A world seen in Black and White The novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides focuses on a family of Greek immigrants whose experiences in America demonstrates life for blacks, non whites and whites during the 1900s. One passage in the text describes the first generation immigrant, Desdemona’s initial encounter with Africans Americans and their community. When Desdemona exits the trolley after having arrived in Black Bottom Eugenides uses a metaphor to illustrate the contrast between black lives and white lives. The narrator describes, “The streetcar didn’t so much as pause as it crossed the invisible barrier, but at the same time in the length of a block the world was different. The light seemed to change, growing gray as it filtered through the …show more content…
Whites continued to uphold power over blacks and their lives. In the passage the author utilizes the surroundings in the black community to portray support the theme of white authority that constantly surfaces in the novel. Later, as Desdemona nears the silk factory she begins to notice the smells and food present in Black Bottom. The narrator describes,“The smell of unfamiliar food in the air now, fish caught from the nearby river, pig knuckles, hominy grits, fried baloney, black-eyed peas. But also many houses where nothing was cooking, where no one was laughing or even talking, dark rooms full of weary faces…”(143). Eugenides uses imagery to compare the liveliness of blacks, the richness of their food and culture to the homes of African Americans in which poverty and oppression have consumed their liveliness. The images of “weary faces” and “dark rooms” and “no laughter” conveys to the reader the exhaustion and frustration blacks are feeling. The effects of their omnipresent struggle for equality and rights and essentially for liberation from white power and supremacy on their
In contrast, the grandmother states that the blacks did not have things like the whites do (p.2118), putting the blacks down infront of her grandchildren, associating the blacks with poverty. We see how the grandmother fails to treat the blacks equally as human, solely because of their social status, as she perceives them merely as an inanimate object - a picture.
The author uses tone and images throughout to compare and contrast the concepts of “black wealth” and a “hard life”. The author combines the use of images with blunt word combinations to make her point; for example, “you always remember things like living in Woodlawn with no inside toilet”. This image evokes the warmth of remembering a special community with the negative, have to use outdoor facilities. Another example of this combination of tone and imagery is “how good the water felt when you got your bath from one of those big tubs that folk in Chicago barbecue in”. Again the author’s positive memory is of feeling fresh after her bath combined with a negative, the fact that it was a barbecue drum.
To show first hand to the whites the inequality’s and hardships that the blacks face, the entire first section is in a narrative and a descriptive format. The use of these types of essays lets the readers feel more involved in the story and feel things for themselves. Split into two sections within itself, this first paragraph juxtaposes two stories — one about a “young Negro boy” living in Harlem, and the other about a “young Negro girl” living in Birmingham. The parallelism in the sentence structures of introducing the children likens them even more — despite the differences between them — whether it be their far away location, or their differing, yet still awful, situations. Since this section is focused more towards his white audience, King goes into a description of what it was like living as an African American in those times— a situation the black audience knew all too well. His intense word choice of describing the boy’s house as “vermin-infested” provokes a very negative reaction due to the bad
Segregation had had many effects on the black nation, to the point that it started building up ones character, “See the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness towards white people”, King shows readers that segregation is even affecting little children, that it is starting to build up a young girls character and is contributing to the child developing hatred “bitterness” towards the white Americans. King makes readers imagine a black cloud settling in a young girls brain mentally, when instead she should have an image of a colorful blue sky with a rainbow, isn’t that suppose to be part of a 6 year-old’s imagination? King gives readers an image of destruction civil disobedience had created in the black community, especially in the young innocent little children.
Middlesex is an outline of the life of Calliope Stephanides who grew to the age of fourteen believing that she was a girl with unnatural thoughts for the same sex. As puberty takes hold of her friends and classmates, both Calliope and her family begin to worry about the growing gap between her and the average teenage girl; this marks the beginning of a new life for Calliope who finds she is really a he. Under the new name, Cal, this individual struggles with identity management as he traces his transformation from female to male and the genetic condition, beginning with his paternal grandparents that caused it. “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smog less Detroit day in January of
Racism is an issue that blacks face, and have faced throughout history directly and indirectly. Ralph Ellison has done a great job in demonstrating the effects of racism on individual identity through a black narrator. Throughout the story, Ellison provides several examples of what the narrator faced in trying to make his-self visible and acceptable in the white culture. Ellison engages the reader so deeply in the occurrences through the narrator’s agony, confusion, and ambiguity. In order to understand the narrators plight, and to see things through his eyes, it is important to understand that main characters of the story which contributes to his plight as well as the era in which the story takes place.
