Prompt II: Aunt Ester The main character in Gem of the Ocean, Aunt Ester, is a character of myth, symbolism, and cultural memory. She has lived for over 200 years and was a slave herself. She is full of personal knowledge and is the embodiment of the African American journey through time in the Americas. In Gem of the Ocean, Aunt Esther represents a link between the past and the present through her wisdom and spiritual guidance as well as a maternal figure to her community. In the play Gem of the Ocean, Aunt Ester represents the root of African History and African American Legacy. Filled with “memories that go way back” from over 200 years of living, the citizens of the community seek her out to cleanse their souls, and she does this by …show more content…
taking them on a journey full of history and emotion to help them understand what their duty in life is. They can never give up and must constantly battle to promote cultural change for their community by doing what is right and progressing to become greater. Her presence gives the characters hope because they have someone to ask for help instead of figuring it all out on their own.
She is a guide to doing what is right. Since she is their history, African Americans can look to the past to help them know what to do in their presents and future. At first Citizen Barlow comes to Aunt Esthers home at night when everyone is getting ready to sleep. He is barging in desperate and ignores Eli as he tries to keep him out saying that she “don’t see nobody til Tuesday” (Wilson 7). Aunt Esther then comes out and tells the man herself “Didn’t he say Tuesday, baby? Go on I’ll see you on Tuesday” (Wilson 8). With this, she shows that she needs to be respected and has her conditions set for guidance. She refuses to be woken at night when it is time for her to rest. She demands respect as the history of the African Americans demands to be …show more content…
respected. Aunt Esther gives advice constantly whether or not it is wanted. She tells Black Mary that Planning is the key to unlocking many doors. (Wilson 17) She says this with experience. In history, African Americans had to plan and work together to get results and progress. When they acted harshly and without plan they would fail and lose the progress that they made. The words of Aunt Esther are constantly linking the wisdom that she has gotten from her long life, which is all of the history of African Americans. Aunt Esther speaks about her dreams and how they show people in them and hint as to how the persons character is and if they will be coming into her life.
She describes her dreams and though they don’t seem to make sense they add a sense of mystique about Aunt Esther and it makes her seem powerful and insightful. It is believed that in the roots of African Americans there was magic and insight which is represented by Aunt Esther in what she does and sees. She makes a paper boat and hands it to Citizen in the play and says “Do you believe you can take a ride on that old boat Mr.Citizen?” (Wilson 54) That paper boat is mystical and it came from her showing the magic the culture possesses in just believing and hoping things will happen to make them come
true. Aunt Esther is like a mother to the community also. She says that Citizen reminds her of her “junebug” (Wilson 20). Junebug was what they used to call her son before he passed away. She says that the day she lost her child was the most difficult day of her life. This shows that any death in her community is probably very difficult on her because she is so maternal. She is maternal toward the people and her maternal side is shown when she sings a lullaby to Citizen Barlow as he is falling asleep. “Go to sleep my child I am watching over you” (Wilson 23). She also talks to Black Mary as a mother would. Nagging at her “why don’t you ever comb your hair’” (Wilson 39). The concept of time and age are important when it comes to Aunt Esther. She represents the two hundred and eighty five years that African Americans had been introduced to the united states. She was brought as a slave and has been alive ever since carrying the memories and pain from all of her people with her. “ I got memories that go way back I’m carrying them on for a lot of folk” (Wilson 43). She is training Black Mary to fill her role. This symbolizes her training all African Americans to remember their history even if the actual figures involved in it move on. They can all learn this history and remember it if they truly want to or they can choose to forget. She tells Black Mary “If you don’t want it (the memories) I’m gonna find somebody else” (Wilson 43). This shows how the people have a choice weather or not they want to remember their history and hold on to it or let it go and let it become nothing. Aunt Esther serves as a spiritual leader in the play. She is constantly speaking to Citizen Barlow about Jesus and comparing him to all of us that come out with the truth and have to be judged. She keeps reminding him