Gender Stereotypes In Quicksand

He suffers a certain paranoia around Antoinette and her 'family', and this paranoia can only be truly revealed using his thoughts. Rochester, as a white male, does not connect with his surroundings, he sees it as alien, and to overcome this infamiliarity, he asserts his power and regains control over his wife. For Antoinette, her first person narrative account of her story is a key way of the reader being able to understand her pains as a lonely Creole woman. Both Wide Sargasso Sea and The FBW’s poems give a strong voice to otherwise marginalized women and transforms them both from original tragic demise into a kind of triumphant heroism.

As a mixed race product of an African American mother and a Caucasian father, Vyry isn’t given much of a chance to establish her identity from the moment she is born. Being the child of an African American woman automatically labels her as the “other” within the society she lives in. At a younger age, Vyry loves to play with her half-sister, and she is still oblivious of the racial separations in existence on the Dutton plantation. Soon enough, Vyry comes to learn what it means to be, not only a girl, but a Negro girl living in a white dominated society; as she finds herself and her half-sister being treated more and more different. In Jubilee, Vyry’s stepmother, who is a Caucasian woman named Salina is the emblem of white, middle class womanhood.

This book is made up of two cycles of poems, each confronting the same subject: the characterization of a black man in white America. In this book, I plan to focus mainly on the first cycle and touch briefly on the second. The first cycle includes four different sections. In section one of cycle one, Eady writes about Susan Smith and Charles Stuart, two murderers who blamed their crimes on nonexistent black attackers. The first poem is called “How I Got Born” (Eady 5), in this poem the fictional young African American man is conjured up. In the upper right-hand corner of the page, Eady writes a note that explains who and what the speaker is: “The speaker is the young black man Susan Smith claimed kidnapped her children” (Eady 5). In the first few lines of the poem he says, “Susan Smith willed me alive/ At the moment/ Her babies sank into the lake” (l. 1-40). So right away he gives us a pretty straightforward explanation for what this poem is about and what this section will be about. In the next few poems, the narrator discusses his “existence” and reason for being created. Eady uses a lot of metaphors, similes and imagery in his poems, and he does a phenomenal job with imagery.

In the passages from Quicksand by Nella Larsen and The Autobiography of an Ex-colored man by James Weldon Johnson, both the narrator in The Autobiography of an Ex-colored man and Helga from Quicksand are leaving a big city on a cruise liner. Helga Crane is of Danish origin and comes to America with her mother and a few years later, Helga is leaving America and heading back to Denmark. The narrator from an Ex-colored man is also leaving New York harbor to rid himself of a murder case that he feels “responsible for the tragic end of a widow.”

In Larsen’s Quicksand, Helga Crane has a white mother and a black father who abandons Helga and her mother. Helga’s mother remarries a white man, and Helga’s struggle for identity and acceptance begins early in life when she struggles to identify fully with white or black communities. Helga states, “Negro society is as complicated and as rigid in its ramifications as the highest

Helga, being half-white and half-black, has an added struggle as a mixed-race woman in the Harlem Renaissance. At a time when the black community is being uplifted, Helga experiences the opposite. Helga is objectified as a female and as a mixed-race woman. The objectification of females treats them as rewards or objects to be obtained and in many cases acquiring this "object' further enhances their positions in society by creating an image of the cultured man. Her uncommon racial background is seen as an ‘exotic’ trait by many males, and even some females. This unfortunately furthers her objectification by others; for example, when Axel Olsen, a famous painter, proposes to Helga in Denmark. He says that with Helga as his wife, he may become “great” or “immortal.” He also adds: “I didn’t want to love you, but I had to,” (Larsen 88) when persuading Helga to accept his offer. By saying that he only wants to marry Helga because he “had to” in order to improve his

This book begins with the life of its author. She starts out as basically a slave child on a farm in Mississippi. She tells of her parent's lives, how they went to the fields at sun up and came back from them at sundown. She describes her abusive cousin, George Lee, and tells of a few traumatic childhood experiences. She goes on describing where her mother and fathers marital

