The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd is an amazing book that follows the lives of some very amazing women. Kidd shows what it meant to be a slave and what it meant to be a woman. This book mostly deals with slavery and how it affects people who are slaves, how they suffered but also how it affected people who were against slavery and trying to change the world. Kidd also covers sexism and what it means to be a woman with ambition, drive and wanting to be a woman who abolishes slavery. This book mainly follows the life of Sarah Grimke, a girl with drive, ambitions, and ideas; but who is also the daughter of a slave owning judge who lives in Charleston.
Sarah from a very young age sees the evil of slavery and wants to do everything that she can in order to live in a world that sees everyone as people rather than, master and slave. As Sarah grows older she is constantly being punished for her views towards slavery. When she is younger she is band from her favorite room the library, and when she grows older she is banded from her hometown and degraded publically. “Slave lover. Nigger lover. Abolitionist. Northerner whore.” (Kidd 255).
Another very important character is Hetty Handful Grimke; Handful is a slave that is given to Sarah as a gift for her birthday. Handful, just like Sarah is a very opinionated and intelligent woman but she’s a slave. Handful doesn’t obey the rules that are set out for her; Handful learns how to read and write even though she’s not allowed to, and she has such pride in herself that she shows her owners that she can do it. That she is capable of doing anything they can, she has the courage to defy her masters even though she knows it will lead to her being severely punished.
Even though Sarah a...
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... showed her love was when she came back to South Carolina risking everything in order to help Handful and her sister escape from her mothers plantation. “Twenty years in prison for circulating publication of a seditious nature. Twenty years for assisting a slave to escape…. I saw it then, the strange thing between us. Not love, is it? What is it? It has always been there a roundness in my chest” (355).
The Invention of Wings is a book that tells the story of slavery, sexism and the friendship of two women both facing different Struggles. This story shows that it really doesn’t matter what you grew up with that there is no excuse for not seeing what is wrong in the world and that there needs to be a change. It shows that if a child is able to identify and reject the dehumanization of other people there is no reason that an adult shouldn’t be able to do the same.
We see Sarah and her age affect her stress in life in trying to find a husband within her childbearing years. This was especially hard for Sarah due to her speech impediment brought on by a traumatizing event that happened when she was young. Handful, Sarah’s slave, also experiences the effects of inequality, more specifically, for her race. Handful went through horrible punishments, for she was educated. Likewise, Charlotte, Handful’s mother, went through many horrible treatments, and was not able to receive an education. This set her back, for she had a change in personality, as well as not being able to do simple tasks, like write her name, or read. Overall, “The Invention Of Wings” showcases how hard it was to be a woman, or a slave back in the 1800s, we are all so lucky, and blessed to be living in the America we are living in
Secondly is Clara she is Uriah’s mom and is hard working in the fields and she used to be a cook for the master. The only time she didn’t get enough cotton was when she was teaching new slaves and then she got whipped. When someone ate her corncake she didn’t even say anything. She reacted in realistic way when she got taken away and sold she was crying because she didn’t want to leave her family even after they got to the chain-gang she was calling for her family; Uriah, Rabe, Ella etc. Once she got to the auction the auctioneer told her to show her muscles and she stood up for herself, she said that she can do more than most people. This shows how Clara reacts in a realistic historic
In Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, personal accounts that detail the ins-and-outs of the system of slavery show readers truly how monstrous and oppressive slavery is. Families are torn apart, lives are ruined, and slaves are tortured both physically and mentally. The white slaveholders of the South manipulate and take advantage of their slaves on every possible occasion. Nothing is left untouched by the gnarled claws of slavery; even God and religion become tainted. As Jacobs’ account reveals, whites control the religious institutions of the South, and in doing so, forge religion as a tool used to perpetuate slavery, the very system it ought to condemn.
The story also focuses in on Ruth Younger the wife of Walter Lee, it shows the place she holds in the house and the position she holds to her husband. Walter looks at Ruth as though he is her superior; he only goes to her for help when he wants to sweet talk his mama into giving him the money. Mama on the other hand holds power over her son and doesn’t allow him to treat her or any women like the way he tries to with Ruth. Women in this story show progress in women equality, but when reading you can tell there isn’t much hope and support in their fight. For example Beneatha is going to college to become a doctor and she is often doubted in succeeding all due to the fact that she is black African American woman, her going to college in general was odd in most people’s eyes at the time “a waste of money” they would say, at least that’s what her brother would say. Another example where Beneatha is degraded is when she’s with her boyfriend George Murchison whom merely just looks at her as arm
In the earliest part of Harriet?s life the whole idea of slavery was foreign to her. As all little girls she was born with a mind that only told her place in the world was that of a little girl. She had no capacity to understand the hardships that she inherited. She explains how her, ?heart was as free from care as that of any free-born white child.?(Jacobs p. 7) She explains this blissful ignorance by not understanding that she was condemned at birth to a life of the worst kind oppression. Even at six when she first became familiar with the realization that people regarded her as a slave, Harriet could not conceptualize the weight of what this meant. She say?s that her circumstances as slave girl were unusua...
