Ethan From The Searchers

“Their perception of the black female as a degraded sexual object is similar to white male perceptions of the black female.” (aint I a women bell hooks 108)

Andrea Smith’s book Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide read passionately about Native American Indians experiences relative to violence and related topics. Part of Smith’s goal is to aid understanding of Native women’s plight and spotlight how treating their sufferings separately was limiting the pain they lived through to this day. Smith pointed out that though other writers have keen interest in bringing native women’s plight mainstream, these writers fell short of taking an intersectional look at how sexual violence, race, and gender connected equally to the Native women’s history. She believed separating these issues was wrong. Smith cited theorist Kimberlee Crenshaw, (Smith 7) a woman of color, for pointing this issue out.

Suicide is a great tragedy which takes many innocent lives everyday. Often times, authors incorporate suicide within their literature because it is such a great tragedy. In the novella Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, an attempted suicide is the tragic ending which leaves two characters crippled. In the novella, Ethan Frome is married to a sickly woman named Zeena. He and her cousin, Mattie Silver, care for Zeena.

The Myth of the Black Rapist, according to Davis’s Rape, Racism, and the Myth of the Black Rapist, “has been methodically conjured up whenever recurrent waves of violence and terror against the Black community have required convincing justifications.” So, a seed would be planted that an African American raped someone in hopes that it would help in their sentencing. It functioned as a form of social control because no one would stand up to support them; even if it was blatantly obvious that this male didn’t rape anyone, no one wanted to go against the “norm.” “The myth of the black rapist of white women is the twin of the myth of the bad black woman-both designed to apologize for and facilitate the continued exploitation of black men and women”

Chris McCandless as depicted in the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and in the movie of the same name by Sean Penn, was not ignorant and he did have common sense. He had every reason to go into the Alaskan wilderness and to say he had no common sense is ridiculous. He was definitely not crazy and his courage and noble ideas should be admired. He was a man that followed his dreams and did something that most of us wish we had the guts to do. What Chris McCandless A.K.A Alexander Supertramp did, was admirable and worthy of respect.

This sexual fear mongering among whites at the time created tension and distrust, as well as violence and mistreatment in some cases. Whites held tightly to their sexual fears, looking down upon and even mistreating other races as a manifestation of their own insecurities and fears of inadequacy. The Anglo Americans in California had at this point established in practice and in their own minds a position of dominance, primarily in regards to sexuality. White women in California were scarce, and sexual violence towards Indian women by white men were common (Hurtado 71). Anglo dominance over other racial groups would only be furthered by the prevalence of prostitution in California.

According to surveys of crime victims, about 70% of white sexual assault victims were attacked by white men and only about 13% by black men. More than half of white victim sexual assault defendants are black, and 37% are white. This shows that black men convicted of raping white women are eight times more likely to be innocent than white men convicted of raping women of their own race. They spend almost four and a half more years in prison before they are exonerated than Caucasian offenders. If convicted, it is harder for African Americans to get their convictions overturned. Misidentification is almost always likely to happen because it is easier for whites to mistake a black person for another black person than it is for them to do their own race. Which basically points out the idea that all black look the same when in reality all they see is color. Misidentification isn’t the only factor for wrongful convictions in sexual assault cases. Another dominant factor is false confessions. False confessions and misidentification go hand and hand the difference is the story can be made up as well as the person in blame. False confessions happened a lot back in the segregation time period. In 1955, Emmett Till was brutally murdered by these white men because a white woman made up a story about him flirting with her in the grocery store. Emmett’s wrongful conviction sentenced

In America, rape has been around since the 1800’s. Rape culture in the U.S. started with white men raping black women during slavery and unfortunately it was allowed. When black women were raped, they wouldn’t consider it a crime because it was the norm. According to the article, “History of the Rape Crisis Movement” written by Gillian Greensite, “White men would get in groups and rape black women.” African American women had no rights and therefore no voice to protest these action until 1866, when a group of African American women finally spoke out about being raped during a memphis riot by a gang of white men. (Sniffen)

Do we make our own fate, or is it predetermined? Do our actions matter, or are we simply following a track? In the book, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, the main character's life is a continuous series of tragic events. Is this his own fault, or has his fate always been set towards pain? In this essay I will be explaining why Ethan's troubles are his own, why his actions caused his fate.

The text notes a quote by Governor Blease stating his belief in how adultery is the most favorite past-time of the African American women and doubts about whether the crime of rape can be committed upon and African American. When such views highly sexualizing and de-humanizing the African Americans were prevalent in white men in power, they preyed on and abused African American women. Such women who came to free their prisoner relatives/husbands were abused and raped for example; the justice system, ran by the same white men, also turned a blind eye to cases of rape and sexual assault upon African Americans. (305)

The over sexualized perceptions of black women began with the inadequate observations and studies done by biased white males. Black women were believed to have exaggerated sex organs and uncontrollable sexuality (58). This stereotype was locked in during slavery while African American women were subject to abuse from

Maya Angelou once said “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible” and this sentiment is apparent in the novel Song of Solomon and the film Searchers directed by John Ford . In both these works of fiction prejudice is an underlying theme to the central plot in the fiction. Throughout the stories it becomes apparent the cause, cost and cure for prejudice taking the form of racism in both these works of fictions. The root of the prejudice in Song of Solomon comes from slavery and the legacy that the generations that follow carry with them.

Women, as Pateman describes in the “Fraternal Social Contract” are seen as “vessels” for men to exercise their “procreative power”(48). However white women, are the only suitable women in which men can continue and preserve the racial bloodline with. This racial structure allows women to gain status over black women and be worth the protection from white men. The blackness of a black women excludes her from this protection and status and she therefore can only be seen in terms of sexual objectivity since she has no value in forwarding the race. Pateman notes that “Nonwhite women were not ‘protected’ so, outside of marriage, white men demanded sexual access, coerced if necessary to black women” (143).

Both Ethan Frome and “To Build a Fire” emphasize humankind’s lack of free will as individuals are affected both physically and mentally by the unyielding cold, unfortunate heredities, and the indifference of fate.

     “Paranoia concerning the protection of white women from sexual assault by black men is a legacy of American slavery that has fequently served as a focus for racist exaggerations about black men”(LaFree 312) Interracial rapes seem to cause the greatest sensation in the news, when the victim is white and the rapist is black. When a black man violates a white women, the news as well as the public