Claudia Frieda

Despite knowing that they are "nicer, brighter," they cannot ignore "the honey voices of parents and aunts and the obedience in the eyes of [their] peers, the slippery light in the eyes of [their] teachers" when Maureen is around or the topic of conversation (74). The way Maureen dresses and behaves in front of adults is not the only way she affects Claudia and Frieda. With racist comments such as, "What do I care about her old black daddy...[and] you ugly! Black and ugly black e mos. I am cute," she infuriates the girls, for in their eyes Maureen is black too. Racist attitudes like Maureen's affect the poorer, darker blacks and can eventually lead them to think racist thoughts of their own.

She understands how slavery can destroy or “dirty” a person to the point where “you forgot who you were and couldn’t think it up.” This is the justification for trying to kill her children so they would never have to experience what it is like to have your identity stripped from you. Even though “she and others lived through and got over it”, her personality/identity was so damaged that she didn’t want her kids to live through slavery. However, Sethe failed to apply this to herself. She overlooked the fact that her own corruption led to her struggles with motherhood. In never learning how to properly mother a child, Sethe made the rash decision of killing them to free them from the horrors of slavery. In the passage above, Morrison uses the symbol of dirt to portray how Sethe’s own corruption affected her children and hindered their freedom. In trying to save her children from the “dirt”, Sethe dirtied her children anyway because slavery is so powerful that if it affects one, it affects all. The dirt of slavery never left Sethe and made it hard for her to discover herself and find her own freedom. Again, Morrison establishes the difference between being free and freeing oneself. Because she has been so corrupted by slavery, neither Sethe nor her children can be truly

In Toni Morrison's Beloved, the Black literature author touches upon tough subjects such as slavery, the affects of slavery, and the cruelty that is brought by it. For a person to be cruel, they commit inhumane crimes against a victim or victims that ultimately dehumanizes them. This concept displays itself several times throughout the novel, depicted through the characters that represent not only the "sixty million and more," but also the broken system of a slavery-ruled society, effectively showing the affects of such heinous crimes. In Beloved, the community commits cruel acts to characters such as Paul D, Denver, and Sethe, prompting them to act cruely themselves.

...Morrison explores in the novel [and] centers upon the standard of beauty by which white women are judged in this country. They are taught that their blonde hair, blue eyes, and creamy skins are not only wonderful, but

“What is racism? Racism is a projection of our own fears onto another person. What is sexism? It’s our own vulnerability of our potency and masculinity projected as our need to subjugate from another person…” Gary Ross’s breakdown of the age-defying constructions of race and sexism exemplify how fabricated standards can take a toll on the well-being of individuals. American novelist Toni Morrison is renowned for her publications illustrating how racial stigma can dent a character physically, mentally and emotionally. “Sweetness”, an excerpt from God Help the Child, one of Morrison’s more recent works, follows the narrative of a guilt-stricken mother who allowed society’s predetermined notions of race interfere with her parenting, as her daughter was undeniably black while she and her husband have negro roots but are lighter skinned or ‘high-yellow’. As the story develops, it is obvious that the narrator, Lula Ann’s mother feels some sort of resentment for mistreating her child and holding her back from experiencing a blissful childhood like other youngsters, but is too shameful to admit it. With time, tables turn and Lula Ann, Lula Mae’s daughter is able to regain her self-esteem, moves away, builds a career, and is preparing to settle down with a family of her own and change her miserable fate given to her by her parents. Morrison successfully translates the destructive effects of prioritizing racial constructs through varied elements including: characterization, point of

In addition to that, it also shows the theme of racism. Starting off from the beginning of the story, Twyla tells about what her mother, Mary, told her about the other race as them. It is important to note that Morrison never quite tells the reader what races any of the characters are, due to the fact that her intention was to not focus on race, but on intellectual (Tally 3541): but the reader is often still found trying to decipher what the races are of the characters, which could be a point Morrison wanted to make. “Every now and then she would stop dancing long enough to tell me something important and one of the things she said was that they never washed their hair and they smelled funny. Roberta sure did. Smell funny, I mean” (Morrison 3541). Here, Twyla is showing how racism was instilled in her as a child by her ‘dancing’ mother. No matter the race Roberta was, it is racist to regard one race with a certain quality; in this case, her ‘funny’ smelling hair. Not only did Twyla’s mother display racism, but so did Roberta’s when they met for the first time. “Roberta’s mother looked down at me and then looked down at Mary too. She didn’t say anything, just grabbed Roberta with her Bible-free hand and stepped out of life, walking quickly to the rear of it. Mary was still grinning because she’s

Mothers are typically seen as kind, loving, and nurturing, at least in a perfect world, that’s how they are. Rather, in the real world many of us wish that is how all mothers are. Various situations can lead to a woman to be too mothering. It is a factor that transcends real life. This conflict causing dynamic is very prevalent in numerous stories, films, and plays. Two plays where it is shown in significance are Machinal and The Glass Menagerie. In both cases, the actions taken by the mother roles in the shows, resulted in some of the character’s roles ending in unfortunate events of some sort.

every girl child treasured.” (1.39) 11. Back then, “to be white” was everything to desire. But who would have known, that in a couple years race doesn’t matter.

