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Essays about coming of age
Coming of age themes in literature
Essays about coming of age
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The phrase ‘Coming of Age’ refers to the process of growing up or entering into adulthood. In these three coming of age tales of Barack Obama, Malcolm X and James Baldwin they all share a component in their lives with each other as they tell their tales of their dark pasts. Baldwin’s story is about how he becomes aware of himself and who he is as a person. Baldwin also shares a component with Obama because they both suffered from psychological loss of innocence of the protagonist between the ages of 10 to 20. The components Malcolm X has are both acquiring knowledge and he was accepting of the complexities and ‘greyness’ of the world. Baldwin’s story is about how he becomes aware of himself and who he is as a person. James Baldwin never knew …show more content…
In the tale of Malcolm X it states, “It really began back in the Charlestown Prison, when Bimbi first made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge.” While he was in prison he began to realize that as his friend Bimbi began to talk he and take control of conversations that he wasn’t as educated as he believed himself to be. Also he’d begun to realize that being dumb and uneducated isn’t as cool as it seems when you begin to have a conversations with those who’re more educated than you are. In his tory he also states, “...nearly all of the words that might as well have been in Chinese...I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of s dictionary-to study, to learn some words.” He felt the need to acquire the knowledge due to the fact that he wanted to understand his friend and have the knowledge to hold a conversation with Bimbi. Malcolm X wanted to expand his knowledge and his vocabulary.“Under Bembry's influence, Little developed a voracious appetite for reading.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_X) His original goal for obtaining education as for the purpose of understanding hi friend Bimbi and due to that need to acquire more knowledge it lead to him discovering more about the complexities and ‘greyness’ along with the deafness and blindness that was affecting the people of America more specifically the black community in …show more content…
In his tale Malcolm X states, “I saw how the white man never has one among the non-white peoples bearing the cross in the true manner and spirit of Christ’s teachings.” He began to realize that as he read more and learned more about the world that he began to see that although europeans bore the cross of Christ that they were ever really and truly christians they just developed this image of christians in order to have the ‘pagans’ convert to christianity. He also stated in his coming of age tale, “...with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that is afflicting the black race in America.” He’d finally began to realize what the white community was doing to the people in the black communities whether they’re hispanic or african-american and his intention was to change what was
Reilly, John M. " 'Sonny's Blues': James Baldwin's Image of Black Community." James Baldwin: A Critical Evaluation. Ed.Therman B. O'Daniel. Howard University Press. Washington, D.C. 1977. 163-169.
Baldwin’s story presents the heart breaking portrayal of two brothers who have become disconnected through respective life choices. The narrator is the older brother who has grown past the depravity of his childhood poverty. The narrator’s profession as an algebra teacher reflects his need for a “black” and “white,” orderly outlook on life. The narrator believes he has escaped life’s sufferings until the death of his daughter and the troubling news about his brother being taken in for drug possession broadside him to the reality of life’s inevitable suffering. In contrast, his brother, Sonny has been unable to escape his childhood hardships and has ended up on the wrong side of the law. While their lives have taken ...
Baldwin weaves in and out of his personal experiences and private reasons to give the reader both a small and large perspective of what is going on at the time. It’s important for the reader to have a small, personal perspective so they can connect with the emotions Baldwin expresses. At the same time a large general perspective is needed because it shows the reader that Baldwin’s experiences, although unique, is connected to a larger group of people, that in one way or another, his plight is the plight of many.
Malcolm X should be everyone’s hero, someone people like myself should look up to as a human being. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either a racist or is extremely ignorant. Malcolm X wore his heart on his sleeve and whether right or wrong he was never afraid to say what was on his mind to anyone who cared to listen. I personally believe Malcolm X’s beliefs give me strength to do what's right and carry myself with dignity. I remember, as a kid, my parents had tons of books about Black History books. The first book I read was a Malcolm X biography. I realized Malcolm X was truly a powerful, significant, and essential work for all time.
