Bitter In The Mouth Analysis

A lack of self-awareness tended the narrator’s life to seem frustrating and compelling to the reader. This lack often led him to offer generalizations about ““colored” people” without seeing them as human beings. He would often forget his own “colored” roots when doing so. He vacillated between intelligence and naivete, weak and strong will, identification with other African-Americans and a complete disavowal of them. He had a very difficult time making a decision for his life without hesitating and wondering if it would be the right one.

In her short story “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker summarizes the representation of the beauty, the conflicts and struggles within African-American culture. “Everyday Use” focuses mainly between members of the Johnson family, consisting of a mother and her two daughters. One of the daughters Maggie, who was injured in a house fire and has living a shy life clinging to her mother for security. Her older sister is Dee, who grew up with a grace and natural beauty. “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure… (716) She also grew up determined to have a better life than her mother and sister. This takes place when Dee (the only family member to receive a formal education) returns to visit Dee’s mother and younger sister Maggie. Again this portrays a slight issue between two different views of the African-American culture. Alice uses symbolism to empathize the difference between these interpretations, showing that culture and heritage are parts of daily life. The title of the story, Everyday Use, symbolizes the living heritage of the Johnson family, a heritage that is still in “everyday use”.

Stylistically, Revoyr’s deliberate prose permits readers an uncomfortable gratitude of the slow marks racism burns on the appearance of a community. Both the Japanese and African-American characters in book Southland wear the marks of prejudice, from removal to internment camps to LA rebellion racial profiling (Revoyr, 2003, pg. 68). Her prejudiced white cop character Nick Lawson does not brave out and speak his hate in a quick, convenient slur; rather, she permits his expressions and sensitively disposition to shape through small, hostile gestures. When eventually he fires off his descriptions, revealing to abandoned witnesses his real feelings, the sickening permits any reader may harbor is well earned (Ranford, 1994, pg. 67). Racism is not certainly the quick match and moment when their neighborhoods erupt into a form of riot in Southland; for Revoyr’s, it appears gradually, on a slowly accumulating bed of fuel.

Cuisine in Southern literature has become a character in itself that exposes the secrets of the cultured south. “Conversations about food have offered paths to grasp bigger truths about race and identity, gender and ethnicity, subjugation and creativity” (Edge, 2). The historical past of food presents the truth of a South that is often forgotten when discussing the evolution of food. Southern food stems from slavery, agriculture, and traditions of southerners over the centuries. Ralph Ellison uses southern food in the “Invisible Man” to represent the elements of southern food exemplifying its true meanings and associations from history’s past. John T. Edge in “Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South” shares the hardships of the past that have become embedded into the culture of southern cuisine.

Rankine’s extensive use of second person point-of-view establishes both directness and vagueness. Throughout the book, the reader experiences racism directly and indirectly, and acts as the author’s medium for expressing ideas and emotions. In one instance, we’re presumably placed in the shoes of a 12-year old Rankine, who allows a fellow student to cheat off of her exam, “You assume she thinks she is thanking you for letting her cheat and feels better cheating from an almost white person” (19). The occurrence is described passingly, as if it was one of many microaggressions young Rankine has experienced in the past. These seemingly normal happenings contrast with the book’s thought-provoking images; a street sign that reads “Jim Crow Road” is pictured after the aforementioned incident (21). Rankine utilizes these contrasts to force the reader to think deeply about

In “Snakes,” a short story written by Danielle Evans, a cruel and realistic world forms around a young black girl named Tara who is sent to stay with her grandmother for the summer. The story unfolds as the reader learns that the grandmother seems to be racially prejudiced, even towards her own granddaughter, Tara. During Tara’s stay at her grandmother’s house, she is accompanied by her cousin Allison who is white. The story centers around Tara’s attempts to remain a normal girl in the eyes of her grandmother, but struggles as her race seems to get in the way of her grandmother’s complete acceptance of her. Danielle Evans is helping the readers understand the difficulty of growing up in America as a minority. The characterization of characters in this story helps the readers understand the environment and setting of the story while implicating the major theme of race throughout the story. The story’s major theme of race follows the other story’s themes of race in Danielle Evans’ collection of short stories.

