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Racism in literature
Analytical essay on racism based on fictional literature
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The novel I read was “The Watsons Go To Birmingham.” In this story, it talks about a family that is known as the “Weird Watsons”, and is about their life at school and at home and when they take a family trip to their mother's hometown in Alabama during the time of segregation. They live in Michigan, in their family there is three kids and two parents. The oldest kid is in the sixth grade and his name is Byron; he is the king of the sixth grade and always picks on his little siblings, the narrator is Kenny and he is in the fourth grade; he is always getting bullied and picked on by the king of fourth grade Larry Dunn and his older brother, and last but not least is Joetta which is in kindergarten; she always falls for the stuff that Byron says and is always telling on her older brother Kenny. During the school year Kenny had beaten up the king of fourth grade Larry Dunn because he was tired of getting picked on for being too …show more content…
smart, Byron had beat up a bird with a cookie; sets things on fire; didn’t listen to his parents; and chemically straightened his hair which is a big no-no in the Watson family and that was the last straw for the Watson parents. The family left Michigan at the beginning of the summer for the mother's hometown in Alabama. They are a poor negro family. Some objects that would be appropriate for the time period would be the things that the family had used which would have been television, cars, telephones, the car radio and matches because they were all created before the year of 1963, they also used a furnace and a thermostat which would be appropriate for the time period of the novel because they were both created before the year of 1885 which was before the date the novel was created. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation in the United States, which ended after the book was created which would be correct for the time period of the novel.
The location of the novel would be Flint,Michigan and Birmingham,Alabama; which would be appropriate for the novel because it talked about the difference between the weather in the parts of the country that they are in. Some events that were appropriate for the time period would be that racism was in effect still, an example would be that in the story a negro church that Joetta was in had gotten bombed by two white americans but the book said the americans probably wouldn’t get caught for their act of crime because they were white and the topic of ending segregation was major back in the time period of the novel, and in the state of Alabama. A theme that would be appropriate for the time period of the novel would be that the author wanted you to know that racism is bad, and hurts people, but whites and african americans are equal and you have to put yourself in the negros
shoes.
In the novels The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis and My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, two young boys are faced with the challenge of learning the moral and ethical codes that will shape their futures. Kenny Watson and Tim Meeker live in very different times, but they face events that complicate their lives. Though one boy learns his morals through playful encounters and the other is forced to educate himself during a war, the conclusion of each story shows that both characters have successfully found sets of rules to follow.
The most important theme in the The Watsons Go to Birmingham is Family is the most important thing you need in life. In the book The Watsons Go to Birmingham, Kenny had a moment where he thought Joetta died but he still went in to see if Joey was there. (184-185) Kenny thought Joey was dead but he didn’t care and he went to find Joey. When he got into the church he saw a girl with shoes that look like Joey but he went to get the shoe any way.That shows how much Kenny cares for his little sister. Kenny was really hoping Joetta was okay. Another part in the book was when Dad stopped in the mountains and Joey got scared. “ Daddy, look how scary it is here!” Joey said, pointing at all the giant shapes in the darkness. “Nonsense, Punkin, those
Between the years of 1954 to 1968, racism was at its peak in the South. This occurred even though the blacks were no longer slaves as of 1865 when slavery was abolished. The blacks were treated very poorly and they were still considered unequal to whites. Hiram, the main character of this novel, is a 9 year old boy who is clueless about racism. He is moved from the South to the North, away from his favorite grandfather. He wishes to go back to Mississippi and to be with his grandfather again. He never understood why his father, Harlan, wouldn't let him go. Hiram, who moved from Mississippi to Arizona, is in for a rude awakening when he is visiting his Grandfather in Greenwood, Mississippi at 16 years old. In the novel Mississippi Trial 1955, there were many complicated relationships among Hiram, Harlan, and Grandpa Hillburn. These relationships were complicated because of racism at
The characters in this story are some very interesting people. They each lead their own way of life, and have their own interests at heart. Some of the main characters in this novel are: Sarny, Lucy, Miss Laura, Bartlett, Stanley, and Sarny's two children Little Delie, and Tyler. Sarny is the central character in this book. She is clever and knows exactly what to even in the worst of times. She is very emotional though, and can break down and cry when the slightest of things happens. This is perhaps from what she has experienced as a slave earlier on in her life. Sarny is fond of teaching people, as a friend named Nightjohn once taught her. Lucy is Sarny's close friend. She is also quite wise, but is a bit too optimistic at times. She never stops smiling and is very friendly. However, she does help Sarny find her lost children. Miss Laura is a middle-aged woman who lives a very luxurious life. She gives Sarny and Lucy a place to live and offers them employment. She also finds Sarny's children for her. Bartlett works for Miss Laura as well. He is a quiet and patient man who is helpful and quite kind. He was however castrated as a young slave boy, and cannot have children. Stanley is Sarny's second husband, for her first died from being worked to death on the plantation. Stanley is a gentle, big, fun-loving man, but is not intimidated by anything. This leads him to his death when he gets mad at a white man, and is confronted by the Ku Klux Klan. Little Delie and Tyler are Sarny's lost children. After she recovers them, and they grow up, Little Delie starts to like business, while Tyler wants to become a doctor.
The stories that the author told were very insightful to what life was like for an African American living in the south during this time period. First the author pointed out how differently blacks and whites lived. She stated “They owned the whole damn town. The majority of whites had it made in the shade. Living on easy street, they inhabited grand houses ranging from turn-of-the-century clapboards to historics”(pg 35). The blacks in the town didn’t live in these grand homes, they worked in them. Even in today’s time I can drive around, and look at the differences between the living conditions in the areas that are dominated by whites, and the areas that are dominated by blacks. Racial inequalities are still very prevalent In today’s society.
Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is based during the era of racism and prejudice. This era is commonly referred to as The Great Depression and is during the mid-late 30’s. The novel is set in a small town and county called Maycomb, Alabama. The novel follows the story of the Finch’s and their struggle before, during, and after a rape trial that is set against an African American by a white woman and her father.
To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in a rural southern town in the 1930s, when racism was commonly accepted. Blacks were
Like the story would be hard to follow if it was set in a different time period or even a different part in the world, the reader would be so confused and lost. This story’s setting being in Harlem in the late 1930s makes the reader understand why the black people don’t like the white people. The reader feels pulled into this story as they read it because Hughes really makes you think about what’s going on.
Fiction usually based on what happened in real life. This novel, Harper Lee based on what she seen and writes about it. Racism was quite popular that moment. At the start of the story Harper doesn’t want to go directly into the problems but wanted it grows slowly through a vision of a little girl – Scout. It begins with the memories of a child “when he was nearly thirteen”. This is another interesting way from style of writing, beginning slowly and calm yet deeply meaning in the end. In this novel and all above 15 first chapters, racism exist in people’s mind, on actions and mostly from dialogue, questions they’ve been asked by people around. Relationship in social also causes the problems like this to happen too.
The segregation in the southern states is very prominent during that time period. For instance, Lily’s housekeeper Rosaleen could not live in the same house as Lily, nor could she worship in the same church. Lily finally had enough of her abusive father T.Ray and decided to run away along with their housekeeper Rosaleen who she broke out of jail. The only place she desired to go was the town written on one of her mother’s pictures. On the back of a photograph of a black version of Mary Lily’s mother had written the town Tiburon. Lily and Rosaleen arrive at the outskirts of Tiburon, after a combination of hitchhiking and walking, hungry and tired. As Lily shopped in a convenience store for lunch she noticed a jar of honey with the picture of the same black Mary as her mother’s picture. The store clerk points them in the right direction and they end up at the Botwright's house. As she is conversing with August Botwright Lily notices something peculiar. As she lies on her cot she thinks to herself; “T. Ray did not think colored women were smart. Since I want to tell the whole truth, which means the worst parts, I thought they could be smart, but not as smart as me, me being white. Lying on the cot in the honey house, though, all I could think was August is so intelligent, so cultured, and I was surprised by this.” (Kidd.78). Meeting and interacting with August depicts how much involuntary prejudice she had inside of her that she was not previously aware of. Lily used this experience to learn how you can’t judge a person based off their race and made herself rethink her thoughts on African-American people. Lily’s first meeting August contributes to the theme of not judging people based off of prejudice because August disproves Lily’s stereotype that African-Americans couldn’t be as smart as
I am reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, I am on page 42. So far the book is about the town of Maycomb, Alabama and about each character and how they live in Maycomb. In the journal I will be predicting and evaluating.
The social conventions that are set up in this book play out in a small black community in Ohio called "the Bottom." The community itself formed when a white slave owner tricked his naïve black slave into accepting hilly mountainous land that would be hard to farm and very troublesome instead of the actual bottom (fertile valley) land that he was promised. The slave was told "when God looks down, it's the bottom. That's why we call it so. It's the bottom of heaven-best land there is" (4), and on the basis of this lie a community was formed. Its almost as if the towns misfortune is passed down ...
One of the issues focused on in the story would be issues of race and segregation in Jackson, Mississippi. In Jackson, like in many other places of the United States under the Jim Crow laws, it was very stern on segregation. The inequality the African-Americans faced during this time was immense. The rules and norms were stringent when it came to the interaction between the races. A booklet found, “Compilation of Jim Crow Laws of the South” was kept in the Mississippi History room. “The booklet was a list of laws stating what colored people can and cannot do,” (Stockett 321). The laws separated the blacks and whites. “Negroes and whites are not allowed to share water fountains, movie houses, public restrooms, ballparks, phone booths, circus
Most of the book takes place in Jacksonville, a small town in Florida where the original trial of Darryl Morgan took place. The setting details a calm, sunny, and relaxing Florida but as the story progresses the setting transitions into a grime state of paranoia and conspiracy. “The Gulf skies were swollen with heat, the air was gummy and breathless.” (198). The Author really wants to give you a feel of the Era in which this book takes place and goes into great detail about it.
Racism is introduced in the time period where all the african americans live on the one side of town and aren't allowed into town all that often, they live in the outskirts in their own neighborhoods, have low paying, low class, jobs. Atticus (Scout and Jems Father) was called into Birmingham, but Cal had nothing to do with the Scout and Jem, she couldn’t send them to church by themselves and she still needed to go, she decided to take them to church with her and Scout described it as “First Purchase African M.E. Church was in the quarters outside the southern town limits, across the old sawmill tracks. It was an ancient paint-peeled frame building...called first First Purchase because it was paid for from the first earnings of freed slaves.”(157,Lee) This helps develop the theme because today everyone goes to church based on what they believe not by the color of their skin. It also shows that this church is on the outside of town which is where all the African Americans live and do their daily task, the church for the whites, however, is in town where they do all their daily task. Racism is seen through the time period when Tom Robinson is convicted of rape, in today's court system he would have pleaded and been found not guilty as the law states everyone is allowed the right to a fair trial. When he is falsely convicted and he