In her piece, “La güera,” Moraga takes the reader along on her journey to consciousness and explains why that consciousness is so vital. The essay explores the disconnect Moraga felt between her own experiences and those of her mother from childhood until she had the epiphany that prompted her to analyse her privilege and oppression. Upon analysis of both her privilege and oppression, Moraga found her true identity, gained an understanding of oppression, and confronted what she had abandoned. In this paper I will develop the concept of rejecting one’s identity in an effort to reap the ‘benefits’ of privilege, what that rejection means in terms of oppression and self identity, and the loss associated with this form of rejection.
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Moraga writes, “It is from this starvation that other starvations can be recognized,” meaning, being oppressed allows one an avenue through which to understand and empathize with other oppressions (Moraga, 29). In Moraga’s case, she gained an understanding and empathy for her mother, and she had to acknowledge her chicana side because it defined her as a person, in relation to her lesbianism.
Moreover, it is important to address the idea of loss as it relates to Moraga and her identity. Moraga deduces that she had been denying herself, her heritage, her mother, and her mother’s experiences in her poetry. She came to the realization that everything she knew and valued had been, as she writes, “subverted by anglo culture and [her] own cooperation with it” (Moraga, 30). Through rejecting her identity, Moraga managed to unknowingly cut out pieces of herself, thus, silencing her voice and hindering her means of communication. This realization revealed to Moraga that she remembered things about her heritage and her roots, which in turn made her further aware of the oppressive nature of rejecting parts of one’s identity because to do so is to reject histories, heritage, and entire groups of people.
Furthermore, Moraga addresses the connection of oppression and fear. Those who remain ‘unconscious’,willingly, fear that they will, as Moraga puts it, be forced to “[give] up whatever
With these mediums of oppression, her first theory, referred to as the Matrix of Domination is brought up. Previous models of oppression were considered additive, or hierarchal, meaning that they must be ranked. Collins uses the experiences of black women to explain that all these modes of oppression, gender, race and class are interlocking and equally important when viewing domination. This bleeds mores into Part II, but the essentials are discussed in this section.
It is through Mavis? escape and pilgrimage that we identify her shedding society?s definition of what she should
Fear is one of the most powerful and destructive forces in society and has been a forefront motivator throughout history because of it. But what makes fear so powerful? It can change a person entirely or cause them to perform incredible tasks such as in The Chrysalids. Nevertheless, John Wyndham explores what you can do once you overcome that fear and what happens when that fear overcomes you. In The Chrysalids, the cyclic nature of fear within people in power and those they oppress manifests as the fears of the unknown, being different, new ideas and beliefs, getting caught, and the fear of what you don’t understand.
The author started by presenting the problem with monsters and how does it affect the human’s imagination. Next, Genoways presents a little bit of what happened during World War II, also “discussing the public panic that occurred after Orson Welles’s famous broadcast of War of the Worlds” (Genoways, 130). Later the author presents his legitimacy knowledge on both sides of the argument. Genoways uses examples of the real life event that happen in the United States in order to explain how the fear of the past is similar to the fear in now in days but deeper. Third, the author presents his point of view. Which is that if a human being gave in their fear will face the real possibility of losing their freedom. Lastly, he explains that humans need to find a way to being seen as a strong community, and that everywhere we go, there are
In the play by Federico Garcia Lorca, The House of Bernarda Alba, a recurring theme throughout the play is freedom. Lorca expresses freedom using characters, situations and objects. The characters in the story are Bernarda’s daughters who are under her control and have extremely little freedom and privacy by being forced to abide by her rules. Freedom and Repression are most significant themes conveyed throughout the play, the two opposing themes together are important to understanding both the characters and the story as well.
The Alaska native, African American, and the women that are on the welfare system have been marginalized and oppressed. The amount of trauma that these people throughout their life span has been very painful. According to the reading of the articles have been impacted by historical trauma; they have experience multigenerational trauma. They are still suffering for being recognized. The system has oppressed and marginalize its victims ().
