Infants Of The Spring By Wallace Thurman

Discuss how your investigation of the generic conventions of poetry has influenced your understanding of at least one poem that you have studied in this unit.

Throughout human existence/history it has become evident that differences are not the barriers to a life in harmony between two independent ethnic groups but rather, it is the inability to recognize universal aspects which pertain to both societies. Hence, a limited knowledge of diverse cultures stimulates misjudgment and rejection and moreover a lack of evident relations among two civilizations as demonstrated in Thomas King's short story, “The Baby in the Airmail Box”. King's story/ work of fiction explores the detachment between two comparable civilizations: a tribe of Natives that receive a White baby in the mail and two Caucasian partners working against multiracial adoption at an Alberta Child Placement agency. “The Baby in the Airmail

The poem “Mothers and Daughters” is written by Pat Mora. Pat Mora is a contemporary award winning writer, who writes for children, youngsters and adults. She was born in El Paso, TX in the year 1942. She attains a title of a Hispanic writer; however, the most of her poems are in English. In her literary work, one can observe the different aspects of the immigrants’ lives such as language issues, family relationships, immigrants’ experiences and cultural differences (1187).

Jonathan Kozol, in the chapter entitled “Other People’s Children, discusses and justifies the kinds of limitations placed on children who must attend poorly funded, educationally inferior school. Kozol argues that children in the inner-city schools are not fit to go to college and that they should be trained in schools for the jobs they will eventually hold, even though these jobs are less prestigious, lowest-level jobs in society. Kozol’s argument is based on the fact that students from the inner-city or rather from the societies that do not have enough job opportunities are not supposed to learn much because their society cannot accommodate most of the courses that are often found in the urban settings. For example, there is a point where Kozol cites one of the businessman’s statement which says, ‘It doesn’t make sense to offer something that most of these urban kids will never use.’ The businessman continues to argue, ‘no one expects these ghetto kids to go to college. Most of them are lucky if they are literate. If we can teach some useful skills, get them to stay in school and graduate, and maybe into jobs, we’re giving them the most that they can hope for’ (Kozol 376). This statement clearly indicate that the society should accept the inequalities and exercise the same inequalities even in education.

Reading the book, The Other Side of the River, by Alex Kotlowitz, the author writes about the relationship between two towns in Michigan, and the death of a young boy named Eric McGinnis. The two towns, Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, are called the “Twin Cities”, but are ironically not related in any way. St. Joseph is 95 percent white, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and is 92 percent black. Throughout the book Kotlowitz questions the residents from both towns and how they are affected by the environment around them. The author also starts with the climax on the first page of the book – the death of Eric, and uses this as an technique to tell the story of the disagreements between the two towns.

Richard Wright, wrote the fictional novel Native Son, using three intellectual forces, which include: Naturalism, Existentialism, and Communism. He uses these forces, along with racist ideology, to shape the life of a young black male, Bigger, living in the ‘Black Belt’ of Chicago in the 1940’s. Wright refers to the ‘Black Belt,’ as a ‘black world’ where violence is directed towards other American Americans, and warns that this violence will be aimed at white people. Bigger, is used to depict the criminal actions that come along with living in racial confinement under the fear of white people during this time.

Addresses the ways in which that once black authors made several attempt at encouraging black people to read once they became aware of their real audience. Identifies Wallace Thurman as a Harlem Renaissance author who was unapologetic in his work and criticized black authors and audiences alike who expected him to modify his content to appease white people. Explores how Wallace Thurman’s intended work of art The Blacker the Berry (1929) unconsciously became propaganda for its references to racial prejudice which made prejudice within the race possible. Explores how Thurman’s satiric work calls attention to the complete futility of the aesthetic movement that was the Harlem Renaissance by critiquing and identifying its flaws and contradictions.

The definition of abuse is when someone uses cruel and violent treatment to negatively affect a person repeatedly. Abuse can come in a variety of ways, such as psychological abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and one of the most common yet overlooked is sexual abuse. In the book A Child Called IT, David Pelzer writes the story of his childhood. A child whose whole life was surrounded by abuse, his mother would beat him and hurt him in such a way that she left him almost dead in several occasions. Sharon olds wrote a series of poems that all seemed to link up together after reading them consecutively. I go back to May 1937 is dealing with changing her existence, Little things is about focusing on enjoying small things,

In the book entitled, There Are No Children written by Alex Kotlowitz, he writes a story about two boys that are of coming of age in Chicago in the housing projects called Henry Horner Homes over a two year time period. In their housing projects, the family faces many hardships and struggles to survive in life due to the influence of gangs, violence, death and poverty that consumes their housing projects. Living in such a bad neighborhood like Henry Horner homes proves the fact that “there are no children here” in the housing projects because the children have seen so much crime, violence and death occur that they have lost their youth and innocence as children and have been forced to become adults. An example of one character that changed dramatically due to the horrible conditions of in the projects was Lafeyette Rivers, one of the two main characters in the novel. The three most important events that impact Lafeyette’s life for the worst were the death of his best friend Craig, when his mother told him that he would be forced to become a young adult, and finally being convicted of a crime he did not commit in the first place. These three major events in his life greatly impact Lafeyette over the two year time period it causes Lafeyette to lose all hope in life and as well to live in constant fear of death and of his housing projects.