Harriet was never considered a good slave. After her head injury, a neighbor wanted to hire her as a nurse-girl, and her owner was more than willing to let her go. (Taylor 8). Harriet was required to “do all the housework, milk the cows, as well as to be at the side of the cradle every time the little darling cried.” (Taylor 8). Because she wasn't able to be at all places at all times, she was beaten and sent back to her owner with the recommendation, “She don’t worth the salt that seasons her grub.” (Taylor 8). Once Harriet was returned, her owner greeted her with “I will break you in!” (Taylor 8). “From early morn till late at night she was made to work, beaten and cuffed upon the slightest provocation.” (Taylor 8).
Slaves are aware of their positions in society and have the choice to comply with their masters’ demands in order to gain a greater benefit to themselves often in the form of physical protection from abuse. Within the plantation hierarchy, the house slave was considered higher up than field slaves due to their close proximity to the master (Hall 566). The house slave’s position in the plantation microcosm evoked not only favor from the master, but jealousy from the field slaves. The fair-skinned, house slave woman and her master’s control over her mental psyche is a defining factor of her identity in relation to the other slaves on the plantation. Linda Brent in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an excellent model of the mental bondage endured by light-skinned house slave women because she makes a conscious choice to continue her mental bondage in order to gain physical freedoms. Although many house slaves, like Linda, were granted physical freedoms, they experienced an unfathomable level of mental bondage that defined their character and prompted them to pick their own place in society.
Because of the thirst of superiority whites had, they wanted to restructure the behaviors of blacks in ways that would make them behave inferior. This was aided by the Jim Crow Laws enacted during the Jim Crow period. “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow” in Uncle Tom’s Children explains how the natural behaviors of blacks were affected by Jim Crow laws. Wright explains how these laws affected him personally. Right from his childhood, blacks have been restricted from having anything to do with whites. Black children were brought up in ways that would make them scared of the whites. This continued even in his adulthood. Only few blacks were fortunate to work in places where whites were, but they were always treated badly. Wright got a job in an optical company, where he worked alongside two whites, Mr. Morrie and Mr. Pease. When Wright asked both of his coworkers Mr. Morrie and Mr. Pease to tell him about the work, they turned against him. One day Mr. Morrie told Mr. Pease that Richard referred to him as "Pease," so they queried him. Because he was trapped between calling one white man a liar and having referred to the other without saying "Mr." Wright promised that he would leave the factory. They warned him, while he was leaving, that he should not tell the boss about it. Blacks were made to live and grow up under conditions that made them regard whites as superior. Whites also used blacks’ natural behaviors against them by sexually abusing them. It is natural for people to have sex, but if they forced or abused sexually this means that their natural behavior is being used against them because sexual abuse is not natural. Sarah, in “Long Black Song,” is an example of a black female that was sexually abused by whites. Sarah was married and had a child but when the white man came to her house he did not hesitate to have sex with her. She resisted him initially
In conclusion, women were considered property and slave holders treated them as they pleased. We come to understand that there was no law that gave protection to female slaves. Harriet Jacob’s narrative shows the true face of how slaveholders treated young female slave. The female slaves were sexually exploited which damaged them physically and psychologically. Furthermore it details how the slave holder violated the most sacred commandment of nature by corrupting the self respect and virtue of the female slave. Harriet Jacob writes this narrative not to ask for pity or to be sympathized but rather to show the white people to be aware of how female slaves constantly faced sexual exploitation which damaged their body and soul.
I have chosen to write my book report on an autobiography. Dr. Arnold Beisser’s Flying Without Wings discusses his battle against polio and how he overcame innumerable obstacles. Born in 1925, he contracted paralytic polio at age 24. While our situations are vastly different, I found that we were actually quite similar. His insights into the life of an individual with a disability are accurate. Although the autobiography is not financially focused, many of his ideas and life lessons directly relate to financial goals and ultimately financial independence.
Geraldine Brooks the author of People of the Book conveys the story of Sarajevo Haggadah. In the chapter “An Insect’s Wings,” Lola, a young Jewish girl, experiences running away from Nazis and coming back to Sarajevo. In this chapter, it also shares some details of how the famed Sarajevo Haggadah was saved from WWII. This chapter shares the journey of Lola and all the unpleasant events she went through.
Maya Angelou’s excerpt from her book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” reveals the challenges facing a young black girl in the south. The prologue of the book tells of a young Angelou in church trying to recite a poem she has forgotten. She describes the dress her grandmother has made her and imagines a day where she wakes up out of her black nightmare. Angelou was raised in a time where segregation and racism were prevalent in society. She uses repetition, diction, and themes to explore the struggle of a black girl while growing up. Angelou produces a feeling of compassion and poignancy within the reader by revealing racial stereotypes, appearance-related insecurities, and negative connotations associated with being a black girl. By doing this she forces the
The novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings goes through the childhood of Maya Angelou as she faces the difficult realities of the early South. This novel does not do a very good job at portraying the hardships of the blacks because she
Rebekka, Lina, Florens, and Sorrow all experience the unimportant role of females during this time. The four women live in fear for their lives, and are subject to the merciless world filled with men and hierarchy. It does not matter whether you are a slave, free, European, or African. If you are a woman, you are presumed to aid for others, and anything that you want to do or be in life is disregarded. Women are not given the chance to truly live they way that they want to, and are stripped of their right to freedom and an unrestricted
Maya’s journey throughout the book is one of true strength and empowerment. She fought racism, even when she didn’t understand what it was. Discrimination strengthened her before she had graduated eighth grade. She turned hate into motivation and ambition. The racism and discrimination Maya faced throughout I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, affected her attitude, personality, and overall outlook on life in a positive way.