This week, the readings touched on issues relating to resistance and social change. Martinez explains how the U.S. has struggled to see issues of race beyond just Black and white. She also stresses the importance of including other races when speaking on these issues. Hernandez argues that the mainstream feminist movement fails to include minority and low-income women and the issues they face. She states that the movement only benefits white middle class women. Collins explains how people’s ideas and behaviors actualize other people’s inequalities. She says comparing levels of oppression is a competition for attention and instead we should use a new mentality that interlocks these inequalities. Harris
The book challenges perspectives by daring the reader to empathize with a minority group and try to see from a point of view less commonly discussed
Prejudice can manifest itself in many different ways, sometimes in the least likely of them. We often assume that the people we place our trust and faith in are free of prejudice, but this is not always true. We can observe this in real life and literature, as seen through the short story “The Stolen Party” by Liliana Heker. This story, about a young girl learning to understand the nature of prejudice and trust, introduces an important theme; that when we encounter prejudice, we should fight for what we believe. This theme is explored through Rosaura’s interaction with her mother, Luciana’s cousin and Senora Ines. These three characters lead Rosaura to question her beliefs, but nonetheless encourage her to to challenge any prejudice directed
The oppression of certain groups of people is nothing new. These oppressed groups tend to be looked at as different because of their physical features and/or cultural background. Many efforts to improve the lives of the oppressed have been achieved, but there is still a long way to go. These oppressed groups consist of women and different ethnic groups which have had to deal with being pushed around by the white man throughout history. Frantz Fanon deals with his experience as a black man in the French colony of Martinique. Simone de Beauvoir speaks about her experience as a woman in the French mainland. Both authors assert the idea that the man, in particular the white man, sets himself as the superior being that defines what it is to be human and views women and blacks or minorities as the “Other”.
-Essay: 1300- 1500 words. ‘A sense of belonging is never permanent.’ Discuss in relation to TWO poems and TWO pieces of related texts.
This essay compares two of Marilyn Dumont’s collection of poems, green girl dreams Mountains, particularly the section “City View”, and her earlier work, A Really Good Brown Girl. There are two key focuses in my essay; the first is that of Dumont’s representation of the self and identity within A Really Good Brown Girl and how it becomes transformative in green girl dreams Mountains, as Dumont is less concentrated on the self and rather on her observations in “City View”. I will also be focusing on the idea of shame; A Really Good Brown Girl is clearly representative of Dumont’s own struggles and emphasizes her marginalized status, whereas in green girl dreams Mountains she uses different socio-economic neighborhoods in order to illustrate the effects and consequences of spatial segregation. There is no lack of effectiveness in regards to the impact on the reader despite the different focuses of the works, one on self and one on the other. Both collections explore the idea of otherness, whether it is on a basis of race, ethnicity or socioeconomic standing.
Most every human being has encountered a time in their life when he or she has felt suppressed. However, not every person has stood up against the people and forces that have kept them oppressed. It takes a truly extraordinary person to stand up for their self and to take a stand for the greater good of others. According to Clare Booth Luce: “courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.” The Mexican writer, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz and the Puerto Rican writer, Julia de Burgos, acknowledged the fact that they were suppressed by the male gender. Sor Juana and Julia de Burgos did not simply stop at acknowledging the problem at hand. Rather, these two
An analysis of Gloria Anzaldúa‘s The New Mestiza and James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time reveals that humans oppress themselves based on their differences. This is turn prevents them from identifying themselves as part of the human race. In his writings, Baldwin offers a solution to this hurdle that targets the apparent causes of the problem. However, Andalzua’s analysis of human difference reveals a few flaws in Baldwin’s view of the problem as well as his proposed solution to putting an end to human misery and oppression. Andalzua does so by examining Baldwin’s view of power, his view of love as a solution, and his view of the behavior of those who had been oppressive.
Julia Kristeva is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, psychoanalyst and feminist writer. Her work on abjection gives an engaging insight into human culture in terms of it’s relationship to larger overarching power structures. In Powers of Horror, Kristeva argues that the oppression of woman in patriarchal societies is constructed through fear of the abject. “The tremendous forcing that consists in subordinating maternal power (whether historical of phantasmic, natural or reproductive.)” (Kristeva, 1982, p.91) The abject refers to the human reaction of revulsion to the threat of breakdown between the subject and object, the self and other. The border which separates nature and culture, between human and non human. “The abject confronts us, on one