As part of this task, I decided to discuss the presentation of first person experience of conflict in John Agard’s “Half-Caste” and Benjamin Zephaniah’s “No Problem”. I came to the conclusion after looking through various poems within the anthology to choose these two poems as they share a similar theme of racial discrimination and conflict.
Firstly, in “Half-Caste”, Agard presents his first person experience of racial conflict using ridicule, a mockery tone and intentional use of poor standard English to belittle and be sarcastic to readers whom use racist terms and ideology in the time period he wrote it in 1996. An example of mockery and poor standard English within Agard’s poem is the line “standing on one leg”. The line doesn’t begin or end in any punctuation or capital letters which suggests poor English, stereotypically expected of a person of colour that lived in England by many British people of white ethnicity during the time period of the late 90s. Furthermore; “on one leg” creates ridiculous imagery for the reader and begins to highlight his feelings to racism; that racist people are irrelevant and silly. Also, Agard uses examples within his
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“I am not de problem” strongly connotes this as he very obviously wants to portray explicit stereotypes toward people who have racially motivated hate and are xenophobic. Furthermore, within “No Problem”, uses mockery which is comparable to the way Agard does. The line “Sum of me best friends are white.” Is mockery and is sarcastic in a warm way to how people say things like “I’m not homophobic because I have a gay friend”. Additionally, Zephaniah within this line uses the only full stop in the sentence; “…white.” This structural point implies that racism within society has to stop and that he has finished his argumentative poem on a final and winning
As this poem characterizes the view of a native woman expressing feelings of passion relating to her culture, it also criticizes society, in particular Christianity, as the speaker is experiencing feelings of discontent with the outcome of residential schools. It does not directly criticize the faith, but through the use of a heavy native dialect and implications to the Christian faith it becomes simple to read the speakers emotions.
Good evening and welcome to tonight’s episode of Learning Literature. Tonight we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of Gattaca by analysing the techniques text producers employ to construct representations of social issues relating to marginalised groups. We will focus on two classic pieces of literature, Ken Kessey’s, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as well as Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca. Through a range of techniques, the text producers have included representations of freedom and independence, power, as well as discrimination in each of their respective texts.
The juxtapositions of text and image, the places where text shifts from short prose passages to more traditional poetic line breaks, and the works of art draw readers to their own understanding of the unconscious prejudice in everyday life. Thus, Rankine has the capability to push her readers with the use of the second person, where the reader is really the speaker. This method helps establish a greater unity of people, where she chooses to showcase her work as a collective story for many. In this way, she guides the reader with the second person toward a deeper understanding of the reality of a ‘post-race world’, allowing the reader to experience the story as if it’s their own. The final section, focuses on the themes of race, the body, language and various incidents in the life of the narrator. In the end, Rankine admits that she, “…[doesn’t] know how to end what doesn 't have an ending” (159). It is what her audience chooses to do with the newfound self that they find, where their standing on the reality of differences
The poem with the same title as the collection ’’I am not a racist but…’’ she uses satire to show how easy racism is not recognised or played down. She was hurt at a very young age by racist attitude and words as she wrote about her school years in the poem ‘’Making...
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
The readings were insightful and had interesting approaches to Negro mood. They had many emotional elements that were for the readers understanding of the different situations Negroes faced. When looking at the writings collectively they create a timeline. The timeline shows the various changes the Negroes mindset has gone through. The reader is exposed to three types of Negroes; one, the compliant Negro who knows his place, two, the Negro with will take his revenge and three, Negro who is conflicted between his desires and his responsibilities to his people.
