Can the Subaltern Speak Summary

The feminist movement lays claim to a history of both victorious struggle and violent controversy. As women fought for equality with men in the early twentieth century, literature was inspired by this movement. Modernist writers used their artform to provide social commentary in similar ways to realistic writers of the nineteenth century. However, modernist thought allows a much more obvious agenda to be presented through literature. Mina Loy, in “Feminist Manifesto,” and Susan Glaspell, in “Trifles,” both used their respective writings to convey personal opinions on the women’s movement and the relationship between men and women. Though this similarity places them in the same category of modernism, the two differ in their writings

The strife and struggle of the oppressed is not universal in nature. The conditions and expectations through which their existence is defined are also not universal. Those can depend on very complex factors such as nationality, gender identity, as well as social and economic status. However, it is important to mention that although not all oppressed groups experience oppression the same way, there are definitely many parallels across the varied experiences. Sartre’s discussion of shared group identities, i.e. the Jewish identity, and his treatment of oppressed and colonized peoples, easily contrasts Simone De Beauvoir’s analysis of women’s position in society. The comparison of the two illustrates how oppressed groups show a tendency to share

Despite humanity seeking equality in each and every person, we don't apply that cardinal dictum to real life situations and tend to discriminate each other. Liliana Heker is an Argentine writer who writes fiction and journals; also, she is known for her subversive protests against state violence in the duration of the Dirty War. Not only is Heker known for her protests, but she is also known for her literary accomplishments which includes “The Stolen Party” and “The End of the Party”. When she writes, figurative language, especially symbolism and metaphors, is frequent in her style. Heker manifests the social gap that is seen between the rich and poor in “The Stolen Party” through the use of evocative symbolism, deliberate irony,

The concepts of alienation and not getting one’s voice heard as discussed by Judith Bradford and Crispin Sartwell in their essay “Voiced Bodies/Embodied Voices,” and Anna Kegler in her essay “The Sugarcoated Language Of White Fragility,” expose the problems of having one’s voice heard. Jackson and Small articulate this notion as they explain the difficulties of maintaining their culture with the land they depend on.

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.

“We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression” (212).

The oppressor is dominant, powerful, and unified. The oppressor is disadvantaged, weak, and divided. Often times in the healthcare system, the oppressor appears to be the for-profit corporations, investors, and government to name a few. Similarly on the other end of the spectrum, the oppressed are regularly identified as the poor, minorities, and those that are underprivileged. Sadly, these descriptors are typically accurate in the United States and the world abroad. Freire identifies characteristics of the oppressor as selfish, manipulative of others, abusive of power, and fails to recognize others as humans. He describes characteristics of the oppressed as denying the self, prevented from being authentic, and as being exploited and manipulated without realization (Butts & Rich,

However, there are many roadblocks to ending oppression. Freire describes that the oppressed desire the position of the oppressor, rather than desiring to have equal positions. He also states that many oppressed people have resigned to the dehumanized position they were socialized into and feel incapable or fearful of bucking this oppression. This particular description of oppression is similar to the powerlessness face of oppression put forth by Young. Young asserts that “the powerless lack the authority, status, and sense of self that professionals tend to have” (p. 22). If the word powerless was substituted with oppressed and the word professionals was substituted with oppressors, this statement rings even more

The themes that emerged for me in the first half of Native Speaker are race and language. Throughout the first half of the story, race seems to be the primary motivator for many of the conflicts that occur. While race was one of the defining factors that brought people of the same culture together, it also served as a mechanism that separated people of different races apart. One situation I think highlighted this circumstance well occurred when Lelia’s father, Stew, first found out about Henry. Once they met, Stew even admitted to Henry, “when I first found out Lelia was dating you I didn’t like it one bit.” He continues by saying, “Sure, some bright Oriental kid. And then when she told us you were getting married, I nearly yanked the phone

“The interests of the oppressors lie in ‘changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them’…the more the oppressed can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be dominated”

In this research Foucauldian theory based on Subject and Power was used to highlight how discoursed events can create persons who are subjugated or dependent on others and how judgments of normality by those in power can create stereotypes about subjects. He went on to elaborate on how these judgements cause the subjects to view themselves and how it manipulates them to define themselves in the terms of these judgements. He also addressed how the press views of asylum seekers as interlopers influences Australian citizens

Sociology has long been concerned with the construction of identity and the impact of this on feelings of belonging, power relations and social behaviours. Feminist and race studies literature have considered the construction of oppressed identities as a positive tool in the struggle for emancipation () with identification as a member of an oppressed group being seen as the opposite of victim blaming (Ryan,…..) by reinterpreting “ private woes into public wrongs” (Shakespeare, 1993 P…..) . It is the victim in active denial of their socially perceived victimhood and instead pointing to the social factors that are the cause of victimisation.

In the year 1941 during the middle of WWII, the Atlantic Charter created between U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was made in a secret meeting to secure their ally status with each other. Highlighted in this charter are rights the “self” should have, including: “…self-determination and self-government, equal economic opportunity, and the ability ‘to live in freedom from fear and want’” (p. 223). Because the U.S. and Britain were considered the “great nations”, their popularity led marginalized people involved in social justice movements at the time to catch on to these ideas of the rights of “self” stated in the charter. These marginalized people realized that if the U.S. and Britain strived so much for freedom, equality, and self-governing, they, the oppressed, should have been left at peace without dealing with people being racist or condescending towards them. Steve Biko, a writer on Black consciousness and the oppressor/oppressed in society, stated a solution to seek true humanity to rid of the problems at hand. I argue that Steve Biko’s assertion about Black Nationalism that “…the most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed” (p. 248) resonated in the writings of participants of the socially marginalized in Black Nationalism and Consciousness, Decolonization, and the

Structure and agency are two theoretical terms used to explain the capacity at which we as people are able to be individuals, and to what extent those influences limit our individuality. Structure refers to the ways in which a society is organized. Agency refers to the behaviors and actions of the individuals within the social structure. Agency is limited by the structure due to cultural barriers and inequalities within the structure. In this essay, I will present an overview of why critical theorists are concerned with those inequalities, and I will further identify the problems within the system contributing to the unequal access to the public sphere, relating specifically to class and gender inequalities.

One major link includes the fight between an oppressed group and their persecutors. Whether it’s the proletariat and the bourgeois in “The Communist Manifesto,” or the inequality of genders in “The Second Sex,” or the flight of the African Americans in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. In all of these texts we are shown how easy it is for one group to abuse their power and create unfair rules and regulations only imposed on the more inferior members of society. Each group of oppressor thrives off of alienating, and subjugating their inferiors.