Of These Nights Are Forced Outside To The Porch By Natasha Trethewey

In the 1950’s-80’s racism was more prevalent during this time than it is today. In Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” these racial prejudices are experienced by Twyla and Roberta along with class issues at the time. Twyla and Roberta were both put into an orphanage whenever their mothers were not able to care for them because of personal reasons. One girl was black and the other white, but it was not mentioned who was what race. Twyla’s mother danced all night and Roberta’s mother was ill. These factors played a huge role on both girls thoughts and actions. Race and class issues reflect the prejudice experienced by Twyla and Roberta in Toni Morrison’s short story,“Recitatif” which shapes their life views.

Smith-Yackel’s essay illustrates the grieving process while on a phone call with the Social Security Office to collect potential benefits from her mother's passing. While placed on hold, she reflects the life her mother had lived. During this period of reflection, this is when Smith-Yackel exemplifies the use of imagery within a narrative. She creates vivid images about the hardships her mother once faced. For instance, when her mother and father first got married, they began farming. Farming created a wide variety of new tasks, “She carried water nearly a quarter of a mile from the well to fill her wash boilers in order to do her laundry on a scrub board” (Smith-Yackel 115). Her mother had to not only become physically fit but mentally fit in order to take on the challenges their farm created. Her mother was relentless in making sure her children were well taken care of. In another section of the narrative, imagery is used once again to show the sacrifices her mother made. Smith-Yackel states, “In the winter, she sewed night after night, endlessly, begging cast-off clothing from relatives, ripping apart coats, dresses, blouses, and trousers to remake them to fit her four daughters son” (Smith-Yackel 116). On top of all the other chores their mother did during the day, she also worked through the night to ensure her family’s comfort. Also, another rhetorical strategy within

In the short story “Marigolds”, the author, Eugenia Collier, uses several key events throughout the short story to represent the unseen cage that the main character, Lizabeth, is trapped in, and ultimately breaks. The story is set in a shanty town, likely taking place during the Great Depression. Throughout the story, Lizabeth goes through a difficult stage in life, a stage in which she is in conflict about whether she wants to be a carefree, innocent child, or an educated, compassionate adult. The climax of the story, when Lizabeth tears and rips up Miss Lottie’s marigolds, is such an emotional moment for Lizabeth that she finally completes her transition to adulthood, understands her endless cycle of poverty, and breaks the final bar of the cage.

This speaks on a very deep level, in regards to the genuine warmth the author implied toward the mother in his piece. There is a subliminal truth of sentimental “value”, because the reality of this world is that all material wealth can be lost in a moment, but real wealth is not some slice of pie one luckily stumbles upon in the world, real wealth is first found in the human being, and the human becomes the reflective producer of these

In her book, she writes short poems about issues she’s witnessed and been a part of throughout her life. Her constant experience with being humiliated in public, looked down upon, just because she’s considered different in society. All because she’s an African American woman. Just like the thousands of immigrants from Australia. They will be frowned upon because they’re outsiders of America, and do not belong.

Trethewey’s parents divorced when she was six years old. She spent the schoolyear with her mother in Atlanta, Georgia. During the summers, she split her time with her mother and father, who lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. While with her father, in a time where segregation was still acceptable, she could often pass for white and was treated differently than when she was with her mother. Growing up, she came to love literature and eventually attended the University old, her mother died. She was murdered by her second husband, then her ex-husband. Trethewey then turned to writing to deal with her

Natasha Trethewey is the southern born daughter of an African American mother and white father at a time when such relations were illegal. Her parents were married in Canada and lived for a time in California, but the pull of the south brought them home. Yet, racism reared its ugly head and the couple divorced, but not before molding a daughter who would later go on to be named Poet Laureate of the United States. Today, Trethewey is a professor of creative writing at Emory University. Her poetry collection Native Guard which speaks of the history of life in the south won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 2007 and is indeed a powerful collection.

Tunc also notes that traces of racism can still be found in Southern literature. Even though civil rights were being encouraged, some individuals still held onto their Old Southern beliefs. Examples of these traits can be found in the works of Southern authors. In Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat”, Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”, and Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby”, the authors use racism as a defining point in their short stories. Each of the authors draw attention to the separation and the lingering hostility between the African American and Caucasian communities.

