Analysis Of Dorothy Allison 's Book ' Two Or Three Things I Know For Sure '

The book goes through Jeannette’s life exposing the mistakes she, her siblings, and her parents made to become the family they were. As her life grows older, Jeannette finds herself in more responsible positions in the world, with editing school newspapers, to writing columns in a small New York newspaper outlet. Her troubles have raised the issue of stereotyping, a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Due to her status in her childhood, it was not hard for her to fit in with the other members of the poor community. “Dinitia explained that I was with her and that I was good people. The women looked at one another and shrugged.” (Walls 191) The quote talks about how members of the black community in Welch accepted Jeannette to go swimming with them in the morning hours before the white people went in the afternoon. The people who knew Dinita, Jeannette’s friend, knew that Dinita was trustworthy, and let Jeannette pass. This relates to the thesis because it shows how she was accepted amongst the people who were

In pages 32 through 34 from the Book ‘Two or Three things i know for sure’ Dorothy includes an image of her family, more specifically the women in her family. Now in page 32 Dorothy explained that the women on her family were not considered beautiful stating, “the women of my family were measured, manlike, sexless, bearers of babies, burden and concept” (Pg.32) with that she incorporates the image of the women were she says that they look “exhausted”, “old”, “ugly” and she goes on to give a brief description of the type of clothing they were wearing and on their appearance where she say’s “solid, stolid, widehipped baby machines. We were all wide- hipped and

By learning about the poverty in not only the city of Buffalo, but also the rest of the country, it inspires me to step up and be engaged in my community even more. We have learned so much about how things like the education you receive and what neighborhood you grow up in can heavily affect your future. In one of the readings from week 4, when the author is discussing poverty, he says, “What I see is the failure of society. I see a society that let that happen, that is not doing what it should. And it’s very sad” (Pilkington 25).

As a child, Jeannette’s sense of wonder and curiosity in the world undermine the need for money. During her young adult years, a new wave of insecurity associated with her poor past infects her. Finally, as an experienced and aged woman, Jeannette finds joy and nostalgia in cherishing her poverty- stricken past. It must be noted that no story goes without a couple twists and turns, especiallydefinitely not Jeannette Walls’. The fact of the matter is that growing up in poverty effectively craftsed, and transformsed her into the person she becomeshas become. While statistics and research show that living in poverty can be detrimental to a child’s self-esteem, Jeannette Walls encourages children living in poverty to have ownership over their temporary situation, and never to feel inferior because of past or present socio-economic

She includes illustrations and photos depicting various political cartoons, petitions, artifacts, and engravings between pages 80 and 81. In her preface she first introduces the limitation of having white, middle-class women reformers. Chapter one, The Roots of Reform, introduces us to how women, empowered by the church first start exploring various charitable forms of outreach, the effect of the Second Great Awakening, and the first leading women; such as Juliana Tappen and Maria Weston Chapman. Chapter two, Charity and the Relations of Class, explores the middle -and upper-class women's need to perform charity. (Again tying in religion) The poor merely existing as a way for the wealthy to earn their way into heaven. We see the invention of the poor house, and how to define who was the "worthy poor." We see the invention of the Asylum as well as early talks of abolitionism. Chapter three, "Drinks, Sex, Crime, and Insanity", introduces the first major movement of the antebellum era, temperance, and the role alcohol played in the antebellum life. We see the emergence of Susan B. Anthony. This is the chapter where we begin to see more radical action from women, and some earlier reformers step away because they are scared of how far the movements are going. These movements are beginning to keep the women out of the kitchen just a little too long. Women begin to have more say, and do more than just simply make speeches and hand out pamphlets. Chapter four, Antislavery, is where we see the biggest divides in the reform movement. Women were divided on issues such as colonization, ending slavery, or should they even be involved at all. Many women wanted to be abolitionists, but did not want to associate with black people. Chapter five: Women's Rights, explores the earliest movements in the women's right cause. We see the effects of the Seneca

I liked bell hook’s essay “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor”. Bell assesses the light in which higher class people view the poor or lower class. Bell hooks, also known as Gloria Watkins grew up in a small Kentucky town where her father worked as a janitor for the local post office. As one of seven children she was taught that money and material possessions did not make her a better person but hard-work honesty and selflessness determined character. Her hard work landed her acceptance into Stanford University. Although she received various scholarships and loans, her parents worried that she would not have enough for books and supplies or emergency funds. Regardless of this, belle went on to earn a Ph.D. Her experiences and education earned her a very good reputation and even an authority writing critiques on popular culture and diversity (hooks 431-432). She uses ideas in her essay “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor”, that stem from her own personal experiences with poverty to add credibility to her writing, as well as examples from pop culture and mass media to demonstrate how these representations portray the lower class in ways that radiate negative stereotypes. She wrote the essay because she saw how the poor had many assumptions made about them. It wasn’t until college thought that she made that discovery. She discovered how unjustly they were represented due to the