In the book There Are No Children Here written by Alex Kotlowitz, Lafeyette is sitting on the living room couch with his mother LaJoe. He is concerned for his mother over the recent loss of her public aid assistance. The children’s father, Paul, who does not live with them, had used their home as his permanent residence. This caused a red flag with the Public Aid Department for LaJoe receiving assistance. After she explains their current situation, along with the reason for loosing public aid, his reply back to his mother is “to put them out, all of them”. In his statement, he is referring to his father and his older sister. His mother does not have the heart to put anyone out on the streets for fear of what the street life will do to them.

“A Child Called “It”” is a riveting autobiography about the early childhood of abuse survivor David Pelzer. His story takes place in the year 1973, where he lived in a California home just outside of the San Francisco Bay area in Daly City. A time is recalled where David had the perfect life, with camping trips, special day trips with Mother, and extravagant holiday meals. Everything seems to be perfect, until one day things get out of control.

Harvey Fierson once said,“never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accepts no one’s definition of your life, but define it yourself.” Throughout life many people struggle to find who they are or the person they want the world to see. One can say this dilemma stems from the human need of belongingness, as demonstrated in Maslow 's hierarchy of needs. “Day of the Butterfly” by Alice Munro depicts this idea through the relationship, that is formed between the main characters Helen and Myra. Helen can be viewed as a dynamic and round character because her personality shifted a lot throughout the story. The reader was also allowed to see her battle with “self” from the beginning to end of the narrative. Myra on the other hand, would be a foil or static character. This is due to the fact that Myra remained constant and she was the reason behind Helen’s actions and thoughts. However for this analysis we will focus solely on Helen and how her character was affected and evolved. She was a very weak-minded, submissive, and scared individual, who later exhibit qualities of bravery. At the end we can see how she began to step into who she was as an individual. Now we will look at how Helen was affected mentally, socially and emotionally.

The novel “The Rites of Spring” is written by a Modris Ekstein is a Latvian author whose family was negatively impacted by the German occupation during the war. This literary work is based on the Ekstein’s claims about modernisms influence in the cause of World War 1. He divides the book into the acts similar to the play in that is the books namesake. Throughout this work, Ekstein argues that the ideology of modernism, which is primarily concerned with “introspection, death, emancipation, primitivism, abstraction, movement, and the creation of myths”; in the modern world, has mixed art and life and made aesthetics more important than previous eras. He further hypothesizes that this progression of Modernism is the cause of the Nazi regime taking hold of leadership in Germany, which resulted in World War 2 led by Adolf Hitler. Eckstein’s understanding of the outcome of the war centers on change that the US society underwent due to the cultural exchange brought on by the war with Germany, which served as the standard for the epitome of modernism. However, despite the influence the US society may have absorbed, Americans still maintain their socialist ideas, preserved their Anglo-American religion, and the ability to not have a consummating ethnocentric view. If war can serve as a medium of cultural exchange, then it is also likely that the ideals of Modernism would soon spread to the Western society via normal interaction outside of war, especially if Modernism is the ultimate

The TED talk, “Seeds of Our Ancestors, Seeds of Life,” by Winona LaDuke was really sad. Thinking about how many types of foods of gone extinct, and that there are companies that keep trying to patent and genetic engineer our food. Food is more than something we just buy, it keeps us living, yet we don’t seem to put much thought into it anymore. The statement about only about 30 different varieties of food giving us our calories makes sense, but I can see why it’s so sad. It’s depressing that species of food are going extinct, we think about animals going extinct, but we don’t often think about our food. I’m curious about all of the types of food that I will never be able to try because they have gone extinct.

With the 1960s came a need for change, as an immense amount of smog and toxic chemicals used in agriculture and industry caused, the blue to fade away from the sky and water in America. Rachel Carson provided the catalyst for this change with her book Silent Spring published in 1962, which revealed the harmful impacts of pesticides on almost all wildlife and human beings. People reading a book wouldn’t be enough, though, for twenty million Americans came together on April 22, 1970, to celebrate the beauty of Earth and raise awareness about increasing concerns for the environment and declining quality of life. (maybe add a sentence about structure and diversity of the movement) Without these key events leading to the Environmental Movement’s diversity and unique structure through the 1970s, American values in politics and way of life would not have been able to change.