     The plays, The Glass Menagerie and A Raisin in the Sun, deal with the love, honor, and respect of family. In The Glass Menagerie, Amanda, the caring but overbearing and over protective mother, wants to be taken care of, but in A Raisin in the Sun, Mama, as she is known, is the overseer of the family. The prospective of the plays identify that we have family members, like Amanda, as overprotective, or like Mama, as overseers. I am going to give a contrast of the mothers in the plays.

The desire to feel beautiful has never been more in demand, yet so impossible to achieve. In the book “The Bluest Eye”, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the story of two black families that live during the mid-1900’s. Even though slavery is a thing of the past, discrimination and racism are still a big issue at this time. Through the whole book, characters struggle to feel beautiful and battle the curse of being ugly because of their skin color. Throughout the book Pecola feels ugly and does not like who she is because of her back skin. She believes the only thing that can ever make her beautiful is if she got blue eyes. Frieda, Pecola, Claudia, and other black characters have been taught that the key to being beautiful is by having white skin. So by being black, this makes them automatically ugly. In the final chapter of the book, the need to feel beautiful drives Pecola so crazy that she imagines that she has blue eyes. She thinks that people don’t want to look at her because they are jealous of her beauty, but the truth is they don’t look at her because she is pregnant. From the time these black girls are little, the belief that beauty comes from the color of their skin has been hammered into their mind. Mrs. Breedlove and Geraldine are also affected by the standards of beauty and the impossible goal to look and be accepted by white people. Throughout “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison uses the motif of beauty to portray its negative effect on characters.

To begin with, Hazel, a white teenage girl, caught screaming to the back of another teenage girl’s head, black teenage girl named Elizabeth, claims that in the act she wasn’t feeling any towards of hatred or disapproval towards Elizabeth making her way into school. However, in the heat of the moment this photograph captured her at the wrong moment in time, a moment in which appeared full of hatred. Story is though that Hazel tagged along into the mixt of the crowd, not knowing exactly what she was thinking or doing but just wanted to do what everyone else was doing. This very act touches upon one aspect of racism, how your society influences your thoughts and actions. Growing up in the south, this was just a custom, to Hazel just like to everyone else. Individuals come as a whole to torment someone who they were taught was inferior to them.

To begin the novel, Morrison quotes a “Dick and Jane” book, a children’s book describing an ideal, happy family. Immediately, Morrison provides an example of how American children are bombarded, as soon as they learn how to read, with ideas about what it means to be beautiful. As well, in the first chapter, she exemplifies how American children, both black and white, view beauty, from Claudia and Freida giggling when they are called the names of beautiful white actresses to Freida and Pecola’s admiration of Shirley Temple. In contrast to the broad examples of Polly’s and Cholly’s childhoods, the examples of these 1940s children are discrete and relevant to the period which Morrison wrote the novel. Evidently, Morrison criticizes the effect of the whiteness of American ideals on children, in particular American movies which define societal standards; however, Morrison also makes an important point: these effects are not the same for every individual.

In unit two of the semester, the class focused our attention on drama. As a class we read three very good play’s Oedipus the King, Death of a Salesman, and The Glass Menagerie. While all three of these plays were well written and had their share of both dynamic and static characters, the reader can’t help but notice that the mothers in all three plays were secondary to their male counterparts. The question posed is whether or not the mothers were nurturing, the answer was not easy to come by since all three women were very different. While there were some mothers who were nurturing to an extent, all of these women had their flaws and dysfunctions which led to them to not be considered nurturers.

Morrison's Beloved offers a non-linear perspective and a reshaping of the discourse of slavery. The identities of the characters in Beloved are recreated through dealing with and facing their past. Morrison not only reexamines and modifies the history of slavery; she also acknowledges the female African American identities in the cultural and societal contexts that were dominated by the white race. Morrison has said, "if we don't keep in touch with the ancestor . . . we are, in fact, lost" (Rushdy, 567). In order to keep in touch with the ancestor, Morrison adds, that it is essential to reconstruct memory: "Memory (the deliberate act of remembering) is a form of willed creation. It is not an effort to find out the way it really was-that is research. The point is to dwell on the way it appeared and why it appeared in that particular way" (Rushdy, 567). The concern of appearance and philosophy of conveyance is fractionally part of her project, stating we must, "bear witness and identify that which is useful from the past and that which ought to be discarded" (Rushdy, 567). Morrison uses one tragic and traumatic event, in this case infanticide, to set the story into a tone and context that is easily relatable and understood. As a result, the reader

When a woman becomes a mother she takes on the expected responsibility of bonding with her child. In The Flats the "mama" is the women who "raises" the child, usually for life (Stack, 1974, p.48). The "mama" may raise the child and the natural