The old, leather shoe lays dirty and forlorn in the back closet. Among its more appealing neighbors, the oxfords and loafers, it’s tattered and scuffed surface seems all the more striking. The frayed laces try to unite its distressed eyelets, but it’s helpless. The thin and worn under-sole clings desperately to the shoe's bottom like a climber's last grip on a rugged mountain cliff. In its day, long before it was shoved to the back in favor of more glamorous replacements, this shoe saw and felt it all; from dancing Bachata to running through the concrete streets of New York City. Despite its present-day humiliation, its memories remain vivid in its “sole”.
When I lace these brown leather shoes, a surge of fulfillment rushes me. The once slick,
but now wrinkly leather tell the story of abuse, and cherishment. However, these are much more than a simple shoe. Worn to prom, graduation, weddings, and even funerals, these shoes could practically recount my life experiences. Contrary to popular belief, shoes are the most vital component of anyone’s wardrobe. As stated by Christian Louboutin, one of the most prominent footwear designers in the world, “A shoe is not only a design, but it is a part of your body language, the way you walk. The way you’re going to move is dictated by your shoes.” Essentially, footwear can unite your entire outfit; a pair of well-shined, brown leather Brogues can appeal to even the most stylishly senseless people. So, how could we treat something so valuable with such little respect? Now, I am not a shoe fanatic—but these dress shoes caught my eyes instantaneously. Though dusty, the finely detailed leather, threaded with the perfect wool, had to be mine. From the moment my fingertips interacted with the soft material, it had left an indescribable trace upon my hands. Suddenly, I was transported to one of the finest towns in Italy where these marvels were crafted. As I walked through the extremely ornamented town of Florence, I encountered Guccio Gucci, designing the exact shoe on the shelf. Such an experience was so intangible, yet so realistic. Though our eyes are the windows to our souls, shoes are the windows to everything else that matters. Whether they are a pair of desert boots, or Timberlands, or even those extremely padded New Balances your great-great grandfather used to wear, shoes can speak great volumes. So, let us not forget what shoes do for us, but rather consider what we can do for our shoes.
African-Americans’/ Affrilachians’ Suffering Mirrored: How do Nikky Finney’s “Red Velvet” and “Left” Capture events from the Past in order to Reshape the Present?
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
In recent headlines, an American businesswoman was sent home from work without pay for not wearing the required heel height shoe to work. This woman quit her job to take a stand for women’s rights, and within a matter of days, other women began sharing stories of how it was required by their offices to wear a minimum heel height also. This is just a small example of the unfair stipulations placed on women in today’s patriarchal society. Lucille Clifton, an avid women right’s advocate, has dedicated the majority of her life to the progression of women’s rights through her writing. In her poem, “homage to my hips,” Clifton uses “hips” to symbolize women and their desire for equality in today’s male dominated world. Clifton’s poem attempts
Slave narratives are not meant to be uplifting but this story brings depressive reading to a whole new level. Frado’s story is one of unrelenting abuse and pain. Through Wilson’s style the reader understands every point of view and especially the views of prejudice and racism. The title “Our Nig” relates one of the most insulting realities of Frado’s existence. She was property in a sense. Her labor and her efforts were equated to those of a horse that could be broken when necessary. Frado’s encounters and relationships further distinguish this novel from other slave narratives. This story shows what society and what the human spirit is capable of. People can cause the immense suffering of others but People can also rise up from the depths of despair and overcome great obstacles.
...k wearing those old saddle shoes with her nice pink and white dress. Here poverty stroke Esperanza and hard on the back, she could not even enjoy the new dress she finally got. She did not have good shoes, there for she was not able to dance at the party because she felt like everyone would stare. She finally decided to dance with her uncle and forgot about the fact of not having nice shoes except for the once a year pair of shoes. As she continues to explain about her shoes she says, "… I am wearing only ordinary shoes, brown and white, the kind my mother buys each year for school." (Cisneros 47), here Esperanza proves that they do buy them new shoes every year, and every year they are saddle shoes because they last longer (the entire year until, until next September).
American society has made large strides since the days of slavery and Jim Crow laws, and yet, as Erasure reminds us, it still has a long way to go. Van Go Jenkins dolls may not be found in any American households and Sharonda may not be the new face of maple syrup, yet these characters’ parallels with the Sambos and Mammies of America’s past are strikingly clear. Percival Everett has crafted his novel not only to expose these 21st century representations of African-American life, but to undermine them and demonstrate that they are just as fictional and repulsive as the Sambos of old.
