Reconstruction of the South in Smith’s Killers of the Dream

524 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Reconstruction after the Civil War

Reconstruction of the South in Smith’s Killers of the Dream

“Something was wrong with a world that tells you that love is good and people are important and then forces you to deny love and to humiliate people.” P. 39

This single short quote from the first section of Lillian Smith’s Killers of the Dream is a perfect summation of the changing world many Southerners were facing as they approached the 20th Century. Gone were the days of plantation homes, housewives overseeing 50 black slaves, and many of the ideals that this lifestyle carried with it. As the Civil War ended and Reconstruction worked its way through the South, much was uprooted. This change was hard for this “landed aristocracy.” However, it was equally hard on the children.

This quote from page 39 demonstrates why this change was so hard for children. It was hard for children to grow up watching their parents have slaves, abuse these slaves, and then 10 years later watch these slaves rise up as free men and women. After the emancipation of slaves, southern parents reluctantly taught their children that the...

Show More
Related

  • Suffering and Struggle in Sonny´s Blues by James Baldwin

    1195 Words  | 3 Pages

    The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.

    Read More

  • The Female as the Eternal Pariah in “Her Kind”

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    Everyone has once been someone that they aren’t necessarily ashamed of, but something they aren’t anymore. When you’re in school, everyone is different; between the popular kids, the jocks, the cheerleader, the dorks, the Goths, and all the other “types” of people. In “Her Kind,” Anne Sexton shows that she has been a lot of different women, and she is not them now. In this paper we will be diving into the meanings behind the displaced “I,” the tone and reparation, and who Anne Sexton really is and how that affects what she is trying to let people see through this poem.

    Read More

  • Anne Moody Paper

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although there were numerous efforts to attain full equality between blacks and whites during the Civil Rights Movement, many of them were in vain because of racial distinctions, white oppression, and prejudice. Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi recounts her experiences as a child growing up in Centreville, Mississippi. She describes how growing up in Mississippi in a poor black family changed her views of race and equality, and the events that took place that changed her life forever. She begins her story at the tender age of 4, and describes how her home life changed drastically with the divorce of her parents, the loss of her home, and the constant shuffle from shack to shack as her mother tried to keep food on the table with the meager pay she earned from the numerous, mostly domestic, jobs she took. On most days, life was hard for Anne, and as she got older she struggled to understand why they were living in such poverty when the white people her mother worked for had so many nice things, and could eat more than bread and beans for dinner. It was because of this excessive poverty that Anne had to go into the workforce at such an early age, and learn what it meant to have and hold a job in order to provide her family. Anne learned very young that survival was all about working hard, though she didn’t understand the imbalance between the work she was doing and the compensation she received in return.

    Read More

  • How Controlled Burns Improve Forestry

    1703 Words  | 4 Pages

    It is so sad to see the horror of forest fires and how they corrupt our beautiful land. So much damage comes out of what started so small. At least 603 square miles of land were burned in the early stages of the Arizona fire only a couple of years ago (BBC 2). In a Colorado fire 2.3 million acres had been burned (BBC 3). That land could have been saved if the use of prescribed burns had been in the area.

    Read More

  • Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein

    872 Words  | 2 Pages

    The creator of the monster, Victor Frankenstein is a man full of knowledge and has a strong passion for science. He pushes the boundary of science and creates a monster. Knowledge can be a threat when used for evil purposes. Though Victor did not intend for the being to be evil, society’s judgement on the monster greatly affects him. As a result he develops hatred for his creator as well as all man-kind. Victor’s anguish for the loss of his family facilitates his plan for revenge to the monster whom is the murderer. While traveling on Robert Walton’s ship he and Victor continue their pursuit of the monster. As Victor’s death nears he says, “…or must I die, and he yet live? If I do, swear to me Walton, that he shall not escape, that you will seek him and satisfy my vengeance in his death…Yet, when I am dead if he should appear, if the ministers of vengeance should conduct him to you, swear that he shall not live-swear that he shall not triumph over my accumulated woes and survive to add to the list of his dark crimes” (pg.199). Victor grieves the death of William, Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth and his father. Throughout the novel he experiences the five stages of grief, denial/ isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. Victor denies ...

    Read More

  • Anne Sexton

    1725 Words  | 4 Pages

    Often, the reader cannot help but feel a bit disheartened after reading a collection of Anne Sexton’s poems. Sexton herself was disheartened with the prospect of life, killing herself at the age of 45 after years in and out of mental facilities. Her poems certainly take cynicism to an extreme, but they remain the type of extreme valuable to the literary canon. Her poetry leaves the reader questioning the world around him, now able to see stories and past experiences in a new light. And although in the case of Sexton this light may be a shadow, the new depth it adds highlights to us that which we hold truly pure.

    Read More

  • Anne Sexton: Cinderella

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kasdano, Michelle. "Poetry: The Legacy of Anne Sexton." Helium (2007). Web. 31 Aug 2011. .

