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Sexuality in literature
Sexuality in literature
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An Analysis of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio
Under the guise of simplicity, Sherwood Anderson weaves an intricate tale of man's struggle for understanding and love in Winesburg, Ohio. Against a backdrop rich with symbolism, he examines man's truths crumbling behind the walls he has built.
Anderson employs a strong use of symbolism in "Adventure." Waiting in vain for a self-made fantasy to realize, Alice Hindman sacrifices a meaningful life within society. Alice's "outward existence appears to run steadily downhill into dull meaninglessness, her inward life climbs with increasing intensity toward a climax of desperation and hysteria" (Joselyn 450). The intensity, "a passionate restlessness," forces Alice to realize that she "could not be cheated by phantasie" and must face the bitter truth about life (Anderson 118). She sheds her clothes as if they were her lost dreams and erroneous ideas and runs naked outside. Her exposed, naked body is a symbol of her openness for the truth. This vulnerability leads to a her moment of epiphany: "that people must live and die alone" (Anderson 120).
Imprisoned in a life lacking in passion - spiritual and sexual - Reverend Curtis Hartman, in "The Strength of God," struggles to find his purpose in life. He wonders "if the flame of the spirit really burned in him" (Anderson 148). Breaking a sacred window satisfies his voyeuristic desires, but he remains in emotional turmoil. In the moment of epiphany, he smashes the window beyond repair with the revelation that his struggle was "a trial of my soul... in preparation for a new and more beautiful fervor of the spirit" (Anderson 155). Powerfully symbolic, the breaking of the glass was like breaking the bonds of inhibition that restrain...
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...sburg, Ohio Text and Criticism. Ed. John H. Ferres. New York : The Viking Press, 1966. 421-431.
Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio. Winesburg, Ohio Text and Criticism. Ed. John H. Ferres. New York : The Viking Press, 1966. 23-247.
Asselineau, Roger. Language and Style in Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. Winesburg, Ohio Text and Criticism. Ed. John H. Ferres. New York : The Viking Press, 1966. 345-356.
Fussell, Edwin. Winesburg, Ohio: Art and Isolation. Winesburg, Ohio Text and Criticism. Ed. John H. Ferres. New York : The Viking Press, 1966. 383-395.
Howe, Irving. The Book of the Grotesque. Winesburg, Ohio Text and Criticism. Ed. John H. Ferres. New York : The Viking Press, 1966. 405-420.
Walcutt, Charles Child. Naturalism in Winesburg, Ohio. Winesburg, Ohio Text and Criticism. Ed. John H. Ferres. New York : The Viking Press, 1966. 432-443.
Testament to his resilience and determination in the face of angry segregationists, Ernest assumed the role of head of his family at the age of sixteen, after his father’s death in 1953. Ernest’s mother, an elementary school teacher, and his younger brother Scott both respected this new allotment Ernest assumed at such a young age. His mother knew it was useless attempting to persuade the headstrong Ernest to reconsider attendance at Little Rock Central High School after he had been selected as one of the nine Negro children to attend. Students were selected based ...
“’One nigger down and eight to go’.. (page 150),” segregationists chanted while the Little Rock Nine heard while leaving school. This illustrates the verbal harassment and mistreatment that the group had to go through during the school year. But it was also a reminder that they had to be strong and make it through. “The boys had been taunting her, sticking their feet in the aisle to trip her, kicking her, and calling her names.. (page 149)” White people had believed African-Americans were beneath them, consequently the other students at Central High bullied Minnijean. This quote shows that, and also gives the reader an
Fichtelberg, J. (2004). The Colonial Stage: Risk and Promise in John Smith's Virginia. Early American Literature, 39(1), 11.
Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. “Thomas Morton, Historian”. The New England Quarterly, Vol. 50, No.4 (Dec., 1977), pp. 660-664. The New England Quarterly, Inc. .
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Calloway-Thomas, Carolyn, and Thurmon Garner. “Daisy Bates and the Little Rock School Crisis: Forging the Way.” Journal of Black Studies 26, 5 Special Issue: The Voices of African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement. May, 1996: 616-628. JSTOR. 10 April 2004
In September 1957, nine African American high school students set off to be the first African American students to desegregate the all white Central High School. The six agirls and the three boys were selected by their brightness and capability of ignoring threats of the white students at Central High. This was all part of the Little Rock school board’s plan to desegregate the city schools gradually, by starting with a small group of kids at a single high school. However, the plan turned out to be a lot more complex when Governor Orval Faubus decided not to let the nine enter the school.
The end to segregation started on May 17, 1954 with the Supreme Court’s ruling in “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that separated public schools for whites and blacks were illegal” (Beals, 1995, p. 12). By May 24, 1955 plans had been made to limit integration to Central High School. These plans, however, would not be carried out until September 1957, two years later. Around this time was when the famous Rosa Parks, on December 1, 1955, “refused to give up her seat to a white man on an Alabama bus. Her willingness to be arrested rather than give in one more time led to the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott” (Beals, 1995, p. 20). Then in February 8, 1956, the NAACP demanded that the schools integrate immediately. The Little Rock governor, Orval Faubus, refused to support integration of the Arkansas schools. As all this unfolded, white citizens became increasingly incandescent and even violent towards blacks (Beals, 1995).
Navarette, Susan J. "The Word Made Flesh: Protoplasmic Predications in Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan"." The Shape of Fear: Horror and the Fin de Siecle Culture of Decadence. Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998. 178-201.
...thern Literary Journal. Published by: University of North Carolina Press. Vol. 4, No. 2 (spring, 1972), pp. 128-132.
Kelly, John. ENGLISH 2308E: American Literature Notes. London, ON: University of Western. Fall 2014. Lecture Notes.
Magill, Frank. Survey of American Literature. Vol. 6 Ste-Z 1885-2224. Marshall Cavendish Co. New York. Copyright 1991. Edited by Frank Magill.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1989.
1957 was a year of irony and progress. It started and ended on “Tuesday” and progressed from the common though that African Americans were not equal to white people to more equality between the two races. It was a difficult time of change of Americans as the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak in 1957. One of the main headlines that year was the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1954 the Supreme Court decided that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. As one of the first schools to integrate Central High School because known for the Little Rock Nine, a group of nine selected African American students that changed history and started to change the common thought of African Americans to a positive one. For the purpose of this paper I will discuss the positive effects of Central High School’s integration and the Little Rock Nine.
Klinkowitz, Jerome and Patricia B Wallace. The Norton Anthology of Americal Literature. Seventh. Vol. Volume D. New York City: Norton, 2007, 2003, 1998, 1994, 1989, 1985, 1979. 5 vols.