In the century where African-Americans had no rights and were highly discriminated, two men set out to make a new lifestyle for each other. Those two men where Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X. Frederick Douglass was a slave when he began to learn to read. Malcolm X was in prison when he began to learn how to read, he was in prison because he was an activist civil right. Both of this men have a great influence to the changes made for African-American rights. Both of this men have similarities and differences. Some of the similarities are why they wanted to learn, and their background. The differences are in the way that they learned to read and write and at what time they learned to read and write. Although both men have similarities they
...ica. Anna Hartwell states, “Christianity occupies a central place in Malcolm’s account of white supremacy, in both its global and domestic incarnations” (Hartwell). She also states, “Against this Christian tainted legacy, Malcolm X counterpoises Islam as “the true religion of the black man”. Islamic universalism proffered for him an alternative to U.S. citizenship, which had constantly failed to live up to its promises for African Americans” (Hartwell). Malcolm X had an understandable dislike of the system of white supremacy because it is a system that thrives from people being on the bottom who have higher percentages of taxes taken out paychecks even though they make far less than everyone else. The thing about white supremacy is that it affects in a negative way poor people of all colors, but black people suffer the most for obvious reasons. This was the message
Malcolm X was soon sent to jail. Malcolm X was getting more defeated because he couldn’t read and write. He insisted to teach himself, even though prison is not the place where you find. However he found his freedom by teaching himself to read and write. “You will never catch me with a free fifteen minutes.. (253)”. Malcolm X changed his own life with teaching himself how to read and it also took away from his prison time. However teaching yourself is not an easy thing to do. He created his own method of learning, using the dictionary, and a few tablets along with a pencil. He teaches himself because his desire was to be able to express himself and convey his ideas to others. Malcolm read multiple stories; religion, slavery, biology, histories, and ect. He kept teaching himself night by night. Learning more about Negro history drove him crazy, he didn’t like they way blacks weren’t treated equally, it opened his eyes and inspired him to take action. An action that helped blacks opened their minds and shaped their conditions and politics right. He was shocked when he learned about genetics and science, knowing that blacks are dominant had to come first because white skin is recessive. That means Adam was black, and all the whites skin color came from the black race. He spoke up for African American rights, and for muslims. He was proudly to be just a self-educated man. After he found his own freedom inside himself, he did help others with his
He wanted to be able to properly write his thoughts and opinions out to be understood. He wanted to leave an impression on people to give them a thought of him exceeding his education far beyond the eighth grade. That impression was credited to his “prison studies” (Malcolm X 1). He had a voice that needed to be heard all over to bring a change to society. He self educated himself day and night with the dictionary, teachings ,and books. Malcolm X considered that “three or four hours of sleep a night” was enough (Malcolm X 3). Malcolm X became interested in the “glorious history of the black man” (Malcolm X 3). “Book after book” showed him the “white man had brought upon the world’s black, brown,red,and yellow peoples every variety of the suffering of exploitation” (Malcolm X 4). Like Douglass, Malcolm found the “Faustian machinations” of the “white man” against the “non-white victims” (Malcolm X). Douglass states, “I feared they might be treacherous.” Unlike Douglass being social and receiving help from others around , Malcolm was to himself and seeked information on his own through books. Malcolm X had more pride in his education and wasn 't afraid to share his knowledge, “Mr. Muhammed, to whom I was writing daily, had no idea of what a new world had opened up to me through my efforts to document his teachings in books” (Malcolm X 6). Malcolm X had some basic education knowledge
Even though the blacks are called "citizens" of the United States, Malcolm X stated "Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. As long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet." Malcolm X repetitively goes back to this idea, this thought, for the remaining of the speech, talking about how blacks are not Americans, but more like, they are Africans. He starts his sentence with "Everything that came out of Europe," making this idea that practically everyone from Europe was accepted in the American society, this includes the criminals, while all of the blacks, including those that were very educated like MLK Jr. frowned upon in society this idea fuels the hatred of his black audience. He often referred the white man as a "blue-eyed thing." By doing this, he just embraces the fact that the United States was completely built on something based on eye and skin color, which gives this feeling of pride to his black audience, because of the fact they, have the morals, morals a white man could never have, to look past differences, this starts to create this feeling of separation from the white