After the author uses this symbolization of a ?flat gray?, the wife ?plunged her hands
In the beginning chapters of the book, we get a glimpse of the typical home and community of an African American during segregation. Many Africans Americans were too adjusted to the way of living, that they felt
In order to convey the trait of poverty, Erdrich employs the use of imagery, even the setting reflects their impoverished state. In the beginning of the novel, the road leading towards the reservation is described as having “ruts” and “holes” (11). The surrounding land “was a dull tan – the dry ditches, the dying crops” (11). Erdrich’s visual imagery gives the reader a mental image of a desolate environment. In addition, Erdrich references dust twice on page eleven, giving the impression of the prairies during the dustbowl, which occurred during the 1930’s when the world was going through the Great Depression, allowing the reader to subconsciously connect the environment of the reservation as poor, neglected and bleak. The grim environment creates sympathy for the female characters, many of whom live on the reservation. In addition, there is the alliteration of the letter “d”. This emphasises the poverty in which these characters live in by bringing attention to the “dull”, “dry” and “dying” environment of the reservations. Despite the despondent surroundings, Erdrich’s poetic style pushes the reader to consider this environment as a home, rather than merely a disgusting
In Jeffrey Eugenides’s book Middlesex, Calliope Stephanide tells the story of not only her transformation, but also the world’s transformation into a completely different entity. Brother and sister become husband and wife, Greeks become Americans, and, most importantly, a young girl becomes a man. Along with being a transformative novel, Middlesex is also considered a modern epic. It is an epic account that retells the history of a recessive chromosome that made its way into the life of the main character. Cal describes this recessive chromosome’s journey as it travels through many imposing events: “Cal needs to tell the story of his past in order to function in the present” (Cohen). This genetic chromosome survives a fire in Smyrna,
The 2002 novel Middlesex, written by Jeffrey Eugenides, is a novel that should be read by much of the population. It chronicles three generations worth of Greek-Americans and touches upon many important issues that are still noticeable in 2017. The novel is a coming of age story for the main character and the narrator Calliope Stephanides who was born a girl but because of a mutated gene in the family DNA found out she was born a hermaphrodite, someone born with a combination of human sex organs. Middlesex is one of the most vital pieces of American literature to come out of the 2000’s because it forces us to look outside of our comfort zone and expand our minds to the struggles that are faced by those that are sometimes ignored.
In Middlesex Eugenides also uses language to convey the Stephanides’ cultural heritage and its ever shifting role in their lives. Eugenides examine how assimilation effects a family and the differences between tradition and the modern world. Eugenides sprinkle in words that are specific to Greek culture or derived from Greek throughout the novel. Eugenides writes, “ He’d left one morning dressed in boots, knee socks, breeches, doulamas, and vest . . .” (25). He brings attention to the appearance of this traditional clothing piece by italicizing the word. The connection of the traditional garment emphasizes the Greek culture that Lefty grew up in. The use of real traditional words and pieces of Greek culture create a more realistic narrative
This installs imagery of being able to hear the sobbing slaves as they are carried away in the slave ships. Words such as dark and black, are used to describe the sea and the ship, however it seems as if Morton is also paralleling the skin color of the slaves. She wants the reader during this time period to immediately develop a guilt for the mistakes of mankind. She addresses the whites as “tyrants of the deep” (Morton 16). Morton questions the role that humans play, and she knows it is wrong to own a person and ultimately she wants to establish this idea through poetry.
Jeffrey Eugenide’s novel The Virgin Suicides exploits the suicides of five teenage sisters located in a suburban neighborhood. The Lisbon girls lives are retold through the eyes of middle aged men, who knew them as young boys. Through the group of boys, we invade the privacy of the girls and become witnesses to their adolescent tragedies. We watch the demise of the Lisbon family and the destructive nature of their surroundings.
The subsequent line after the introductory one, “Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes” is purposefully crafted in order to highlight the stark contrast between both sides. The use of the adjective ‘holes’ in this metaphor, underlines the heinous living conditions of some in lower social stratas, whom regardless of their lower hierarchy still remain more fortunate than Jews, who have no place in this world. Mansion’s, typically used to describe the home of aristocrat-like people, juxtapose holes, and this stresses the immense disparity between both worlds. However, Auden deliberately juxtaposes the two in order to embody society;the rich and the poor. Thus, in this ‘city of ten million souls’, a hyperbole, Jews fall into neither division. This is because the rich and poor both have homes to return to, but the Jewish refugees do not. This in itself conveys the discrimination Jews suffered from society. As a result of the juxtapositioning and cleverly chosen diction the empathy of the readers towards the Jews and their plight cannot help but be accentuated. Moreover, the prevalent concept of juxtaposition runs all throughout the poem, where symbols of society, identity and freedom are all juxtaposed, noting the Jews outside