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Creative Writing Essay Examples
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Through literary works readers are able to learn about the various meanings of human life experiences. Literary works influences each reader differently. Country Lovers and The Welcome Table are two short stories that deal with the common struggle of racism and discrimination among African American women.’’ Racism is an enduring, salient aspect of social and global structures. It is based on demonstrably false theories of racial different appropriated by a culture in order to deny or unjustified distribute social privileges, economic opportunities, and political rights to the racially stigmatized groups. Racism thus, structures social differences, power or culture or whom.’’ There are many stories that are written to show the everyday struggles of human conflicts and struggles that humans embark on in everyday life. The two stories I will be identifying the differences and similarities among the two powerful stories of two African American woman. I will be examining the content, form, Style of the literary works. In the story the welcome table an African American woman is the main character who walks miles and miles under harsh weather condition to find a nice warm place to worship the lord. She comes to an all-white church. The black lady was looked at as though she was a piece of trash. People attending the church talked a whispered about how the lady looked a dressed. Even the pastor and the usher of the church told the old lady that she was in the wrong place. People roused husbands to throw the old lady out of the sanctuary. When she was thrown out of the church Jesus appears and rescues her. Jesus takes her and they move down the highway with each other. Jesus takes the old woman to finally be a peace. Country Lovers is a s... ... middle of paper ... ... write they use the entertaining approach to keep readers wanting to read more. The use of symbolism is used to convey the theme. In Welcome to the Table the writer uses the harsh weather conditions to represent death. The blue sky is a representation of peace and life. In the Country Lovers the symbol that is used is when Paulus and Thebedi has an sexual encounter with each other. ‘’ The lowering of the cows being driven to graze come to them where they lay, dividing them with unspoken recognition of the sound read in those two pairs of eyes, opening so close to one another. This represents the love and togetherness Paulus and Thebedi has as a couple. The Welcome Table has a sad beginning but a very happy ending that ends with the death of an old black woman. The story Country Lovers has a happy beginning with a very tragic end that leads to the death of a baby.
Amina Gautier has been awarded with Best African American Fiction and New Stories from the South; in addition, she has successfully created At Risk. Gautier’s story is based on the African American community and the different types of struggle families can realistically face. However, if a white person would have written this exact story it could have been misinterpreted and considered racist. Stereotypes such as fathers not being present, delinquencies and educational status are presented in the various short stories.
The black women’s interaction with her oppressive environment during Revolutionary period or the antebellum America was the only way of her survival. Playing her role, and being part of her community that is not always pleasant takes a lot of courage, and optimism for better tomorrow. The autonomy of a slave women still existed even if most of her natural rights were taken. As opposed to her counterparts
The two concepts are perhaps the most powerful writing of the sheer burden of African-American in our society. Ever though the story was written many decades ago, many African-American today reflect on how things haven’t changed much over time. Still today American will conceptualize what is “Black” and what is “American”.
No matter where one is from or where one finds themselves today, we carry with us in some way or another a specific heritage. Certain events and circumstances can lead to someone trying to forget their heritage or doing everything in their power to preserve that heritage. Alice Walker’s “EveryDay Use” was published in 1973, not long after the civil rights movement, and reflects the struggles of dealing with a heritage that one might not want to remember (Shmoop). Alice Walker is well known as a civil rights and women’s rights activist. Like many of her other works she uses “Everyday Use” to express her feelings on a subject; in this case African American heritage. Through “Everyday Use” it can be seen that Alice Walker has negative feelings about how many African Americans were trying to remove themselves from parts of their African American culture during the time of the short story’s publishment. This idea that Walker was opposed to this “deracinating” of African Americans coming out of the civil rights
The most direct way in which an author reinforces the themes of a novel is through the use of literary devices. In Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, one of the most prominent of these devices is symbolism, which plays upon the aesthetic sensibilities harboured by the text's audience and provides insight and deeper understanding to the themes of the novel. Indeed, Cloudstreet itself, the river and religious symbolism contribute to meaning and the author's endorsement of love, family, determination, and spirituality in the search for completeness.
Symbolism is one of the most effective and powerful elements in writing. We see various examples of this all throughout "The Things They Carried." Symbolism enables us to tell a story one way, while all along trying to say another. I believe Tim O'Brien has achieved success in doing so in "The Things They Carried."
