Quest for "The Dream" in Black Girl Lost and Makes Me Wanna Holler
Donald Goines Black Girl Lost (1973) and Nathan McCall's Makes Me Wanna Holler (1994) are two works written by male authors who have first hand knowledge about the African American experience. A difference between the two works is that McCalls story is an autobiography of his life growing up in the streets/ghetto and Goines is a fictional story about growing up in the streets/ghetto, but from a young black female perspective. Although Goines Black Girl Lost is not an autobiography, he and McCall share similar struggles and hardships in their backgrounds that give them the motivation to write about the black experience. Both authors have been praised for the "realism" in their writing (Lamb 1997,OCAAL 1997). Goines has been specifically recognized by critic Greg Goode, for his "ghetto realism" w/o glamorization (OCAAL 1997).
Black Girl Lost (Goines 1973) and Makes Me Wanna Holler (McCall 1994), both give a voice to the African American minority. The African American and minority themes: "The Dream" and "Choice / Self Determination" are very significant in the two texts. The right choices have to be made and one must continue to have self- determination in order to reach "The Dream". In the two texts, both characters make plenty of good and bad choices and continuously try to have self- determination in order to achieve "The Dream", but their choices and determination led the characters to very different places. There are three variables that may not cause, but can contribute to the African American not being able to achieve "The Dream" by causing conflict in their choices and self- determination. The three variables are: family and friend environments, individual needs and anxieties, and low motivation among minority members. Some of the variables are causes and consequences of prejudice & discrimination (Marger 1997).
The environment that people are surrounded by can have an enormous effect on their actions or circumstances that they are in. Therefore, the first variable to compare and contrast in the two texts is the Family and Friends Environment. In Black Girl Lost (1973), Goines has his main character, Sandra, being the only child of a single parent home were her mother is constantly drinking, entertaining different men, partying and never taking the responsibility for herself or her daughter. They hardly ever eat or have any money.
“The Lost Children of Wilder” is a book about how the foster care system failed to give children of color the facilities that would help them lead a somewhat normal and protected life. The story of Shirley Wilder is a sad one once you find out what kind of life she had to live when she was a young girl. Having no mother and rejected by her father she has become a troubled girl.
Much of life results from choices we make. How we meet every circumstance, and also how we allow those circumstances to affect us dictates our life. In Marian Minus’s short story, “Girl, Colored," we are given a chance to take a look inside two characters not unlike ourselves. As we are given insight into these two people, their character and environment unfolds, presenting us with people we can relate to and sympathize with. Even if we fail to grasp the fullness of a feeling or circumstance, we are still touched on our own level, evidencing the brilliance of Minus’s writing.
In Thomas King’s novel, The Inconvenient Indian, the story of North America’s history is discussed from his original viewpoint and perspective. In his first chapter, “Forgetting Columbus,” he voices his opinion about how he feel towards the way white people have told America’s history and portraying it as an adventurous tale of triumph, strength and freedom. King hunts down the evidence needed to reveal more facts on the controversial relationship between the whites and natives and how it has affected the culture of Americans. Mainly untangling the confusion between the idea of Native Americans being savages and whites constantly reigning in glory. He exposes the truth about how Native Americans were treated and how their actual stories were
One girl who chases the American Dream is Lena Lingard, a small farm girl from a poverty-stricken family. "Lena gave her heart away when she felt like it, but she kept her head for her business and had got on in the world." (192). Lena had one thing on her mind: money. To her the American Dream was wealth. She wants freedom from worry about where her next meal would come from. Lena begins her journey to wealth by becoming one of the many hired girls in the town of Black Hawk. There she was apprentice to a dressmaker and before long began to show great potential. Soon she began making money with her hard work, dedication and talent, but she uses this money not to indulge in her own desires, but to benefit her family. She spent her excess funds buying clothes for them, and paying their bills. But this wasn't enough to gain society's approval. She is a hired girl. Because she went to many dances over the summer months, many young men began noticing her, as they never had before. Because of this Lena earns a reputation like those of the hired girls; that ...
The award-winning book of poems, Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson, is an eye-opening story. Told in first person with memories from the author’s own life, it depicts the differences between South Carolina and New York City in the 1960s as understood by a child. The book begins in Ohio, but soon progresses to South Carolina where the author spends a considerable amount of her childhood. She and her older siblings, Hope and Odella (Dell), spend much of their pupilage with their grandparents and absorb the southern way of life before their mother (and new baby brother) whisk them away to New York, where there were more opportunities for people of color in the ‘60s. The conflict here is really more of an internal one, where Jacqueline struggles with the fact that it’s dangerous to be a part of the change, but she can’t subdue the fact that she wants to. She also wrestles with the issue of where she belongs, “The city is settling around me….(but) my eyes fill up with the missing of everything and everyone I’ve ever known” (Woodson 184). The conflict is never explicitly resolved, but the author makes it clear towards the end
Work and racial consciousness are themes during the Civil Rights Movement that made Anne Moody’s autobiography a unique story. Her amazing story gave the reader a great deal of insight on what it was like to live in rural Mississippi in the middle of a Civil Rights Movement. As an African American woman, she also provided the reader on how her gender and race impacted her life. Coming to Age in Mississippi was an awe-inspiring autobiography of the life of Anne Moody, and provided a lot of information about the social and political aspects of what was going on during her life.