The American Civil Rights movement was a time of great calamity in our nation’s history. African Americans revolting against the segregation and subordination inflicted by the White man in America, often met by brutality and coercion, in an attempt to honor the long-lasting traditions bestowed upon us by the South. When battling second-class citizenship and oppression there is an array of avenues to take. Like every revolt, there are leaders, the Civil Rights Movement welcomed Martin Luther King JR. and Malcolm X as the two heads and leading activist of the Civil Rights Movement. Although both leaders had the goal of achieving and spreading equality amongst diverse races, both had opposing views on how to achieve the common goal. Martin Luther King believed that promoting a world of peaceful, non-violent protest was the way to lure people in your favor. Malcolm X on the other hand believed that violence should be fought violence, that the only way to stop violence was with more violence until eventually an opposite force is forced to withdrawal. Which, in my opinion, is a very bigoted
It’s about human suffering that led to drugs addiction as a coping mechanism. In this story, the narrator is not the main character, rather the story focuses on his brother, Sonny. Readers were giving more structure details about the story. It is about two African-American brothers growing up poor in Harlem, they have nothing in common except their background. They are as different as day and night. Hence, they were disconnected in their thoughts and feeling. Sonny has always felt his older brother had never listen to what he really want out of life. Sonny was depict as “darkness” since he was the one using drugs, got into troubles, and was sent to prison. The author used symbolism such as “trapped in the darkness which roared outside” and “great block of ice got settled in my belly and kept melting there slowly all day long” to describe sadness and suffering. Sonny wanted to escape Harlem, he feel trapped there by the destructive pressures of poverty and racism all around him. He turned to drugs and music to escape his reality. All through Sonny’s young trouble life, his brother did not seem to suffer the same fate. He joined the Army, got married, came back to live in the same community and works as a school teacher. Even though he sees the same or similar behaviors from his students that Sonny had displayed years ago; he describes his students as “all they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness”. Again, Baldwin used “darkness” to imply these boys only know bad and they will get worst. It characterizes a limited option, the hopelessness that African-American people endure in their daily life. The narrator describes one of Sonny’s old friends, now a grown man, as “partly like a dog, partly like a cunning child”, implying that he is
As reasoned by John F. Kennedy “If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity”. Safety for all races of people was one factor that drove Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X to be leader figures figures during the fight for racial equality. In the famous speech, “I Have a Dream” given at the March on Washington, Dr. King was optimistic that the American government could achieve racial equality through integration opposed to segregation. It was clear that Dr. King’s non-violence approach to the racism issue was greatly because of his loving, stable, and religious childhood. He saw segregation as wrong and it was also against the teachings of his religion. Dr. King had strong hope that
Malcolm X and James Baldwin were two men that played a large role in defining a people and a cause during the 1950s and 1960s. Both of these men were dynamic African-Americans who lived primarily to help their people, who were terribly persecuted in the United States for many years. The interesting thing about these two men is that they strove towards the same goal—to unify African-Americans and give them strength and confidence—but they accomplished this goal in very different ways. Malcolm X, a leader in the Nation of Islam movement, believed that African-Americans needed to acquire strength and confidence so that they could separate from the White man and live together in peace, harmony, and production. On the other hand, James Baldwin, renowned writer, believed it necessary for African-Americans to have strength and confidence so that they might coexist on the same level as whites and accomplish what whites were accomplishing. The methodology and teachings of James Baldwin and Malcolm X differed greatly, but their general belief, that African-Americans were just as good as everybody else prevailed over all else, and made these men two of the very important faces of a generation.
Throughout Baldwin’s essay he strategically weaves narrative, analytical, and argumentative selections together. The effect that Baldwin has on the reader when using this technique is extremely powerful. Baldwin combines both private and public affairs in this essay, which accentuates the analysis and argument sections throughout the work. Baldwin’s ability to shift between narrative and argument so smoothly goes hand in hand with the ideas and events that Baldwin discusses in his essay. He includes many powerful and symbolic binaries throughout the essay that help to develop the key themes and principles pertaining to his life. The most powerful and important binaries that appear in this essay are Life and Death.
... the miserable life that African Americans had to withstand at the time. From the narrator’s life in Harlem that he loathed, to the drug problems and apprehensions that Sonny was suffering from, to the death of his own daughter Grace, each of these instances serve to show the wretchedness that the narrator and his family had to undergo. The story in relation to Baldwin possibly leads to the conclusion that he was trying to relate this to his own life. At the time before he moved away, he had tried to make a success of his writing career but to no avail. However, the reader can only be left with many more questions as to how Sonny and the narrator were able to overcome these miseries and whether they concluded in the same manner in the life of Baldwin.