Funnyhouse of a Negro was a play written in 1964 by Adrienne Kennedy. The play depicts Sarah (Negro Sarah) moments before her death, as a schizophrenic African American woman with an abundant amount of self-hate because of her skin color and her heritage. Sarah believes that her father raped her mother and that’s how she was conceived. Because of her father’s abuse and abandonment, Sarah faces problems. Problems that are presented through her multiple personalities such as Duchess of Hapsburg, Queen Victoria Regina, Jesus, and Patrice Lumumba. Funnyhouse of a Negro portray cultural attitudes about femininity and racial identity. Sarah’s family life is chaotic and confusing to Sarah. She’s taught that men and women are supposed to behave one
way whereas her family challenges those ideals. Sarah is having problems with her femininity because of her family problems and it manifests itself through her multiple personalities. Women are supposed to clean, be submissive, a caterer (to husband and children). Whereas a man is supposed to provide, lead, and protect his family. “Black man, black man, I never should have let a black man put his hands on me. The wild black beast raped me and now my skull is shining” (621). “Her father never hung himself in a Harlem hotel when Patrice Lumumba was murdered. I know the man. He is a doctor, married to a white whore. He lives in the city in the rooms with European antiques, photographs of Roman ruins, walls of books and oriental carpets. Her father is a nigger who eats his meals on a white glass table” (631). Neither Sarah’s mother nor father played their roles as parents. Sarah’s mother refused to sleep with her husband in turn she was raped. However Sarah’s father also broke out of his roles as a father but took a turn for the worse. Instead of being a protector, leader, and a provider, he (Negro Sarah’s father) was hypersexual, a drunk, and a deserter. Sarah’s anguish over her race identity as Negro is because its connection to her father so much so that Sarah only wants to look white like her mother. Sarah references anything pertaining to a Negro as bad and evil. Whereas her mother is the opposite. Sarah associates her mother’s white features as good and light, so much so that she want to get rid of everything that connects and shows her negro characteristics and features. “My friends will be white. I need them as an embankment to keep me from reflecting too much upon the fact that I am a Negro. For all educated Negroes-out of life and death essential-I find it necessary to maintain a stark fortress against recognition of myself. My white friends, like myself, will be shrewd, intellectual and anxious for death” (622). By surrounding herself with white people, it’s supposed to relieve Sarah of her struggle and she glorifies everything with white and wants to surround herself to hide her true identity. Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro addresses issues and problems that America has with black women. This play shows that America do not value black women. Kennedy shows through Sarah that black women are subjected to all kinds of mistreatment and abuse. And Sarah’s schizophrenic personalities are the broken forms of Sarah due to her experience. Sarah’s life as a Negro is traumatic and Sarah feels that there is no freedom or release from her life. So Sarah chooses to escape through suicide.
My verbal visual essay is based on the novel The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. The aspect of the novel I decided to focus on is the protagonist, Amniata Diallo.
Laurence Hill’s novel, The Book of Negroes, uses first-person narrator to depict the whole life ofAminata Diallo, beginning with Bayo, a small village in West Africa, abducting from her family at eleven years old. She witnessed the death of her parents with her own eyes when she was stolen. She was then sent to America and began her slave life. She went through a lot: she lost her children and was informed that her husband was dead. At last she gained freedom again and became an abolitionist against the slave trade. This book uses slave narrative as its genre to present a powerful woman’s life.She was a slave, yes, but she was also an abolitionist. She always held hope in the heart, she resist her dehumanization.
In The Colored Museum, Wolfe suggests that people should claim and honor their cultural baggage. However, de does it while disclosing how difficult that may be for an African American through a series of characters. I believe Wolfe exhibits this with characters struggling with stereotypes, susceptibility, and acceptance. Characters such as Janine, LaWanda, and Aunt Ethel show the struggle of African Americans dealing with stereotypes and how those false identities influence whether they claim or trash their baggage. Scenes such as Soldier with a Secret, The Last Mama-on-the-Couch Play, and Symbiosis have the theme of susceptibility. These characters validate the threat of claiming your baggage. Finally, acceptance is evident in scenes such as The Gospel According to Miss Roj, Lala’s Opening, and Permutations in which characters embrace their culture.
According to Newman in Sociology: The Architecture of Everyday Life, a social class “consists of people who occupy similar positions of power, privilege, and prestige” (Newman, 2012). Someone’s position in a social class can affect “virtually every aspect of their lives, including political preferences, sexual behavior, religious affiliation, diet, and life expectancy” (Newman, 2012). The social class that was represented in the film was the middle-class. The show, Pleasantville, portrays the 1950s in which the wife would stay at home cooking and cleaning while the father works. This show holds similar views to the show, Leave it to Beaver. The movie begins
Sarah was the sixth child. Even at a young age she showed great independence and focused many of her efforts on justice. She was very intellectual and because of this, her father paid particular attention to her over the other children. He is said to have frequently declared “if she had been of the other sex she would have made the greatest jurist in the land” (Birney, 1970, p 8). Sarah was also very personable, empathetic and car...