    Read More

  • Decadence in Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    The south was the picture of excess in pre-war times, and although after the war this changed, old ideas and prejudices died slowly. When the construction company came to the town with "niggers and mules and machinery," those old views were evident. (83) The treatment of the blacks in the south remained a vestige of that decadence for years to come, as evidenced by the need for the civil rights movement. This corruption illustrates the townspeople's willingness to look the ...

    Read More

  • Anne Sexton

    1279 Words  | 3 Pages

    To overcome her troubles, she married at age nineteen and attempted to settle into the role of housewife and mother (Discovering Biographies 2). Shortly after her marriage, Anne enrolled in a modeling course at the Hart Agency and lived in San Francisco and Baltimore (Academy of American Poets 1). During this time Anne was also educated at Earland Junior College from 1947- 1948 (Twentieth Century American Literature 2). Through out her early twenties, Sexton began to experience bouts of depression that eventually led to hospitalization (Discovering Biographies 2). In 1955, after the birth of her second daughter, Sexton attempted suicide (Discovering Biographies 2). She was then placed under the care of Dr. Martin Orne, who encouraged her to write poems as a form of therapy (Discovering Biographies 1). “Poetry gave me a rebirth at age twenty-nine” (American Literature 3591), Anne quoted many times during her career. Anne deeply admired and attempted to emulate the confessional poem “Heart’s Needle” by Shodgrass (Discovering Biographies 2). Sexton decided to enroll in Robert Lowell’s graduate writing seminar at the Boston Center for Adult Education (Discovering Biographies 2). She then went on to be a scholar at the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study from 1961- 1963 (American Literature 3596).

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Anne Sexton's 'Her Kind'

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout Anne Sexton's poem, society’s voice duels with the speaker's voice until the speaker's opinion begins effective and unwavering to endure in the end. The poem's speaker greets the stereotype of the witch and uses the two dueling voices throughout the poem to show that the stereotype is actually a positive, strong image for women and that it does not serve the degrading purpose society meant for it to

    Read More

  • Anne Sexton Her Kind

    593 Words  | 2 Pages

    The poem "Her Kind" by Anne Sexton displays an aspect of the author’s life in a more emotional state. In the poem Sexton describes her journey of life as a woman; she remembers all the hardships she has been challenged with and emphasizes that her path through life was not all in sunshine. Throughout, the poem she uses incredible language to describe her hardships that she faced. She overall connects this to the fact that she is a woman. Anne is not angry at the fact that she has to face all the hardships as a woman but instead agrees that she is a brave woman. Although, her journey through life has made her feel constantly criticized as well as an outcast in the female world, she believed that she is just one of a kind.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

    1293 Words  | 3 Pages

    The narrative begins by informing the readers that slaves were kept in the dark about crucial issues in their lives such as their dates of births. The slaves, particularly those born in slavery, were not allowed to know such important aspects of their lives as birthdays. For instance, Douglass was not sure of his exact birth date. They were even kept in the dark on the identity of their parents, “I do not recollect ever seeing my mother by the light of day” (Douglass, 10). This implies that the slaves were separated from their biological parents at a tender age, and subjected to harsh living conditions. One of the slaves, Fredrick Douglass, was separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey, when he was seven years old. The slaves are not emotionally affected by the separation since they are separated from their parents at a tender age and they become used to living without their parents. Slaves are subjected to harsh co...

    Read More

  • Life Before And After Emancipation Proclamation Essay

    1304 Words  | 3 Pages

    Life before and after the Emancipation Proclamation was quite different in the lives of the slaves back then. Looking back before this great proclamation, slaves were seen as less than humans, mistreated, and endured various hardships. Contrasting with this, was how life was for them after the Emancipation Proclamation, in which the slaves were now free and could lead almost what was normal and productive lives. In this essay, I will give a brief overview of the Civil War, what life was like for the slaves before this great war, the events that led up to this historical incident, the emancipation proclamation, the life of a slave after the Emancipation Proclamation, and what slavery

    Read More

  • Anne Sexton: Poetry as Therapy

    1430 Words  | 3 Pages

    Anne Sexton was born Anne Gray Harvey on November 9, 1928 in Newton, Massachusetts. She was the youngest of three daughters to Ralph and Mary Gray Staples Harvey. Life in the Harvey household was difficult for Anne. Her parents, especially her father, were very concerned with appearances and she failed them in these standards most of the time. As the Harvey children grew older, the household became much more tense. Anne's father was an alcoholic and her mother drank nearly as much as he did. Her mother's failed aspirations to become a famous writer increased the tension among the family members as Anne's mother began to resent her husband and children (Middlebrook 4-16). The ingredients for future depression were already in the works for Anne. There was a history of mental illness in the family with both Anne's great aunt and grandfather.

    Read More

  • Gay Marriage Must Be Legal

    1890 Words  | 4 Pages

    Stoddard, T, Fein, B, (Jan. 1990) Gay Marriage, Personal relationships, Marriage, Legislation, Homosexuality, American Bar Association, (Pages 42, 42)

    Read More

More about Reconstruction of the South in Smith’s Killers of the Dream

Open Document