Natasha Trethewey, born on April 26th 1966 in Gulfport Mississippi now at the age of fifty-one, is known to be a very influential American poet. This American poet discovered her love for poetry through the events and griefs she experienced throughout her life which involved race and divorce. As a young girl, Natasha Trethewey spent most of her life living in Georgia with her mother Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough. With her parents divorced at the age of six, Natasha rarely got to see her father Eric Trethewey who lived in New Orleans Louisiana. Not only did she have to battle her feelings with the thoughts of her parents divorce, but her mixed race was also a developing problem. With her mother, it was very hard for Natasha to pass

Early reviewers of Nella Larsen’s Passing focused on Clare as the protagonist. Readers reacted to her passing as white and her innate desire to return to her roots and the problems that came with it. Contemporary critics such as Mary Mabel Yeoman focus on Irene as the protagonist and her racial passing. They see her as a character that is living and behaving in an anti-black way. The change in opinion is because our society’s view of race has evolved over time, but this alone does not explain the shift. It is the desire to draw a conclusion and figure out who was passing. “Passing” is a well written haunting psychological tale which describes the internal and external battles faced by both Irene and Clare in their struggle to promote and protect their race and survive in society at large. In this novella, Larsen uses Irene Kendry -a black woman who passes through society’s color lines as white- as the lens to show the childhood, adulthood, death (or change) of her characters. Larson dedicates the book to two beloved white friends shows them and other readers the circumstances of life that are presented to women who are Negro but able to pass as white. This may point to her motivation for writing her story as an explanation to all of what it is like to live in both worlds (Gillespie).

Within this perpetual chaos Maggie is born. Only the end of the short story indicates this event made an indention of some sort. However, it takes death to give any value to her life. The idea that Maggie’s life is of any value is arguable, but might be seen in what is, in all probability, one of Mary’s last sober recollections. Nevertheless, this scene could be wrought solely for the sake of attention. The tiny “pair of faded baby shoes held in the hollow of [Mary’s] hand” come alongside Mary’s one coherent memory harkened by “the inevitable sunshine” that “came streaming in at the window and shed a ghastly cheerfulness upon the faded hues of the room” (81).

It is unsurprising that these works share many features, based on a strict ethos that places the narratives of black women as written, revealed, and imagined by black women authors. Themes, language use, and structure, inter alia, are common in these novels; it is hard to find one more important than another. Nevertheless, these seem to be connected by a common structural form: the

Earlier in the story, Mary’s mother dies and the event leaves her and her father devastated. The scene of Mary Barton’s death is compared with the scene of Harry Carson’s death to show that even if it may appear that the upper class lives without any worries, fears, and feelings of sadness and despair, they like the poor go through times of trial and hardships. Mr. Barton “went mechanically and sat down on the first chair” and “sat on, like a stock or a stone, so rigid, so still” (21) As with Davenport, Gaskell likens Mr. Barton to a mechanical machine and compares him to a rock to place emphasis on his emotions that have hardened due to grief. Sophy has a similar reaction to Mr. Barton when she hears of the death of her brother. Gaskell writes that “Sophy went mechanically to the dining-room door” (206). The mechanical way in which Sophy is described captures her in a moment where she is devoid of feeling because she is unable to fully process the death of her brother. The repeated use of the word “mechanical” places emphasis on the quiet stillness present in both scenes, as well as the absence of life. Mary’s “shriller sobs and terrified cries” (22) mirror Mrs. Carson’s “hysterical cries” (209) that inspire sympathy in the reader when earlier in the story the reader is made to see her as being aloof and indifferent towards the suffering of the poor because while she happily left the store with a handful of groceries, John Barton could only watch on as his son died of

Sula is a black woman, live in the “bottom” for many years, and personal experience the pressure of society. Sula’s mother has many different relationships with different men, same as Sula, so the town people do not like her and deliberately distant her in many cases (Morrison, Chapter 1922). Sula’s personality and the characteristic are strongly affecting by her family members. Little Sula saw her mother’s affairs, so she learning from her mother. Her understanding of love is different and premature than other people, different than the society.

First off, since the narrator is a female she is looked upon as someone who does jobs inside of the house just like her mother. Instead she is often outside doing jobs with her father. This quotation shows how she describes her mother; “She looked out of place, with her bare lumpy legs, not touched by the sun, her apron still on and damp across