of Jesus’s sacrifice. She speaks to him of parables and tries to educate him on repentance. She then tells him that she will be guiding him to the city of bones. She says “We gonna go to the city of bones tonight…Put on your best clothes and go to your room and pray” (Wilson 54). Here she is telling Citizen about the journey they will go on and how he must be pure and clean. She wants him to shower and put on nice clothes so he is physically clean, but also she wants him to be spiritually clean by praying. When she sends Citizen off on his spiritual journey she narrarates to him all that is going on while he is in a sort of trance. He begins on the Gem of the Ocean which was the boat that took the slaves. He is chained and mistreated and whipped like they did to the slaves and is terrified of what Is happening. Eventually he makes it to the city of bones with Aunt Esther’s guidance to stay strong and that he has a duty to live. Once there he sees the face of the man that was accused of his crime and died. Aunt Esther tells him to confront the man and tell him the truth so that he can enter the city of bones and be clean from his guilt. He does what she says and feels peace and begins to cry. He has finally admitted his wrongs and found the forgiveness he needed by being allowed into the city of bones after coming to terms with his crime. In Gem of the Ocean, Aunt Esther represents a link between the past and the present through her wisdom and spiritual guidance as well as a maternal figure to her community. She holds the wisdom of all the history of the African American people and from the long life that this culture has lived from their arrival to the Americas until the present time. She guides The people spiritually through their journey to the city of bones which allows them to forgive themselves and ask for forgiveness from God. Everyone comes to her to seek guidance and in that way she acts like a mother. She is loving and at the same time very straightforward with all the people that come to her like a mother would. She is the embodiment of the African American journey through the Americas.
She explains that by getting invited into the club of Wilchester would signify for her to wear a label that she does not want to partake suggesting that it could remind her of the Holocaust and the labels that Jews were given. Furthermore, Rhoda parents influence Esther vision when she says “I preferred for Rhoda to come to my house because I never felt entirely comfortable in her. Her parents… spoke Yiddish most of the time; their English was poor, formal, and thickly accented” (212). Esther doesn’t feel comfortable with Rhoda parents as they are strictly traditional while she feels to be more unrestricted from these categorisations. Inversely, Hilda does not worry about the norms that are applied to Native Indians as she is excited when she says that “‘I can’t wait to go to the sun-dance!...
Aunt Esther is a completely different person compared to Michael, she is lonely and she like it that way and she is always on the phone when Michael comes home. She really didn’t want to take in Michael, but her sister died and she is fiercely loyal to her family. A example of this is whenever Michael comes home for school she quickly changes the subject on the phone. In paragraph 1-10 they are in a fight, Aunt Esther says to Michael, “you hate it here,” she said, “and you hate me.” Michael claims that he doesn’t hate her and that it not her fault. This proves that Aunt Esther does not get along with Michael in the beginning because he won’t share his true feelings and how sad he his about his parents
Aunt Harriet is the sister of David's mother Mrs. Strorm. She enters the story half way through the book, where she goes to Mrs. Strorm seeking help. Yet the help she is looking for is not something Mrs. Strorm agrees with: "Nothing much! You have the effrontery to bring your monster into my house, and tell me it's nothing much!" (p.70) Aunt Harriet is very loving, strong, and she fights for what she thinks is the right thing: "I shall pray God to send into this hideous world, and sympathy for the weak, and love for the unhappy and unfortunate." (p.73) Aunt Harriet is also the proof of what happens to people who have a deviation or are trying to protect someone with a deviation: "Aunt Harriet's body has been found in a river, no one mentioned a baby…." (p.74) She is a very will hearted woman who is one of the very few people in this time that has the will to speak her mind.
In Linda Brent’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Brent’s grandmother showed her compassion by giving her a place she could call home. Her grandmother provided a place in her desperate hours of needs; she had to hide from her slave owners at her grandmother’s house. Even though the home was a hiding place with horrible living conditions, Brent preferred it over slavery, as she stated, "It seemed horrible to sit or lie in a cramped position day after day, without gl...
In Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs recalls her experiences of being a slave through the eyes of Linda Brent. Linda held no knowledge of being a piece of property through her childhood. When she turned six, her childhood vanished. Although she was still a child, she had to mature at a much accelerated rate than children who were not slaves, or of color. Throughout Linda’s life of a slave girl, she depended on substantial family tethers as a source of perseverance, support, and aspirations for a superior life. In a few ways, these tethers can be perceived as a blessing in disguise. Even though Linda’s support system served as an extensive force ultimately leading her to
Plight of Black Women as Double Minorities - Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Song of Solomon, Push
Many different symbols were utilized in Kate Chopin's The Awakening to illustrate the underlying themes and internal conflict of the characters. One constant and re-emerging symbol is the sea.
The character of Esther is widely criticized for her perfection as a character, both receiving positive acclaims and negative feedback. Esther’s reserved, quiet character illustrates the role of women during the Victorian period and what little impact on society women played. Critics of Bleak House generally praise the narration and Dickens’s use of Esther’s character, which gives direction to the novel.
In the stories expressed by Harriet Jacobs, through the mindset of Linda Brent, some harsh realities were revealed about slavery. I’ve always known slavery existed and that it was a very immoral act. But never before have I been introduced to actual events that occurred. Thought the book Linda expresses how she wasn’t the worst off. Not to say her life wasn’t difficult, but she acknowledged that she knows she was not treated as bad as others.
In the novel, Esther Greenwood, the main character, is a young woman, from a small town, who wins a writing competition, and is sent to New York for a month to work for a magazine. Esther struggles throughout the story to discover who she truly is. She is very pessimistic about life and has many insecurities about how people perceive her. Esther is never genuinely happy about anything that goes on through the course of the novel. When she first arrives at her hotel in New York, the first thing she thinks people will assume about her is, “Look what can happen in this country, they’d say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can’t afford a
The paradisiacal kingdom under the sea is symbolic of childhood. At the onset of the story, the sea kingdom is described: “where the waters are as blue as the petals of the cornflower and as clear as glass, there, where no anchor can reach the bottom,” and where “[one] would have to pile many church towers on top of each other” in order to reach the surface (Andersen 217). The sea describes the deep consciousness of the Little Mermaid as a young child, which is characterized by emotion, beauty, imagination, purity and innocence - representative successively of the water, flowers, the imaginative sim...
The sea is at fault for Enda’s progression to her self-discovery as she selfishly submits to her consciousness and becomes independent. Enda’s practical uses of the sea, demonstrates her nonconformity and therefore foreshadows her suicide at the end of the novel. As she swims, the water imagery associated with the sea symbolizes empowerment, allowing Enda as she gains independence, to not only gain control of herself, but defy against society’s expectations.
The book of Esther tells of a courageous young woman who uses her mind to please God. She becomes the wife of a great king and allows for protection of her own people, the Jews. Esther is a great role model for women of modern day times because of her strength, nobility, and honesty. She portrays a woman with power that most women of that day did not have. The story of Esther has empowered women of all backgrounds and will continue to do so well into the future.
The beginning of the novel introduces the reader to Esther O'Malley Robertson as the last of a family of extreme women. She is sitting in her home, remembering a story that her grandmother told her a long time ago. Esther is the first character that the reader is introduced to, but we do not really understand who she is until the end of the story. Esther's main struggle is dealing with her home on Loughbreeze Beach being torn down, and trying to figure out the mysteries of her family's past.
...es these primitive standards, she becomes melancholy because she does not attune into the gender roles of women, which particularly focus on marriage, maternity, and domesticity. Like other nineteen year old women, Esther has many goals and ambitions in her life. Nevertheless, Esther is disparaged by society’s blunt roles created for women. Although she experiences a tremendous psychological journey, she is able to liberate herself from society’s suffocating constraints. Esther is an excellent inspiration for women who are also currently battling with society’s degrading stereotypes. She is a persistent woman who perseveres to accomplish more than being a stay at home mother. Thus, Esther is a voice for women who are trying to abolish the airless conformism that is prevalent in 1950’s society.