Past Before Us By Romila Thapar

Stephanie Coontz is a teacher, historian, author and a scholar activist. She has also very indulged in the world of public debate on families, this mostly due possible because of her extensive skills to study modern families as well as historical patterns. In her book The Way We Never Were, Coontz presents a historical look at the family and how it has changed over time. Her interest in the subject comes for her need to understand how families functioned in the past and present, and what lead to notion and definition of family nowadays.

In Robert Cormier’s novel, We All Fall Down, is a young-adult thriller that explores the evil side of humanity through a number of corrupt characters. Cormier, to a large extent, accurately depicts manipulative and dishonest behaviour whilst also showing the evil lurking within the prominent characters of Harry Flowers, Buddy Walker and Mickey Stallings who showcase the dark side of humanity. Cormier explores this through Harry Flower’s manipulative actions that result in the suffering of others. Additionally, the constant dishonest behaviour is shown predominantly through the main protagonist of Buddy Walker, who deceives the one he loves. Cormier continues to depict the evil lurking in society through the theme of appearance

During Mr. Rosenberg’s leave we learned different dramatic elements such as script analysis, stasis and intrusion, dramatic conflict, etc. This helps us to understand the different elements so one day when we have to apply the elements we will already be mindful of them. Additionally, we also learned about the beginning of theater dating back to ancient Greece and their different ways of displaying theater.

Individuals should learn to accept themselves for who they are, not what society wants them to accept. As we continue to evolve, we build up our own characters, and they are typically a mix of the ethnicity and culture we inherit from our family, various encounters in our life, distinctive identity and personality we have. Our character and identity is not something that we get easily, it's an intricate process. The story “The Other Family” by Himani Bannerji is based on a mother and a daughter who immigrates to Canada. They belong to a black family, but after the immigration they are living in the dominance of the white society.The school is considered as the hegemony of Canada and teacher is considered as the mainstream, it is a sort of social institution that a hegemony shape but they does not know the awareness of marginalized groups. The mother feels anxious when she sees a drawing of a white family by her daughter. It was the misperceptions of the kid that lead to forget her identity or she was too small to identify it. So to examine about the identity of the marginalized individual the beginning is to focus on the quality of the education. It is necessary for every school system to teach equality and inclusions of every group status so that the marginalized group are not left isolated from the society. Secondly, the fear of the marginalized parents from losing their kids in the mainstream society shows their lack of confidence in their own cultural pride. Since

The poem “Between the World and Me” by Richard Wright reanimates the horrible scene of a racial lynching and forces the reader to endure the victim's pain through the first person’s narrative voice. The poem contains structured lines and visual division into three stanzas. Moreover, there is one more type of division in the poem. The author uses an ellipsis four times throughout the poem. This punctuation mark frames the poem into the timeline, where the historical past of the African American poet becomes the present experience of any human, despite the race. The climax of the poem is presented in the middle of stanza two. The animated moment, which starts from the sentence “the ground gripped my feet”, dramatically shifts the

In Sister of my Heart, a coming-of-age novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, the two main characters, Sudha and Anju, are not aware of the secret that runs within their families. The act of keeping a secret is to purposely keep something hidden. Although telling the truth can help create a stronger and more honest relationship, in some cases, when the secret is revealed, it can have a negative effect. Sudha exemplifies this as the secret she keeps from Anju affects Sudha's life and her relationship with Anju.

Pigsy, Rib of man, Piece of goods, Frail, Scupper are some of the many words that were used to describe over the last millennium, some of the words which are very offensive today. According to dictionary.com, Feminism means the advocacy of women’s right on the basis of the equality of the sexes. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Chopin expressed female oppression and feminism through Edna’s life, her choices and the people in her community. Chopin had many examples of female oppression and feminism in her novel, such as Adele Ratignolle’s life, how women were stereotyped in the society at that time, why women in the 1800s fought for their feminist rights,

In the novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, we see how much of an importance the men in Edna’s life serve as a purpose to her awakening. Chopin is known to write stories about women who are unsatisfied with their lives while living in a life that is dominated by men. Other than Edna, the main men characters are typical men of the late 19th century era. Chopin shows how these three men are diverse from one another. The Creole men are Léonce Pontellier, Edna’s husband, Robert, Edna’s mystery man number one, and Alcee, mystery man number two. Léonce, Edna’s husband, is a businessman who has no time for his family let alone his wife. Alcee comes off as carefree and does not seem to care what society thinks of him. Robert is Edna’s main mystery man who she loves but Robert doesn’t love her back. Throughout the novel, these men make Edna question herself, which lead her to her awakening. These men show how men in the late 19th century behaved. In a male dominated world, women were not allowed to do much except for be good wives and mothers to their families. Edna learned the hard way as to what it meant to be the wife of a Creole man in the Victorian era. Men expected too much of women because appearances meant everything and no man would want to have a wife who is out of line and not well behaved in public. In studying these three men in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, we see how different yet alike these men are to one another.

