Literary Analysis Of White Lies By Natasha Tretheway

“White Lies” by Natasha Trethewey, is a poem in which the speaker is recalling her childhood as a bi-racial girl struggling with her racial identity. Due to the fact she is fair complexioned, this identity crisis is even more taxing on her since she is growing up during a time in which interracial relationships were still illegal in her state. In “White Lies”, the speaker is the poet who uses direct words such as “I” in the first line, “The lies I could tell”, to assert that she is the one relaying her story. Trethewey states she had skin “light-bright, near white” when she was a child and she would lie about being full white in order to fit in with the other white children she encountered. The title “white lies” actually is used with a dual meaning, “white lies” are a type of lie we deem as innocent and small, which are the

The teenage girl is afraid of growing up and experiences low self-esteem. Throughout the poem, the girl feels that she is judged by the world and pressured to exemplify a certain image. For example she states, “My skin has betrayed me,” (line 2) meaning there are many things she feels she cannot achieve because she is not confident with the color of her skin. It expresses how the girl is insecure about her appearance and physical abilities. The poem also gives the image of a young teen girl trying to fit in. She also asks, “how come my knees are always so ashy?”(Line 6) and “why do I have to be the one wearing braces (Lines 28-30).” As a teenager, I really correlate with these lines because I have had the same experiences. This poem depicts how adolescents are neglected, judged, and pressured by

Lies is the most meaningful word in Natasha Trethewey's poem "White Lies" because it helps to develop the character based on the lies she tells. White Lies talks about the author telling lies to everyone in town. She lied to people about where she lived and the clothes she wore to make her feel better about herself. Trethewey did not think the lies were a big deal so she continued to lie about her life.

In this poem, he touches on many themes. One of the main ones being mortality. Essentially, he is asking African-Americans are they willing to die for their rights. In order to encourage them, he declares that their deaths would be noble. There is a theme of warfare, as the race riots were basically a war between blacks versus whites. This contributes to the “us versus them” mentality, which then adds to the disdain amongst the two races. Honor is probably the most important theme, as it runs throughout the other major themes of the poem and is essentially the point of the poem. Even though you have already accepted your faith of dying, die with honor and meaning.

The story portrayed in White Lies by Natasha Trethewey displays the disheartening sense of shame in a young, interracial girl growing up in the post-integration South. Though she is half-black and half-white, the blending of the two races, more than likely, constitutes her ability to pass as a white girl. Because of this, she could adhere to the façade that her family resided uptown with only the finest of clothes, just as the other white families did. She could also allow her white classmates to believe that she was white like they were. However, her complete disregard of her true identity was a punishable offense by her mother, resulting in the speaker’s tongue being met with a bar of soap to “to purify and cleanse” her lying tongue (Trethewey

As a young child growing up in Eatonville, FL. Zora never really had to worry about her race, she was always confident in who she was, that’s was until she turned 13yrs old and moved to Jacksonville, FL for school, she encountered a obstacle she never had before, that obstacle was racism. Five years from now the story I will remember the most is Zora Neale Hurston’s “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” this story is such a stand out and really drew me in because of the conflict regarding race that she faces when reaching her teen years, and the connections from Zora’s life then, until my life on present day.

When we think of the color white we think of purity or innocence, for the child in the poem it was something far more than that. The color white gave her a sense of freedom and hope it was a way for her to be part of the society. The “white lies” were lies that would not help anyone but her. She used it as a scapegoat to get away from her heritage that she didn’t want to accept. In a society where they consider white to be acceptable any bi-racial child would want to forget their other half. Instead of embracing this fact that she is neither black nor white she lies about the fact that she is bi- racial. Natasha Tretheway uses double entente and irony to express the theme of childhood innocence and the struggle to find her identity in America.

Trethewey demonstrates the speaker with a serene and courageous persona. The scene described by the speaker is actually quite disturbing, however the way the speaker conveys it does not portray it that way. As the speaker recalls that night “We tell the story each year”(1,21) the reader becomes more and more intrigued. With the repetition of this line during the first and the last line, the reader assumes that the speaker is telling her story to others. Trethewey relates to speaker in her story because they both are African American and know what it is like to be perceived as inferior. As we can recall from history, hate crimes that occurred during the civil rights era were monstrous and appalling. Horrible acts like lynching, church burning, and anti-black

It is a natural tendency for humans to often hide their true selves. On the inside, they are the person they feel they should be; on the outside, they hide their true selves from society because they fear disapproval and ridicule of others, or society dictates who and what they should be. Audre Lorde believes that poetry, once written, enables a person to grow and change. “It sets the foundation for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before” (Lorde). However, according to the speakers in the poems “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, and “White Lies” by Natasha Trethewey, the speakers are unable to benefit from Lords perception that poetry (once written) will help a person grow and change because

The poem starts off with a courageous young girl who begs her mother to go with the people to march for freedom. The mother, of course, answers no due to the violence that was occurring in the town. Then finally, the girl asks to go to church, her mother without hesitation replies with a confident, “yes.” Little did the mother know that her daughter was killed at the church due to radical forms of racism. Randall brings truth to how heart-wrenching this era was simply due to the outrageous acts of inequality.