The surface story is a poor black grandma’s journey with an errand; to get medicine for her grandchild burned by lye. The colors used apprise the reader of another story. This parallel story uses color to tell us of a journey taken by a poor, black, disenfranchised people to completely own their legal and civil rights; they have been burned by lies. “A Worn Path” uses the journey of this one remarkable woman to serve as a lens to view the hardships of the African American people.
Writing Rock, Editors. “ ‘A Worn Path’ Analysis Research Paper” Writing Rock. N.P.,n.d.. Web.17 Mar 2014.
Marc Mayer (ed) Basquiat, 2005, Merrell Publishers in association with the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn. Paper
The author targets a certain consumers, people who are “stressed and sore-footed.” By targeting consumers for the “MagnaSoles” shoe inserts, it creates a purpose for the product to be marketed. With the “stressed and sore-footed” people, the author adds that they are “clamoring,” shouting, yelling, and demanding, for the new shoe inserts, which creates the allusion that the product works and is worth the money.
When you were a little kid whoever bought your shoes always bought you the ugly Velcro ones that most always had some kind of cartoon character on them or lit up when the shoe hit the ground. Then one day you decided you weren’t a little kid anymore and the cartoon character or light up shoes weren’t cool enough for you. So off the person who bought your shoes went to buy “big kid shoes”. But, there was a problem, you didn’t know how to keep them on your feet without tripping over those weird looking strings. So the shoe buyer went through step-by-step teaching you how to tie your shoes. At the time it seemed like it was an impossible task to accomplish, and it may even still be for some people. Maybe this way will help the young and old that can’t tie their sho...
For the first time in a long time, I was jealous of someone else’s shoes. Not just envious of their style or fit, but deep down I wanted to strip her of her shoes and socks and take them for my own. It was a fall day, not particularly chilly for most people walking to class. I felt very conspicuous, because I had been walking around for the past two days without wearing socks or shoes.
Again and again, Sethe’s character seeks to bury her memories of enslavement, loss and anguish. However, no matter how hard she tries, they resurface. Just as those past events are inescapable pieces of her that cannot be extinguished or erased, so too is the collective memory that records the unfortunate existence and despicable actualities of American captivity. As a result, Toni Morrison’s creative conception of the process of rememory, not only articulates the severe psychological effects of trauma and suffering, but also a profound hope to heal the aftermaths of slavery, establish a communal consciousness, and challenge the official historical narratives in order to revitalize black identity.
In the case of Morrison's characters in Beloved, the trauma of slavery is not only regarded as an institution or an experience, it is acknowledged as a collective remembrance that formed an identity among a group of people. Toni Morrison’s Beloved extends beyond the physical, emotional, and spiritual anguish that was created by slavery. Beloved explores the significance of identity-formation as well as slavery’s influence on the deconstruction and reconstruction of African-American slaves’ collective identity through the characters’ experiences and interactions throughout the novel.
Toni Morison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved centers on the powers of memory and the history behind those memories. The characters of the novel are former slaves for whom the past is a shackle that tethers them to their own personal slavery in their free lives. Each character seeks to find what remains of their true self once the veil of slavery is peeled away. The novel shows how the internalization of oppression can distort human relationships and subvert the self. The time frame of the novel is a juxtaposition of past and present, which reinforces the idea that the past is indeed alive and thriving inside of each character and must be reconciled before they can look towards a future. The characters cannot begin to make sense of who they are until they reconcile who they have been and the roles that they have played. The novel allows readers to examine the negative effects that slavery had on the characters, most notably the self-alienation that it caused. Their relationships to their past entangle them in a web from which they cannot escape. The characters do not know how to live for the present or plan for the future. The legacy of slavery has damaged the ways that they experience love and think about their own worth as human beings. The denial and oppression of the black identity by the larger slave-owning society led to the internalization of shame and subsequently to an inability of the characters to develop a self-empowered subjectivity when free from physical slavery. Slaves were told they were subhuman and they were sold and traded which gave them a worth that could be expressed in dollars, but robbed them of their self-hood. Thus each of the characters w...