Anne Moody's story is incredible. She overcame divorced parents, heavy poverty, deliberate murders of her family and friends by whites, and numerous death threats. I believe she succeeded in her effort to write a book with enough power for the reader to appreciate the evil of racism and intense inequality. For Miss Moody and other blacks, life was not much different from slavery, which ha...
Cooper's portrayal of the Native American, one must first examine Cooper's research and study of his subject. Though he was raised on the frontier of New York, Cooper had very little first hand knowledge of the Indians of the this area; in fact, he once wrote to a companion, "I never was among the Indians. All I know of them is from reading, and from hearing my father speak of them (qtd in Risetto)."1 Perhaps to compensate for his lack of personal familiarity with his subject, Cooper conducted extensive research on the Native Americans in New York, most notably Moravian missionary accounts...
How would one feel and behave if every aspects of his or her life is controlled and never settled. The physical and emotional wrought of slavery has a great deal of lasting effect on peoples judgment, going to immense lengths to avoid enslavement. In the novel, Beloved, Toni Morrison uses the characters adversity to expose the real struggles of slavery and the impact it has on oneself and relationships. Vicariously living through the life of Sethe, a former slave who murdered one of her kids to be liberated from the awful life of slavery.
All in all, the treatment of the American Indian during the expansion westward was cruel and harsh. Thus, A Century of Dishonor conveys the truth about the frontier more so than the frontier thesis. Additionally, the common beliefs about the old west are founded in lies and deception. The despair that comes with knowing that people will continue to believe in these false ideas is epitomized by Terrell’s statement, “Perhaps nothing will ever penetrate the haze of puerile romance with which writers unfaithful to their profession and to themselves have surrounded the westerner who made a living in the saddle” (Terrell 182).
Prior to encountering the works Indian Pride: Myths and Truths, Indian Pride: Treaties and Sovereignty, and The Sundance Ceremony, I had speculated that Fools Crow exaggerated Native American customs and traditions in order to create a more compelling novel. Yet, after analyzing these works, I found that I was completely wrong. As Linda Smith states in Decolonizing Methodologies: “It galls us that Western researchers and intellectuals can assume to know all there is to know of us, on the basis of their brief encounters with some of us,” I had unjustly assumed I knew it all (1). Despite various attempts at altering the Native American identity, these three works help to “dispel Indian myths with the real truth” (Indian Pride: Myths and Truths).
The novel Lame Deer, Seeker of visions is a biography of a Lakota Medicine Man who lived in the 1900’s. this book is his personal views of the situation that Lame Deer’s people have been left in after everything that had happened as the “white man” immigrated to what they believed to be unknown land and theirs for the taking. through the story he speaks of the history of the desecration done to the Native Americans by the European invaders. as well as explaining to Richard Erdoes, through hours of interviews, the way of the Lakota People and their Rituals and customs. this depiction shows the vast spirituality of the Lakota as well as what they hold highly in their religion. It is explained how the “white Man” took over their sacred land and destro...
Mankind has struggled, since the beginning of civilization, to see beyond race and cultural differences when defining human value and dignity. The ideas of slavery, oppression, and genocide have all been cultivated by ignorance and the degradation of misunderstood people by a powerful majority that claim to be assimilating the minority. Both Charles Eastman and Gertrude Bonnin give a powerful depiction of Native Americans as they come to understand their place in the new world and desperately cling to traditions and a culture that give them their dignity. Both autobiographies attempt to educate white readers about misconceptions and prejudices that they have been exposed to about Native Americans. These prejudices have caused a majority of white America to fear and dehumanize the Indian populace to the point of oppression. Through their storytelling, Eastman and Bonnin give a perspective of Native American culture that is relatable and real. These writings bring a sense of human dignity to Native Americans and dispel the idea that “Indians” are a savage people who are unintelligent, heathenistic, and in need of guidance by the white man.
A main theme in this novel is the influence of family relationships in the quest for individual identity. Our family or lack thereof, as children, ultimately influences the way we feel as adults, about ourselves and about others. The effects on us mold our personalities and as a result influence our identities. This story shows us the efforts of struggling black families who transmit patterns and problems that have a negative impact on their family relationships. These patterns continue to go unresolved and are eventually inherited by their children who will also accept this way of life as this vicious circle continues.
White, P. & Franke, M., 1999: Integrated solid waste management: a lifecycle inventory. Gaithersburg, Md.: Aspen.