What is the last really good book you’ve read? If you can’t name that book of the top of your head, I have a great suggestion for you. I Have Lived a Thousand Years, written by Livia Bitton-Jackson, is the story of a Elli Friedmann, a teenage girl, who is suddenly ripped from her daily life and forced to live in a concentration camp. You should read this book because it is fast-paced, it’s told from an unexpected point of view, and it will shed some light on life inside a concentration camp.

In Tony Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” it explores the discovery of ethnic identities. It depicts the life of Macon Milkman Dead, a withdrawn loner who doesn’t feel accepted by others and is disconnected with his family and heritage. With help from others in his community Milkman takes a trip to discover himself and his roots bringing him closer to the true meaning of his purpose. Milkman in turn realizes that flight represents liberation from a life of restrictions, set in an era of racism and separation. Flight may seem as a positive solution to such a life of problems and discrimination, however, holds very negative aspects in family settings. Abandoning your own and severing those mutual bonds plays a significant role in the life of the loved ones left behind. Most are left recovering from their loss, or completely lose hope such as Hagar. Solomon leaving his wife Ryna and children behind was necessary sacrifice he had to make in order to be free. Solomon is never punished or looked down for his decision; in his song it acknowledges his accomplishment as a great achievement. In “Song of Solomon”, the ability of flight symbolizes the escape from oppression while searching for freedom.

To be an ethnic American is a culture all on its own. Hunger of memory by Richard Rodríguez gives an insight into the rarely viewed world. A person that no longer falls into either category of family or American community. Such an individual is stuck between two worlds, in which two different cultures collide yet form a rift through family, language and education.

In his book “Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free,” Hector Tobar recounts the story of 33 miners who spent 69 days trapped more than 2000 feet underground in the Chile’s San Jose mines following the collapse of the mine in 2010. According to Tobar (2015), the disaster began on a day shift around noon when miners working deep inside the mountain excavating minerals started feeling vibrations. A sudden massive explosion then followed and the passageways of the mines filled with dust clouds. Upon settling of the dust, the men discovered that the source of the explosion was a single stone that had broken off from the rest of the mountain and caused a chain reaction leading to

Kate Chopin’s controversial novel, The Awakening, ignited turmoil because of her blatant disregard of the established 19th century perspective of women upholding strictly maternal and matrimonial responsibilities. Edna’s candid exploration of the restrictions on women through her liberal behavior in a conservative Victorian society makes her a literary symbol for feminist ideals. Despite denunciation from other people, Edna chooses individuality over conformity through her veering from traditional obligations. Edna indulges in her love of art, which is considered to conflict with her expected singular devotion to her household. Exploring her sexuality rather than repressing any sexual awareness constructs her feministic mentality.

Majority of African American women get judged on the day to day basis. When scrolling through social media there will be large amounts of individuals who will bully or even belittle a colored female because of the natural kinks of her hair, her sense of fashion, the full shaped curves of her body, and the color of her skin . The poem “Still I Rise” by the well-known poet, Maya Angelou, specifically describes the reasons why she had so much confidence; even if she were to be judged by her appearances and mindset. This poem is about embracing females, but it mainly introduces similar life situations that many African American women have experienced. The symbols and point of view that Angelou specifically added in her poem made her readers realize that there are many meanings to this poem.

She makes an important point when trying to go beyond the female (otherness), by paying careful attention to differences among women themselves, and by putting emphasize on the multiple realties that women faces, and by that trying to uncover universalist interpretations (Parpart and Marchand 1995:6). She reveals the inadequacy of binary categories by showing us how power is defined in binary terms, between the people who have (men) and the people who do not (women). This is a consequence of seeing women as a homogenous group, and contributes to the reinforcement of the binary division between men and women (Mohanty 1991:64). By assuming that women are a already constituted group with the same experiences and interests, gender is looked upon as something that can be applied cross cultures (Mohanty 1991:54), and it also produces an assumption about the “average third world woman” as poor and uneducated, in contrast to the educated, modern Western women (Mohanty 1991:56). Implicit in the binary analytic lies the assumption that the third world woman only can be liberated through western rationality. Mohanty is making an important point when emphasising the need to challenge these objectifications (Udayagiri 1995:163).