen out of the hospital and leave town for good. While there are differences between Chris McCandless and Lily Owens, they share striking similarities. Chris McCandless’ and Lily Owens’s inconsistencies of forgiveness with their parents resulted in damaged relationships and an escape into the unknown.
This “home” that she finds brightly displays the ideas of identity and feminine society. Though Lily could not find these attributes with T. Ray at the peach house, she eventually learns the truth behind her identity at the pink house, where she discovers the locus of identity that resides within herself and among the feminine community there. Just like in any coming-of-age story, Lily uncovers the true meaning of womanhood and her true self, allowing her to blossom among the feminine influence that surrounds her at the pink house. Lily finds acceptance among the Daughters of Mary, highlighting the larger meaning of acceptance and identity in the novel. The meaning behind Sonsyrea Tate’s statement can be found deeply rooted within Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Secret Life of Bees.
In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd Lily has assumptions, biases, and prejudices about race that are changing over the course of the novel.
As this film is set in South Carolina during 1964 with a largely African-American cast, racism is certain to be a central theme. The Secret Life of Bees renders the idea of racism as illogical. Each of the Boatwright sisters, Rosaleen, Zach, and the minor African-American characters are depicted with dignity that was reserved only for Caucasians during that time. While Lily’s racism does not manifest itself in the same manner as the men who harass her housekeeper, Rosaleen, back home, she is still prejudiced at the film’s start, Lily just assumes that all African Americans are uneducated because that is how Rosaleen is; however, she quickly learns that is not the case. The Boatwright sisters prove to be just as unique and more intelligent, strong, and bold than anyone else she knows.
Often times, a seemingly simple story can convey complex themes. In her short story “A White Heron,” Sarah Orne Jewett is able to dive into the sexuality of her main character Sylvia. Though seemingly innocent on the surface, the reader might interpret the hunt for the elusive white heron as Sylvia’s discovery of herself and her sexuality. Though sexuality may seem like a mature topic for such a young character, it is irresponsible to completely ignore it. Especially in a story with innuendos that rival a romance novel. Jewett uses sexual undertones in the search for a white heron to bring light to Sylvia’s questioning of her sexuality.
Now, a reader may believe that a travel destination on a quest should be extravagant such as a castle. On the contrary, Foster states that the setting of a quest can be simple such as a grocery store. In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, Lily’s place to go may seem mundane. However, it holds meaning for her since her mother died when she was young, she doesn’t remember her well. Instead, she keeps her mother’s spirit alive through a box of her belongings. One of the items is a picture of the black Virgin Mary, with the words “Tiburon, South Carolina”. Additionally, Lily believes that since her mother treasured this picture that it holds a special meaning. When Lily finds the name of the woman who created the image, August Boatwright, her house becomes their new
In Caucasia, by Danzy Senna, Birdie spends time in several different racial contexts and, in each one, adjusts the racial definition of herself. Through this process, she discovers much about the conception of race in contemporary American society and achieves the nuanced understanding that race, while merely a construction, is still (operationally) real. This is contrasted by the more dangerous, oversimplified understanding of race – that races are biological rivals, inherently different and unable to coexist without some sort of power structure – embodied by the character of Redbone, who is also a symbol of inauthenticity. This latter aspect of Redbone shows the emptiness inherent in the views he holds about race, an important reason for his inclusion in the novel.
Martin Luther King once said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Sue Monk Kidd’s novel The Secret Life of Bees fully embodies his idea of equality, by introducing the story of a fourteen-year-old white girl named Lily Owens, who lives during the time of the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina. Lily’s mother was killed in an accident when Lily is a little girl. Ever since, she lives with her father T-Ray, and her black surrogate mother, Rosaleen, in Sylvan, South Carolina. Soon after her fourteenth birthday, Lily escapes to the Boatwright sisters’ house in Tiburon, South Carolina, with Rosaleen, who is arrested for assaulting a white man. Upon her arrival, Lily faces different racist situations and meets her first love, a handsome black boy named Zach. The novel The Secret Life of Bees demonstrates that although racism has a negative impact on everyday life, it also influences Zach and Lily’s development in a positive manner.
A poignant and touching classic, The Secret Life of Bees details the coming of age stories of a young girl named Lily. Her life up until the start of the novel was hard, she was friendless with an abusive father and a heavy conscience, as she believes that she is responsible for her mother’s death. Lily’s only solace is her stand-in-mother, a black woman named Rosaleen, so when Rosaleen is hauled to jail for standing up for herself, Lily decided to run away to a mysterious town that has some linkage to her mother. Her escapades lead her to three, wonderful, eclectic, devout followers of Mary, and to a new life. As the story unfolds, an elaborate symbol lies hidden just beneath the surface, one that seems so obvious, but only lies as a hidden
Branching from that, Stella has an inner conflict because she does not know whether to side with her husband or her sister in each situation. Blanche and Mitch have a conflict because their original plans of getting married are destroyed when Stanley reveals her past.... ... middle of paper ... ... Blanche came to town on a streetcar because she was ostracized in her old home as a result of her desires.
In this paper I will discuss the print called Plum Garden at Kameido. This print was created by Ando Hiroshige in 1857. It is a woodblock print. In the front of the print is a close up of a tree. It is an image of a plum tree in a plum garden. The tree has pretty white blooms on it. For this reason it is logical to assume that it must be springtime. Working back, I see two more plum trees. None of the trees have much detail of the bark texture. I can see that if these trees are true to life, Plum trees are not very shapely trees. Behind the second row of trees is what appears to be an iron fence with people standing at various points along the fence. The fence line angles back to show a third row of trees in the distance. Green grass can be seen in much of the fenced in area highlighting the fact that it is a garden.
Jones, Sharon. Rereading the Harlem Renaissance: Race, Class, and Gender in the Fiction of Jessie Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston, and Dorothy West. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2002.
Ruth, Elizabeth. “The Secret Life of Bees Traces the Growth of Lily’s Social Consciousness.” Coming of Age in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2013. 63-65. Print. Social Issues in Literature. Rpt. of “Secret Life of Bees.” The Globe and Mail 2 Mar. 2002: n. pag.
Potter’s book is, beneath its didactic Victorian narrative, remarkably subtle and subversive in its attitudes towards childhood, and its message to its child readers. Browne’s Voices in the Park, on the other hand, dispenses with any textual narrative; by his use of the devices of postmodernism, visual intertextuality and metaphor, he creates a work of infinite interpretation, in which the active involvement of the reader is key. Although The Tale of Peter Rabbit is not a ‘modern’ picturebook, and was written to a different concept of childhood than Voices in the Park, it certainly falls within Bader’s description.... ... middle of paper ...
Black Fiction: New Studies in the Afro-American Novel since 1945. Ed. A. Robert Lee, a.s.c. London: Vision Press, 1980. 54-73.