The world today can sometimes be a hard place to live, or at least live in comfort. Whether it be through the fault of bullies, or an even more wide spread problem such as racism, it is nearly impossible to live a day in the world today and feel like it was only full of happiness and good times. Due to this widespread problem of racism, often times we tend to see authors go with the grain and ignore it, continuously writing as if nothing bad happens in the world. Fortunately, Claudia Rankine, is not one of these authors. Rankine manages to paint a vivid picture of a life of hardships in her lyric Citizen: An American Lyric. In this lyric Claudia Rankine shows that she truly has a very interesting and not commonly used approach to some literary
There are many different ways to express feelings towards an individual's race, culture, and ethnicity. It is one thing to talk about them, but it is another when everything spoken is nothing but positivity. In Carl Sandburg's poem “Nigger”, he portrays the positive vibes of African Americans. Looking at a title can be very deceiving until actually read. With everything written in free verse, Sandburg expresses the good qualities of individuals through different races, nationalities, and celebrates the common people in the language of the streets.
A dialectic is the process of synthesizing truth by holding contradictory ideas in tension. Since Richard Wright’s short story “Long Black Song” and Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” have opposing arguments they must engage in a dialectic. Both stories examine the oppression of the African American race, but they find different sources for its difficulties and demise. In “Long Black Song”, Silas, while expressing his frustration for the superiority of the white men, articulates that the black woman is the source of African American difficulties. In “Sweat”, Sykes’s encounter with death reveals that the African American man’s arrogance is the cause of the demise of the African American race. Wright’s short story “Long Black Song” and Hurston’s short story “Sweat” engage in a dialectic, in which “Sweat” repudiates “Long Black Song”, and produce the truth that one’s hubris that is the source of the difficulties of one’s race and the demise of oneself.
...ites a short 33-line poem that simply shows the barriers between races in the time period when racism was still openly practiced through segregation and discrimination. The poem captures the African American tenant’s frustrations towards the landlord as well as the racism shown by the landlord. The poem is a great illustration of the time period, and it shows how relevant discrimination was in everyday life in the nineteen-forties. It is important for the author to use the selected literary devices to help better illustrate his point. Each literary device in the poem helps exemplify the author’s intent: to increase awareness of the racism in the society in the time period.
The poems, “I, Too” by Langston Hughes and “Incident” by Countee Cullen employ visual imagery, tone, literary devices such as hyperboles, symbolism, and foreshadowing in different ways to illustrate the public life interaction between two different races, and the private life of an African American’s internal struggle of not being able to fight against the prejudice towards them. Both poets share racism as their piece of life, and although dealing with racism is the central tension engaged in the poems, Cullen suggests that experiences can affect your view on life and change your attitude. Hughes on the other hand, proposes that with an optimistic attitude you can change the outcome of your future, and that your attitude is independent from past experiences.
The poems “Visitors to the Black Belt”, “Note on Commercial Theatre”, “Democracy”, and “Theme for English B” by Hughes all illustrate the theme of staying true to one’s cultural identity and refusing to compromise it despite the constant daily struggle it meant to be black in an Anglo-centric society. In both “Visitors to the Black Belt” and “Note on the Commercial Theatre”, the speaker that Hughes uses combines the use of the first and second person perspectives to show the relationship between how he (Hughes) feels as a black man, towards the white man who doesn’t really seek to understand or help the black community, but instead just appropriates the cultural touchstones. “Visitors to the Black Belt” depicts the romanticism of black culture by whites.... ... middle of paper ...
Thesis: The poems “Negro”, “I Too”, and “Song for a Dark Girl” by Langston Hughes was written around an era of civil inequality. A time when segregation was a customary thing and every African American persevered through civil prejudice. Using his experience, he focuses his poems on racial and economic inequality. Based on his biographical information, he uses conflict to illustrate the setting by talking about hardships only a Negro would comprehend and pride only a Negro can experience, which helps maintain his racial inequality theme.
Benjamin Zephaniah is a Jamaican author and poet. He was born in Birmingham, England, and grew up in east London. His previous experiences from being a victim of racial discrimination and prejudice and being a teenage rebel, involved in theft and drug crimes gave him the inspiration to write the poem ‘No problem’. The author himself, having been discriminated upon, is trying to show us that he is not the problem, but however the problem is in general. The situation, viewpoint and meaning.
The novels Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness are illustrations of the baser aspects of human nature, both in their content and the manner in which they deal with the subject of subjugation, violence, and suffering during historical interracial confluences. This fact is illus...