Inman’s War Chapter 1 “Destinations” , Summary Essay

On the eve of the narrator and his family 's departure for the United States after twelve years of residence in Paris, the narrator is being chided by his wife and visiting sister about his nightmares. He is worried about his return to the racist United States after such a long absence and what effect it will have on his multiracial family and his career.

About a year later, Robinson’s uncle came to visit. He had served in the first World War. Afterward he had settled in California. When he returned to visit his family in Georgia, they scarcely recognized him, because he was dressed so finely (Mann 57). Once he learned of their troubles, he was immediately convinced that his sister and her children would do better in California. Within a few days, she boarded a train with her five little ones.

Lemann discusses the life of George Hicks; native of Clarksdale who eventually works his way to the upper-middle class society of Chicago. George's childhood was ingrained in Clarksdale's southern style of harsh plantation life. He and his fellow black citizens were harassed and even arrested for fabricated charges. George himself was beleaguered by police officers for no legitimate reason and

The first chapter of Billy Sunday gives us an insight of the early childhood of Billy Sunday. Billy and Ed Sunday departed on a train from Ames, Iowa to go to the Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home’ at Glenwood, because Ms. Sunday, who lost her husband in the war, could not afford to keep her kids at home and take care of them. Ed Sunday was the brother of Billy. On the way to the orphan home, the train stopped in Council Bluffs and they had to take a freight train to rest of the way to the orphan home. In the end, the brakeman showed compassion to the boys by giving them the train ride for free.

At first, my reaction was somewhat neutral, not even panic or shivering. I didn?t know how to feel. I didn?t immediately realize the effects that this major change would have on me. I mean that I cannot believe right away, this happens too fast. I didn?t know how it would feel to live in a completely different country and new house. I didn?t instantly acknowledge the effect that leaving my friends would have on me. I didn?t anticipate the constant emotional frustration of being forced to leave my closest friends. I didn?t know how it would feel to be the new kid in school. I did not even know how to speak and write English at that time. I cannot image that I have to restart everything in my life. And I was too scared to think about the difficulty to fit with all the new things around.

The Glory Field by Walter Dean Myers best conveys the character traits of courage, ambitiousness, and supporting family even when times appear to be distressful. This book takes you through African American history with the excitement and thrill of fiction. It allows you to witness the glory of African American evolution, from a period of slavery to modern day. The reader witnesses courage as African Americans try and fight for freedom and equality in an unforgiving society. African Americans try and defy the society’s perspective of them in an attempt to reach an optimal level of success. They work to divert from their typical expectations, and strive for success even when the possibilities are minimal. They strive to build a better living besides being maids and factory workers, and they attempt to remove every obstacle in their way of success. They desire to go above what is expected of them, so they can achieve at a prodigious level in a segregated society. Even as technology advances, the reader witnesses the character’s sense of community. They always believe that family is crucial to success even in times of distress. If they abandon their community, then they abandon the only people that support them. In this time period, their community was composed of the only people that cared about them. The African American society emulates these traits throughout this book, as the author inserts you into their fight for equity and freedom. The Glory Field takes

“A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty portrays an elderly, southern, African American woman’s endurance through a lengthy journey from her home to Natchez, Mississippi to obtain medicine for her ill grandson. Throughout the journey, the protagonist, Phoenix Jackson, confronts several conflicts. The tale describes the encounters of Phoenix Jackson during her travels using literary devices such as symbolism, conflict, and allusion to detail Jackson’s experiences as she overcomes the physical, psychological, and social obstacles she faces that ultimately emphasize her character.

And then I realized that things wouldn’t be the same. That things were going to change, because in reality, she would be there, and I would be here.

Elijah’s daughter, Luvenia, struggles to get a job and into college in Chicago while her brother Richard travels back to South Carolina. Abby’s grandson, Tommy works with civil rights and protests, and tries to get into college for basketball. The story ends with Malcolm, Richard’s grandson, getting his his cousin Shep, who is struggling with drugs, to the family reunion. In reading this story one could wonder how the transition from slavery to segregation in the United States really occurred. The timeline can be split into three distinct sections, Emancipation, forming segregation, and life post-Civil War, pre-civil rights.

In the beginning chapters of the book, we get a glimpse of the typical home and community of an African American during segregation. Many Africans Americans were too adjusted to the way of living, that they felt

When I first started reading the book I was very excited because the first few pages were very detailed and made me want to read the rest of the book as soon as possible. The only thing I really didn't like was when he flashed back to his time back in his hometown in Minnesota. "Late at night, the town deserted, two or three of us would drive a car around and around the town's lake, talking about the war" (16). I can see why he puts this in the book because it has a lot of relevance to his life in that time. He was a protestor of the war and didn't think that it was right. What O'Brien signifies by flashing back to this time before he was drafted it shows the major conflict in the book, being drafted into a war that he wanted no part in. Other than that I really never lost focus in the book, partly because as his time in Vietnam progressed the action grew and his experiences were growing more and more exciting. "Then the RPG fire resumed. Our own return fire stopped as everyone ducked and sweated. Men were shouting. Running" (152). The whole second half of the book was mostly action packed like that quote. It is pretty hard not to get into a book when there is that kind of action going on.

In his novel, Philadelphia Fire, John Edgar Wideman takes on the task of reimagining the African American male. While this role may seem daunting to some it was a challenge that Wideman accepted. Through various forms of written and spoken language Wideman follows the male narrative of Cudjoe as he tries to understand what happened on the day of the MOVE bombing. Wideman challenges the reader’s idea of a typical novel. He aims to give a new perspective on the African American and does so in a unique and descriptive way. Wideman’s re-representation of the African American male fails in a major way. The violation, objectification, and silencing of the Euro-American women in the novel prevents Wideman from changing the perspective the reader has on African Americans (males specifically).

His first stop is New Orleans. Where he is shocked to the extent that he experiences racism and oppression. He is also comforted by the kindness he is shown by the black community. He then hitchhikes through the south,

Homegoing has been described by Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times as “wildly ambitious” which is an understatement for a novel that attempts to cover three hundred plus years of atrocities against African and African Americans in three hundred page. The novel’s structure includes fourteen vignettes that allow readers to enter each character’s life at a traumatic moment, but fails to develop any one character completely.

In this week's reading of Flight by Sherman Alexie, the reader is transported through time and space within the vehicle of the protagonist Zits' conscious. On a larger scale, Alexie challenges the reader to become uncomfortable with the harsh realities of Native Americans' past, through Zits' experiences in other people's bodies and through Zits' personal journey preceding and during the novel. When the reader first meets Zits, his blunt introduction and heart wrenching background stories elicit emotions of loneliness, sorrow, and discomfort. As Zits has moved between over twenty different foster homes, Alexie creates a bridge between Zits' suffering and "homelessness" and that of Native Americans, supplying an overall metaphor and greater meaning to the novel. However, when Zits travels through the bodies of white FBI agent Hank and a mute Native American boy, Alexie's message of comfort and home fully come to fruition.