Past experiences shape identity

“Past Experiences Shape Identity”

Many believe that whatever situations have happened in the past should be left in the past. To others, the past holds a special place in their hearts because it has helped in shaping the person they have become today. One should always appreciate his or her ancestors and the struggles they have gone through throughout history such as slavery in order to bring us to where we are today. Though negativity can affect past experiences one should not dwell on it, but learn to move forward and look for the positive aspects of life. Without the past there wouldn’t be any great myths, any personal memories, and nothing for our future generations to learn from. Past experiences also helps people to learn from their mistakes in the past so they will know not to repeat them. One should also remember the good memories that the past has brought forth and should learn to appreciate them and the people who helped us to gain them. (Maya Angelou, author of the excerpt “Mary”, Zora Neal Hurston, author of the essay “How it feels to be colored me”, Gwendolyn Brooks, author of the poems “Sadie and Maud” along with “We Real Cool”, and Annie Proloux, author of the essay “The half Skinned Steer”, proves that through past experiences, whether negative or positive, the memories or struggles that people have encountered influences the way that people live their lives in the future and helps in shaping the individuals identity.)

In the excerpt “Mary”, Angelou recalls her poverty-stricken childhood and the struggles she went through while growing up in the racist south, post-slavery. Angelou remembers how she thought that white people were strange and had developed a negative attitude towards them. Though only ten years old, Angelou worked as a kitchen servant to a woman by the name of Mrs. Cullinan (Angelou 4). She remembers how her identity was taken away when Mrs. Cullinan and the white women that would visit Mrs. Cullinan. These women changed Angelou’s first name from Margaret to “Mary” without her consent because they felt that her name was too long to say (Angelou 5). Margaret and many other African Americans of her time felt that being called “called out of his or her name” in the south was considered to be as insulting as if they were being called “niggers, spooks, blackbirds, crows, or dinges”(Angelou 6). Maya had also encountered being calle...

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... happen again. If one has positive memories of his or her childhood, then they should try to continue to do whatever they are doing in life in order to have more positive memories in the future. Though people try to bring each other down it is ones job to show them that no matter what other people may think one can be anyone he or she chooses to be in life or do anything he or she wants to do. No matter what the circumstances are, never let anyone tell you otherwise. Angelou, Hurston, Brooks, and Proloux have definitely proved that it’s all up to the person going through these circumstances to change what will happen to them and how they view things in society dealing with the negative and positive aspects to life. Through these authors we learn that there can be a positive future from a negative past.

Works Cited

Angelou, Maya. “Mary”. Literacies.2nd ed. Ed. Terence Brunk et al. New York: Norton, 2000.3-8.

Brooks, Gwendolyn. “Sadie and Maud”. 1945.

Brooks, Gwendolyn. “We Real Cool”. 1950.

Hurston, Zora Neal. “How it Feels to be Colored Me”. Essays and Articles. 152-155.

Proulx, Annie. “The Half-Skinned Steer.” Close Range: Wyoming Stories. New York: Scribner, 1999. 21-40.