Sherman Alexie has made a name for himself as a prolific contemporary Native American writer, taking inspiration from his own past and experiences with modern Indian life. While there are many enduring themes throughout Alexie's writings: Native identity, modern reservation life, alcohol abuse etc. when it comes to his collection War Dances, the most apparent motif is fatherhood. Community and family are the heart of Native American cultures, with the father archetype holding great honor and expectation
that determines a person’s fate and destiny in life. Works Cited Alexie, Sherman. Selected Poems of Sherman Alexie. Tegucigalpa, HN: The American School of Tegucigalpa, 2009. Print. "Family quotes." Find the famous quotes you need, ThinkExist.com Quotations. Web. 18 Dec. 2009. . Rose, Wendy. Selected Poems of Wendy Rose. Tegucigalpa, HN: The American School of Tegucigalpa, 2009. Print.
Adaptation of Modern African-American Writers Modern writers learn from the past by reading works written by authors of that particular era. Contemporary African-American writers gain knowledge and insight into the horrendous and sometimes harmonious conditions that plagued Africans during slavery and the slave trade. By reading the actual words, thoughts, and feelings of these enslaved Africans, modern writers receive information from the perspective of the victimized. Lucille Clifton's "slaveship"
new life. They tried to escape from poverty and just to start over. So we know that America started with hope but does the American writers? In order for something to begin there needs to have experiences. So the writers looked back on American history. They even had to go as far as before Christopher Columbus, and even before the year 1000. At that time the Native Americans lived here. They each had a tribe and their writings were very personal to how they lived their life and how they knew of America
Cade Bambara Toni Cade Bambara was a native of New York City who devoted her life to her writing and her social activism. Throughout her career, Bambara used her writings to convey social and political messages about the welfare of the African-American community and of African-American women especially. According to Alice A. Deck in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, the author was "one of the best representatives of the group of Afro-American writers who, during the 1960s, became directly
African American according to Achebe and Douglass Throughout the years, the image of the African American culture has been portrayed in in a negative light. Many people look to African, and African American literature to gain knowledge about the African American culture. The true culture and image often goes unseen, or is tarnished because writers who have no true insight or experience, have proceeded to write about things in which they are uneducated.. For years the world has seen writers attempt
This paper examines the drastic differences in literary themes and styles of Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston, two African--American writers from the early 1900's. The portrayals of African-American women by each author are contrasted based on specific examples from their two most prominent novels, Native Son by Wright, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston. With the intent to explain this divergence, the autobiographies of both authors (Black Boy and Dust Tracks on a Road) are also analyzed
(1902-1967), one of the most prominent figures in the world of Harlem, has come to be an African American poet as well as a legend of a variety of fields such as music, children's literature and journalism. Through his poetry, plays, short stories, novels, autobiographies, children's books, newspaper columns, Negro histories, edited anthologies, and other works, Hughes is considered a voice of the African-American people and a prime example of the magnificence of the Harlem Renaissance who promoted equality
Salinger A Perfect Day For Bananafish was written in 1948 by the American writer Jerome David Salinger. This was just three years after the ending of World War II, where Salinger was stationed in Berlin, Germany. From further analysis of the short-story I have come to the conclusion that Seymour is Salinger’s role model. Seymour has just returned from World War II, as well as Salinger had when he wrote the story. Seymour returns to his native country very confused, dysfunctional and with some psychic issues
dream that is painted entirely in the color of black—different shades and blocks of pigments mixing and clashing with each other, opening up infinite possibilities for both beautiful if frightening nightmares and impossible dreams. An Asian-American writer growing up in a tight and traditional Chinese community in California, Kingston is placed by her background and time period to be at the unique nexus of an aged, stale social institution and a youthful, boisterous one. She has had to face life
biographies about his life as a politician, slave, and abolitionist. However, the historical value of these works does not remain as important as the quality of the works themselves. Frederick Douglass’ writing deserves recognition in the canon of great American authors, because his work meets the chosen criteria for inclusion in a collection of important literature. Douglass influenced many famous abolitionists with his literary works, and this impact, coupled with his desire to write an expose about oppression
Maya Angelou is one of the most influential and talented African American writers of our modern day. Those who read Angelou‘s works should not pass the thought of where her influence came from. Maya Angelou’s work has been heavily affected by the era in which she began to write. The fifties and sixties were a tumultuous time for most African-Americans in the US. The civil-rights movement, led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, Martin
Gandhi began to teach a policy of passive resistance to, and non-cooperation with, the South African authorities. Part of the inspiration for this policy came from the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, whose influence on Gandhi was profound. Gandhi also acknowledged his debt to the teachings of Christ and to the 19th-century American writer Henry David Thoreau, especially to Thoreau's famous essay "Civil Disobedience." Gandhi considered the terms passive resistance and civil disobedience inadequate for his purposes
choice point to the influence of Bergson, specifically his concepts of 'becoming' and élan vital. Tracing Beauvoir's shift from her apolitical position of 1927 to the feminist engagement of The Second Sex points to the influence of the African-American writer, Richard Wright, whose description of the lived experience of oppression of blacks in America, and whose challenge to Marxist reductionism, provide Beauvoir with a model, an analogy, for analyzing woman's oppression. Simone de Beauvoir's 1949
Evil in the Works of Melville and Emerson Herman Melville, like all other American writers of the mid and late nineteenth century, was forced to reckon with the thoughts and writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson celebrated the untapped sources of beauty, strength, and nobility hidden within each individual. Where Emerson was inclined to see each human soul as a beacon of light, however, Melville saw fit to describe and define the darkness, the bitter and harsh world of reality that could
tension still exists. In the twentieth century, no time surpasses the 1950's and 1960's in relation to racial injustice and violence. In every facet of American life, prejudice and racial inequality exude during these tumultuous twenty years. Langston Hughes, an African-American writer, exposes the divisions between Caucasians and African Americans in the social construct of the educational system during this chaotic time period. In Hughes' poem, "Theme for English B," he discusses racism through
Herman Melville: A Biography And Analysis Throughout American history, very few authors have earned the right to be called “great.” Herman Melville is one of these few. His novels and poems have been enjoyed world wide for over a century, and he has earned his reputation as one of the finest American writers of all time. A man of towering talent, with intellectual and artistic brilliance, and a mind of deep insight into human motives and behavior, it is certainly a disgrace that his true greatness
Literature has always revealed a great deal about the attitudes and beliefs of different cultures. Puritan authors in the late 17th and early 18th centuries wrote poems, persuasive speeches, stories, and first hand accounts that reveal their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Described especially was the Puritan’s deep regard for religion and their fear and love of God. William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation was written in 1630 as a description of Bradford’s experiences in the New World. The main
off and creates something very different. What began in the visual arts has become a contemporary literary genre due to divergences. Contemporary Latin American writers of this mode include Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, and Majorie Agosin. At the same time there are many writers of the genre world wide, though every form may take one new meaning. The magical realist does not depend on the natural or physical laws or on the usual
Henry Thoreau’s Influence on Martin Luther King Jr. Henry David Thoreau was a great American writer, philosopher, and naturalist of the 1800’s who’s writings have influenced many famous leaders in the 20th century, as well as in his own lifetime. Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1817, where he was later educated at Harvard University. Thoreau was a transcendentalist writer, which means that he believed that intuition and the individual conscience “transcend” experience