Nella Larsen deals with the crisis of racial identity Helga has throughout Quicksand. She comments on the life of a mulatto woman at a strict black southern school who wants to find herself. Larsen deals Helga as the ‘tragic mulatto’ from the beginning of the novel setting clearly the views of black racial characteristics. The tragic mulatto being a stereotypical idea of someone doomed to limbo between being black and white. Helga exhibits, an inability to conform anywhere long enough to discover whether she is black or white. The main issue of the novel is society’s guidelines viewing things as black or white with no healthy medium. Helga’s sexuality comes into this as she is unable commit to relations feeling things are missing from her

A theme that leads the novel from beginning to end is the overcoming of racism and prejudice. The author herself was a member of the Little Rock Nine, the first group of black students to integrate an all-white high school. She revealed all her personal experiences while attending this school, which included being hit, cursed, threatened, spat on, etc. Despite all these dreadful occurrences, Beals and the rest of the Little Rock Nine, besides one who was killed, remained and fought for social equality, resisting the attempts of many to prevent their attending at this high

During the Harlem Renaissance, many literary works concentrated on celebrating African American heritage. However, many other writers also began concentrating on the darker theme of naturalism. Nella Larsen’s Quicksand illustrates many elements of this movement. These include a biological determinism, where man is conceived of as controlled by his primitive animal instincts and a sociological determinism, whereby the weak are destroyed and the strong survive in a world of struggle and chance. Helga Crane, Larsen’s protagonist in Quicksand, illustrates the elements of both biological and sociological determinism in her inability to suppress her natural animal instinct to flee uncomfortable

In the beginning of the novel, the audience was introduced to the vivid imagery of Sandra at her elementary school, sitting alone while “...the other children, sitting in pairs, giggled and whispered as Sandra rose from the little two-person desk she shared with no one and left without looking at them’’ (Chapter 1). By isolating her based on her different physical attributes and appearance, not only do the rest of the students view this as an acceptable treatment, but they also begin to construct the division from an early age. This caused the continuation of the Afrikaner mentality in terms of White

No two places in the world will ever have the exact same circumstances. Everything impacts one’s actions, from how others act there, what day it is, where you are and even to the weather. In the novel The Book of Negroes, author, Lawrence Hill demonstrates how the setting of an event greatly impacts one’s actions, emotions and even what skills they learn for survival. Hill best demonstrates this through the journey her main character, Aminata Dee, goes on. From her hometown in Bayo, Africa, to a slave vessel, following with life as a slave in St. Helena and Charlestown, and finally ending with her being free in London England.

The characters who were apart of the African community are forced to accept themselves as the “outsiders”, which has been told to them by the upper class white community. Morrison shows how these stereotypes tormented the brains of many, sometimes to the point of losing their minds. The black community was taunted by the white people, and Morrison made the focus of the novel a young group of little girls who are just realizing the horrors of the world.

As I walked out of my nine-story apartment complex, I saw an interesting array of faces. Mixed genders, some male, some female, all very different deep down inside. I study their faces, wondering what it'd be like to walk a day in their shoes. Some people are like open books, you can look at their facial expression and instantly guess what their emotions are, yet others are like locked diaries. You can't tell what they're thinking and you'll probably never know. I shake the thought out of my head as I rummage through my pathetic excuse of a handbag, pulling out my most recent bank statement. Thirty-two cents to my name. How do I live like this? My train of thought is lost as my mind ponders elsewhere. Do you think people can tell I'm a broke

How women are perceived by others, and how women perceive themselves, impacts their leadership roles in the work place. Stereotypes and gender biases are themes women have been dealing with for centuries. How women are perceived by social medial and television have been influencing how they are treated by men, and how they view themselves when it comes to taking a leadership role in their organization. According to Omega Institute (2012), “The rapidly shifting landscape of new media and technology, including reality television and celebrity culture, continue to reinforce gender stereotypes” (p. 1). This leads to men still growing up viewing women as home makers versus bread winner. With more women entering leadership roles in the work place they lack the respect from men due to how these men have grown up to know the typical role of a man and woman. Men tend to feel belittled due to the gender stereotypes seen on television, and this leads to women struggling to succeed as a leader with the lack of support from their male counterparts. Lack of confidence with women in the workplace is also influenced and effected by how women are perceived in social media and television. According to Steele (2005), “Exposure to stereotypic commercials persuade women to avoid leadership roles” (p. 276). As young women grow up seeing the typical gender stereotypes they lack ambitions to break the mold and