In his poems, Langston Hughes treats racism not just a historical fact but a “fact” that is both personal and real. Hughes often wrote poems that reflect the aspirations of black poets, their desire to free themselves from the shackles of street life, poverty, and hopelessness. He also deliberately pushes for artistic independence and race pride that embody the values and aspirations of the common man. Racism is real, and the fact that many African-Americans are suffering from a feeling of extreme rejection and loneliness demonstrate this claim. The tone is optimistic but irritated. The same case can be said about Wright’s short stories. Wright’s tone is overtly irritated and miserable. But this is on the literary level. In his short stories, he portrays the African-American as a suffering individual, devoid of hope and optimism. He equates racism to oppression, arguing that the African-American experience was and is characterized by oppression, prejudice, and injustice. To a certain degree, both authors are keen to presenting the African-American experience as a painful and excruciating experience – an experience that is historically, culturally, and politically rooted. The desire to be free again, the call for redemption, and the path toward true racial justice are some of the themes in their
What defines an individual’s racial characteristics? Does an individual have the right to discriminate against those that are “different” in a specific way? In Octavia Butler’s works, which are mostly based on themes that correlate to one another, she influences the genre and fiction in ways that bring light to the problems of societies history. Through Kindred and the Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler examines themes of community, racial identification, and racial oppression through the perspective of a black feminist. In each novel, values and historical perspective show the hardships that individuals unique to an alien world have to face. Through the use of fictional works, Butler is able to delve into historical themes and human conditions, and with majority of works under the category of science fiction, Butler is able to explore these themes through a variety of settings. This essay will discuss two of Butler’s popular works, Kindred and the Parable of Sower, and will interpret the themes of women, race, independence, and power throughout the two novels.
Symbolism “acts as webbing between theme and story. Themes alone can sound preachy, and stories alone can sound shallow. Symbolism weaves the two together” (Hall). Symbolism uses the story to convey the theme. Darkness is used in the novel to show the secrecy and lies that the story has. The whole story involves secrecy among two women and a man. Without symbolism the story would just have a very dark house and two very mysterious and disturbed women. Instead there is a feel of secrecy right from the beginning. Symbolism gives the story excitement, while also providing the reader with a good read. The author can read the first few pages and determine the story is not a happy
The trials and challenges of African Americans have a long and detailed history. Along with the brutal tales of the southern plantations, African Americans shared the struggles of life after their “divine deliverance.” By the 1960s, and much of the 1970s, Americans faced the ending of a deadly a war, and the emergence of many equal rights organizations. The plight of the African Americans took center stage in the spotlight of American media. Many African Americans, previously treated as second class citizens, demanded equal treatment like that of their Caucasian counterparts. In the story “Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker, the characters and story plot artistically demonstrated the events of the Reconstruction Era, the importance of formal education to emancipated slaves, and the divergence from mainstream religion and consciousness.
The Civil Rights Movement marked a crucial moment in United States history. African Americans fought for their right to be treated equally and to put an end to discrimination and segregation. Toni Morrison’s short story “Recitatif” features two girls of the opposite race and how their friendship was affected during this time period. The United States has come a long way since the days of slavery, but African Americans’ rights were still not being fully recognized. As a result of this the Civil Rights Movement developed to peacefully protest for equality. Toni Morrison’s short story, “Recitatif”, takes place during the Civil Rights era of the United States to show the reader how stereotyping, discrimination, and segregation affected two girls,
The segregation and discrimination of any person or race is unfair and should not be permitted or accepted. Both of these stories talk about the problems that segregation causes, and are written to prove that it is a horrible thing to segregate against someone, and that discrimination causes more problems than it helps anything. Both of these stories attempt to change society’s views of discrimination to that of their Author’s own. Both of these books hopefully made a positive effect on society, as they were meant to, and helped people realize that it is never okay to treat people differently because society wants them to.
Today, blacks are respected very differently in society than they used to be. In “The Help”, we see a shift in focus between what life is like now for the average African American compared to what it was like for them to live in the 1960’s.“The Help” teaches readers the importance of understanding and learning from our history. The novel is a snapshot of the cultural, racial and economic distinctions between blacks and whites in a particularly tumultuous time in American history. “The Help” encourages readers to examine personal prejudices and to strive to foster global equality.
As written in Literature and it's Times, a distinct place where racism and prejudice took place was the South. In the early 1900's, the South remained mostly rural and agricultural in economy. Poverty was everywhere, and sharecropping had replaced slavery as the main source of black labor. Blacks who remained in the South received the burdens of poverty and discrimination. The women faced sexual and racial oppression, making th...
Throughout the story, the writer uses the different lives of an African family and their union with an African American to show the cultural rift that occurs. Their daily lives show how people of different cultures strive to live together under the same roof. The clash of cultures is portrayed in the way they react to each other in the different circumstances.