Ebony: A Fictional Narrative

What exactly is an ideal lifestyle? The answer is different for every person because some people desire more and some desire less. In the short story “Black Girl” by Sembene Ousmane, the reader learns about Diouana’s determination to climb the social hierarchy ladder. As the protagonist, she indulgences in the thought of moving away from her hometown in Africa where she has been working as a maid for the last few years for a rich white family. Her vision of the perfect lifestyle is living in France, where she imagines herself making millions and bathing in fortune. Unfortunately, things don’t always appear as they seem. The story illustrates that when one thinks of their ideal lifestyle they mainly rely on their personal experience which

As I picked him up he twisted in air landing -perfectly balanced - on the ground, holding my arms. He clutched my claws so hard I was finding it hard not to cry. My first instinct was to run, get out before I turned out like my meals. I started to run away hoping to loosen my attackers hands, but he stood firm pulling my arms back.

An urge to run came over him. When he willed himself to move, his limbs stiffened rendering him immobile. Then right before his eyes, a cloaked entity revealed itself. Its predatory crimson eyes glared back at him as it seized him by the neck with its claws piercing his flesh..

However, when the monster appears in the poor family’s house, he is immediately judged as a devil and is thrown out of the cottage. Soon after, many depressing events weighed on the monster’s memory. This caused him to believe that being kind was futile, because instead of gratitude, he received pain and anguish. Therefore his power and will for the destruction of humanity rose and his confidence as a supernatural creature soars. Although lonely and somewhat destructed, he can prove to the world that his will to revenge is just as powerful as the humans’

His eyes drop to the ground, slick with some substance. Blood, he recognizes in cold terror. And—what is that thing? It resembles a human made up of a million limbs, stitched haphazardly together. A spider turned human. It turns to him, eyes narrow and severe (what colour are they? It seems to shift unnaturally in the moonlight, ephemeral).

“I’m going to kill you.” It’s a threat. A threat he will, most likely carry out, but there’s something in his expression that tells me differently. It’s something that doesn’t make sense with his personality. It’s fear. A fear I know all to well. Fear that he’ll be left here to die and no one will care. The same kind of fear I’ve experienced.

I hear a sound behind me. I whirl around, and what I see fills me with a feeling of dread. There's a small, blobish thing, darker than the deepest black in the universe. I take a few steps away from it, but it... crawls? How would you describe that movement? It slides towards me. I turn and begin to run, but the creature is faster than me, and it glides up my back. It settles on top of my head. I shudder as it stretches down, and wraps around my chest.

The reader discovers the dangers inherent in defying the natural order, while the movie audience watches an ugly thing lumbering about the countryside. The film creates an image of the creature as a silent; malevolent being because a thoughtless young scientist creates a powerful object, yet provides no measures for guidance and control. Victor seems unfairly persecuted by the dreadful fiend he created. His initial dreams of benefiting mankind and creating a race, which would be grateful to him, are emphasized, rather than focus on his own disdain for that which he brought to life. In the novel the reader’s sympathy shifts for the monster when he confronts Victor with a demand for reasons for his abandonment and hatred. Even more startling is the being's extraordinary range of ideas, precise vocabulary, and concept of justice and obligations. The articulate figure challenges his maker: both

“I saw-with shut eyes, but acute mental vision-I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the

Then his hands morphed into enormous paws with long, gnarled claws, and his pupils became dark slits. His clothing was gone and he was on all fours, covered in fur. My forehead prickled with cold sweat as I watched him hunker down, ready to pounce. He flashed his razor-sharp fangs in a twisted grin and lunged at me. I held out the wand and gold flickers shot out. Then a burst of sparks sent him flying through the air. He landed on the floor with a thwack and rolled around, wailing like a wounded water buffalo. A rat scurried out of a hole in the floor toward

Plinking into a small, cold pool from the razor tip of a hanging stalactite, the minuscule droplets reverberated through the musty cavern. Through the stillness seeped a moan, more likely felt than heard. Awakening after centuries awaited under cold stone covered in frosty starlight, the great monster stirred, unfurling with life, raising its hideous, stunted head with a yawning, fanged mouth, and inducing a rumble to shake the foundations of the earth. Soon the world would know the wrath and terror of the imprisoned. Human hearts house in them an evil so vile it threatens to upheave the universe: the absolute rejection of everything right and pure, the wholehearted rebellion against a kind Creator. Fell in nature, sinful, human hearts breed

The stitched together, eight foot, creature, is a symbol of evil in many children's nightmares. At the end of the book, the monster shows how he feels about himself. “I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled

The grotesque face made of flesh and stitches looked down upon us. His mask looked as if it was ripped out of the dark ages. With blood dripping steadily the pale white face. He screamed at us with a sound of cruel and destructive intent.

I got dressed and met Ebony out by the car. Once she popped the locks I crawled in and buckled my seat belt. She cranked the car up and turned and looked at me “Look, I’m sorry about what I said earlier,” I looked and her and said “I’m not,” she smacked her lips and peeled tires backing out of her parking spot. Once out in the fresh air I rolled my window down “Why did you just let my window down,” I looked at her and said “Fresh air, duh,” she rolled my window back up and said “It’s hot, I’ll turn the AC on,” I just shook my head. I couldn’t stand the freakin AC. For one it would be on the lowest temperature and by the time we got where we were going my fingers would be numb.

'Black shapes crouched, lay, sat, between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment and despair. . . . They were dying slowly . . . These moribund shapes were free as air-- and nearly as thin.' (34-35)