This poem is set during the author’s childhood in the 1950’s which means she had dealt with racism and discrimination like many other African Americans during that time. Out of her whole class she was the only one paying attention to her teacher reading poems “It was like soul-kissing, the way the words filled my mouth as Mrs. Purdy read from her desk.” The next day Mrs. Purdy picked out a poem just for her and asked her to read it in front of her all white class. It’s at this moment that the racial tension between the speaker and her class is present. “I stood and opened my mouth to banjo playing darkies, pickaninnies, disses and dats” which are disparaging terms for a black person. That’s when I understood the line "to the all except for me white class". After she finishes reading the poem the class stares at the floor and feels ashamed because now they are the ones receiving the insults. I believe the narrator is finally presented with an opportunity to stand up for herself and she takes full advantage of it. She makes them feel embarrassed and ashamed and at that moment she discovered the power of

Although there are those who think that there are no differences between the blacks and whites, or the rich and the poor; however, in reality there is a grand contrast between the two. For example, the poet in the poem is in the view of the rich, white woman and of how she views the other person in the subway. She felt threatened with the black person because of how he looks. She felt that the man was going to take advantage of her and rob her blind. And yet, she even felt that she takes advantage of him because of her rich

In her poem, “White Lies,” Trethewey’s theme in the story is discrimination and her struggle with her personal identity in America. Being born bi-racial, Trethewey explores racial identity that she experienced during her childhood. She was born in 1966 in Mississippi to a black mother and a white father. At this time, interracial marriages were not legal in Mississippi and were seen as shameful in society. Trethewey was very light skinned and had the desire to be white. The poem delivers the author’s experience with bigotry while living in the South (Bentley). This created an atmosphere of a racist society where the white community was superior over the African Americans. Growing up during this period, Trethewey felt like a lost little girl struggling with trying to find herself. In The Washington Post, Trethewey said, “Poetry showed me that I wasn’t alone” (Trethewey). This meant that writing poetry helped her to realize that she was not alone in this world of judgment, there were others facing the same issues that she was. The tone of her poem was sadness because of the prejudices she faced. To her, poetry was a place that could hold her grief (Bentley). Throughout her poem, “White Lies,” she desired to tell lies about who she was and how she lived. Her childhood was filled with thoughts and hopes of being white instead of being bi-racial. She states, “The lies I could tell, / when I was growing up” (Trethewey l. 1-2). These lines imply that she could easily lie to cover

Nella Larsen explores the complexity of the black female identity through her characterization of Clare Kendry. Initially, readers immediately find it repulsive that Clare chooses to pass as white women for materialistic gain. However, Larsen provides readers a first glimpse of Clare’s childhood as she “[sat] on a ragged blue sofa, sewing pieces of bright red cloth together, while her drunken father… raged threateningly up and down the shabby room” (Larsen 9). Despite the glamor of Clare’s current lifestyle, readers learn that Clare came from a very humble background where she grew up in poverty with her abusive father. Even when Clare is under the care of her white, middle class aunts, Clare was “expected to earn [her] keep by doing all the

    The Novel Passing by Nella Larsen, is about a light skinned African American women named Irene who meets her old childhood friend Clare. Clare is also African American, but she passes as white and Irene believes that it is wrong. Clare’s decisions about her race causes a lot of conflicts with her and Irene throughout the novel. Irene struggles with race throughout the novel because she secretly wants to “pass” as white and that is why she is so critical of Clare. In addition, she dislikes the fact that she feels this sense of loyalty to her race because it makes her do things that she does not want to do. What also causes Irene to struggle so much with race is that because of the time she was living in, you had to be very careful with every movement you made or thing you said if you were African American. Living in a time when someone’s race decides who and what a person could be, causes Irene to struggle with race in so many ways and it starts to take over her life. Irene’s constant struggle with race, causes her to obsess over Clare and it makes her realize that her life is not as perfect at she thought it had been.