Nature was not the only thing at risk during the Industrial Revolution. The social structure was being challenged by social justice leaders around the country. The feminist and abolition movements swept the nation, and the art scene. Artists took to showing the injustice of slavery through various paintings. Robert Duncanson’s painting Uncle Tom and Little Eva, shows the flawed logic of white supremacy. The little girl in the painting is standing while the African American man is sitting under her. This symbolizes that even though he is much older and bigger, she is in charge of him. Eastman Johnson’s Negro Life at the South (Old Kentucky Home), shows how African Americans lived, the terrible conditions in which they lived, in the south. Art of this nature sparked the idea in many minds that the institution of slavery could not survive in a free nation. The abolitionist movement gained steam and eventually flung America into the civil war. The art that publicized these issues
observations to the university. The study published in 1899, and it was called “The Philadelphia Negro”. The study examined the conditions blacks lived in Philadelphia. The study gave Du Bois a lot of recognition. This study and his other accomplishments, gave Du Bois the title of as the father of Social Science. Du Bois delivered a speech at the Academy of Political and Social Science called, "The Study of the Negro Problem," in November 1896.
...ess her husband just so happens to die. Her husband has spent most of his nights with the couple’s personal servant, Sarah, who has conceived the children of this man. Ms. Gaudet also dislikes the children solely for the fact that they remind her much of her husband. Manon is soon granted her freedom when her husband is murdered by African- American rebels.
The novel is set in a cultural background wherein women had every reasonable freedom to talk about their marriage and children, but could not carry on what they found it to be good and reasonable because they were restraint by social constructs. Women were bound to their husbands and children and religiously they were conditioned to lots of dos and don'ts. However, a critical look reveals that women were construed to be mere objects of amusement, possessions cared for and displayed. They were expected to be subordinated to their husbands and children (Wyatt, 1995).
“My whole thing is to inspire, to better people, to better myself forever in this thing that we call rap, this thing that we call hip-hop.” (Kendrick Lamar) Hip-hop, which first appeared in New York’s South Bronx in 1973, has been at the forefront of American music ever since Jamaican-born Kool DJ Herc used turntables to stretch certain sections of the song. This first happened at a Halloween dance party. Since then, Hip-hop has spread and become associated with social activism and education. These two things combined have brought the influence of hip-hop into practically every culture in the world. An important aspect of music is to convey musical messages. Hip-hop which does just that has been used all over the world
...e, and thinks that Derek was the reason that she got hurt in the first place. He doesn’t agree with their relationship and thinks Sarah can find a better guy than Derek. Both girls must go against the wishes of their fathers and simply follow their hearts and do what they feel is best no matter what.
Helen’s physical appearance is a sight for sore eyes, her style of dressing in a fancy manner can really set her apart from the rest of the crowd, and because helen dresses and grooms herself so proper, she is seen as a lady with pride. She can also show off her delicate smooth skin, that almost seems flawless to a limit. Not only her skin is flawless but she has an award winning smile that can be as bright as diamonds. Helen came from a poor family who lives in the ghetto that seems to have a close relationship with everyone of their relatives, who would do anything to help out a member of the family. Madea is an example of the type of family member that will do anything in her power to help out a member of the family. Growing up in the projects gave helen a sense of the real world and how love and compassion is a valued asset of life. Helen was acknowledged with very little education, although she does seem to be able to uphold an elegant and legit conversation. Even with Helens great talking skills, she has not held a job for about eighteen long years; other than the occasional household wife position. Her past experience from her marriage stops her from moving on and trusting any men in a relationship, such as Orlando, how she mistreated him and doubted his humble personality when his heart was pure the whole way. The tone used from Helen throughout the whole movie was a tone of insecurity, with a hint of doubtfulness in everybodys caring personality towards her. The way she thinks of herself gives her very little confidence in the way she sees life, and because of that her tone automatically changes from a proud wife, to a woman who has been hurt multiple of times.
The treatment of Jews in this time period was abhorrent. The mere fact that Jews were placed into a death camp and exterminated was sufficient. In the film “The boy in the striped pajamas”, a moral issue arises in Germany in World War ll. This film reveals the racial discrimination and prejudice the Jewish people faced. Bruno who is an eight year old boy, is distraught after he learns that he has to leave his current home in Berlin to a new home in Auschwitz due to his father’s promotion to a Nazi commandant of a death camp. Arriving at their new home in Auschwitz, Bruno is lonely with no friends. From his bedroom window, he notices people in stripped pajamas behind a fence. He presumes they are farmers and asks his mother and father if he could meet some new friends on the farm. However, to his disappointment, he is told not to
The novel, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” takes place mainly in Berlin and Auschwitz, Germany. While unpacking, Bruno happens to look out the window, he sees boys in pajamas, Nazi soldiers, and most importantly a fence that stretches for miles. This setting is where Bruno finally starts to question the world he lives in. The other side of the fence also known as the Auschwitz concentration camp is home to Jews mostly from Poland.The concentration camp is home to both Shmuel and Pevel. The other side of the fence is where the most cruel and horrendous things would happen. The fence of the Out-With camp is also where the ever-lasting friendship of Bruno and Shmuel is born and
Historically, women have been seen as the weaker person in the bond of marriage. Throughout the story, the narrator is degraded in various ways due to the ramifications of engaging in this institutional practice. First, she mentions many instances where John has been erroneous, insensitive, or abusive, but is unable to vocalize any disconnect for fear of repercussions. “He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures” (271). The narrator feels as if John is a hindrance to her being beca...