In telling the stories of people leaving their homes, families, and oppression for equality, freedom, and a better way of life, Wilkerson describes the frustrations that compelled people to flee, the decision making process, the impact on their relationships to family, friends, and community, the challenges they faced, and their achievements and development during their stay. Throughout these different elements and with the use of Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, all of whom migrate to different cities and across different decades, Wilkerson invokes the implications of race, gender, class, and politics. In Gladney’s case, the decision to flee from Mississippi was made by her sharecropper husband, whose cousin was severely beaten over false accusations. Starling, who experienced financial mobility working at a Detroit plant, was forced to return home to Florida due to the riots and mob. Additionally, Foster’s brilliance and qualifications begin to be acknowledged when a white woman publicly

The examination of black women's need to keep their powerful heritage and identity is important to the protagonist in “Everyday Use.” Walker uses the mother’s voice to show the trials and tribulations of a small African American family located in the South. She speaks on multiple levels, voicing the necessity and strength of being true to one's roots and past; that heritage is not just something to talk about, but to live and enjoy in order for someone to fully understand themselves. Unlike Kincaid, Walker gives her black female character’s an identity of their own, each in their own right, and observes the internal conflicts of each mother and daughters struggle with identity. The mother represents a simple content way of life where identity and heritage are valued for both its usefulness, as well as its personal significance. In order to illustrate how the mother viewed identity versus her daughters, Walker quickly acknowledges that the mother has inherited many customs and traditions from her ancestors. She describes herself as a large big-boned woman with rough man-working hands (485). She also describes here various abilities including, killing and cleaning a hog as mercilessly as a man. Being able to work hard and not care about being such a lady, is how the mother defines identity at this point. On the other hand, the two daughters each have opposing views on the value and worth of the different items

Throughout the first part of the edible south, Ferris, accounts for the long history of encounters, which marked the formation of this regions distinctive cuisine. Ferris states, “the historic interactions between southerners and food tell us much about this distinctive region.” She then goes on to say “Food reflects both our

Over the years there is no question that African Americans were treated as stepchildren in American society. They struggled to integrate with whites, while at the same time trying to gain their independence from them. Set in the 1950s in New Orleans, the short story “Miss Yellow Eyes” Shirley Ann Grau illustrates the struggles African Americans faced during this era. In the 1950s the south faced segregation, the civil rights movement and a draft to enlist men to fight in the Korean War. This story is a first person narrative that describes the lives of two young African American men faced with segregation and injustices in America that promised liberty for all. Grau reveals by the use of foil how a young black man chooses to survive segregation and the social prejudices of this era.

In “The Myth of the Latin Woman” and “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” the subject of feeling like an outcast due to being of a non-white culture is examined. From the perspectives of two different women from two separate cultures (Puerto Rican and Indian), a series of anecdotes show the discrimination they face throughout their lives, all because their heritage does not match up with the world around them. “The Myth of the Latin Woman” focuses primarily on the stereotypes of Puerto Rican women, and how these stereotypes have followed the author no matter where she traveled. “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” focuses on the lack of belongingness felt by the author both in childhood and her adult life through food.“The Myth

“Where” and “why” the two questions that are essential to the topic of geographic studies and analysis. The mission of this paper is to use those same principles and ask, “Where did the distinct dialect, music, food, and religion emerge to form the vernacular region known throughout the United States as ‘The South’?” As well as, why the culture developed the way it did. Since 122 million Americans call the Southeastern portion of the United States home, let’s find out what causes such a large percentage of people to call this place, “Home”. The southeastern region of the United States contains the largest percentage of its population, and it also has the largest conglomeration of cultural groups

On their trip, the family passes a shack with a small black child on the porch. The grandmother is quick to refer to him as a “pickaninny” (a word that originally meant “a poorly dressed, disreputable, neglected slave child”). She then goes on to tell the family how black families “don’t have things like we do”, a rather pompous and condescending view of the economical gap between the newly integrated south. It is clear to see here the relationship between the authors mother, who lived on a farm in the south with little help, and the grandmother

In the passage “Extract that sweet tooth”, it is stating that the government has put a limit on how much sugar goes into foods. The government believes that sugar should only make up 10% of your daily calories. Although, they are doing this based on a 2000 calorie diet which means that other individuals may have to have a higher or lower amount of sugar based on their diet or food restrictions. If you are on a 2000 calorie diet, you need about fifty grams of sugar to make up that 10%. In this article, it states that if you drink more than one can of full sugar soda it maxes out the limit. However, the American Heart Association suggests about half that limit. The article says that if you have a diet with a lot of sugar it increases

Over time, it has become relatively easy, almost second nature, for people to devise strict societal barriers and categorize people, cultures, and ideas into separate boxes. In Jean Toomer’s “Portrait in Georgia”, however, this is exceptionally challenging for the reader to do so. With his poetic paintbrush, Toomer describes a beautiful woman, but he intentionally blurs the racial lines of black and white in order to illustrate an underlying theme concerning the deep-rooted problems of racism in America. To help convey this theme, Toomer utilizes the literary tool of imagery, and he does so masterfully. Each image is meticulously placed and organized to provide the most powerful impact possible. While certain images emphasize the beauty and grandeur of a woman, others bring up unbelievably violent, gory, and horrific images of death associated with the treatment of African Americans during the time of Jim Crow Laws. Overall, Toomer’s use of imagery brings “Portrait in Georgia” to life, grabs the reader’s attention, successfully demonstrates an extremely powerful message, and causes society’s darker parts to be questioned.