In one scene of the memoir, Allison describes her uncles and their need to be depicted as masculine and to act “hard” to the world around them. She also remembers her cousins as young boys and how quickly they seemed to turn into men. The time came for them to act as the world expected them to. This action shows how gender may oppress some males when they feel the pressures of the world to act a certain way. Otherwise, they are at risk for being seen as different and abnormal. Men who do not portray masculinity well are often seen as feminine and weak. When Allison describes her uncles she states, “If you didn’t look close, you might miss the sharp glint of pain in their eyes, the restless angry way they gave themselves up to fate,” (Allison, 28). These men already had their futures planned for them though the society and gender norms. Acting against these norms was seen as unusual, radical, and

While Beneatha is a confident and independent young woman, Laura is rather shy and timid. In seeing these different mindsets, one is able to more fully realize how Beneatha and Laura represent the mindsets that women might have had during the 1930s and 1950s. With the character of Laura being set in the Depression era, and the character of Beneatha being set in the Pre-Civil Rights era, it’s clearly shown that as time passed in American history, the number of motivations and desires of women increased, along with a newly found drive to be something more than a housewife. The overall timid nature of Laura as opposed to the determined and confident personality of Beneatha dramatically shows how over time the way women were motivated and thought in America changed dramatically from the early 1930s to the late

The author, Ann Petry used Miss Rinner as an example of how people in poverty struggle against the system. Bub’s teacher, Miss Rinner, was a white woman who was prejudice against black people and poverty itself; she

In Jamaica Kincaid’s story, Girl, a mother is talking to her daughter about all the proper things she must do to be considered a good girl to her family and to the public, and when she grows up, a proper lady. She must follow the rules that are given to her by her own mother and by society. The mother also teaches the daughter how to act when things don’t go her way. She is told that along with being a proper lady, she must also be able to get what she wants and be independent. This story was written in the late 1970’s and gender roles, for women, back then were not being “followed” because women wanted equal opportunities (Women In the Workforce). “Gender stereotypes are beliefs regarding the traits and behavioral characteristics given to individuals on the basis of their gender” (Deuhr). This essay will discuss the gender roles that were given to women in the story, during the late 70’s, and in today’s society.

The novel is placed in an era where is it a man's world. In this world they have to exhibit their masculinity to fit in. Men have higher responsibilities expected to show who they are to gain respect amongst other males. In the novel Curley is the son of the ranch owner. Curley is not taken serious amongst the ranch workers, which leads him to display his masculinity through his appearance to look as a male.

During the times these books were written, it was very common for a woman to be considered inferior to a man, and to have certain duties to fulfill around the house. A woman’s jobs usually consisted of taking care of the kids, feeding the family, and cleaning the house. There wasn’t much else they were expected to do, and if they did not do that they were considered useless. Both stories capture different sides of how the women felt during this oppression and tell both sides of the story.

According to Rotundo, the ideal man was one who ruled as head of his household, believed in “the crucial concept of duty,” and upheld stern Puritan religious of morality and social behavior (as the “pleasant, mild-mannered, devoted man of the community”). This “good man” image seems to coincidentally parallel the English patriarchal gentleman of the seventeenth century.

In Valerie Martin’s novel, Property, the reader is drawn into the engrossing story of Manon Gaudet and her life on a Louisiana sugar plantation in 1828. Manon lives a life full of bitterness as the wife of a plantation owner, a man whom she completely detests. Interestingly enough, the husband is never named, he is always referred to as just her husband which I believe reveals the fact that their relationship is not one of love but one of power. She rejects the stereotypical idea of a wife of the time and often outright refuses to preform her “wifely duties”, such as bearing his child. While the story is seen through Manon’s perspective, we also see much of Sarah’s life, who is Manon and her husband’s slave. Sarah is living an unhappy life because she has been continually abused by Manon’s husband and forced to conceive his child. As we can see, both women are living unhappy lives for different reasons; however, the reasons begin to assimilate over time. During the whole of the novel, Martin captures the readers attention and allows them to place themselves in the shoes of Manon and truly resonate with her beliefs in the world. By focusing the novel on the story of two women who are the “property” of one man and who are actively in pursuit of their freedom, it requires the reader to truly acknowledge the lack of power and privilege women had in the 19th century.

The film mainly showcases that Dorothy is the creation of a progressive woman from the male perspective of Michael Dorsey. Dorothy is only allowed to be so opinionated and strong-willed because she is actually a man who does not understand the subjection women face throughout their lives. Michael does not understand the constant themes of female oppression in daily life because he can just take off the wig and makeup and revert