Peter Abrahams’ “Mine Boy” is a complex exploration of finding one’s identity and manhood. A significant aspect of Abrahams’ novel is the development of the character Xuma throughout the novel. More importantly, Abrahams examines the theme of a quest for self-assertion and manhood. This essay contends that, though oppression, survival, and love are themes portrayed in the novel, the primary theme portrayed within the novel is the examination of Xuma’s journey from innocence to the eventual realization of his manhood and self-assertion. However, though it is not the primary theme it is tenable to argue that racial inequality is a major theme within the novel.
Some critics of the novel may argue that the primary theme of this novel was Xuma’s journey from innocence to the eventual realization of his manhood and self assertion which spans from the very beginning of the novel to the very end. Xuma entered the city in hopes of working in the mines as a mine boy. Ignorant to the ways in which the city works, he found himself lost showing his innocence to the city. Leah took Xuma under her wing in order to teach him the ways in which the city worked. Leah taking Xuma in showed the reader the innocence of Xuma’s mind, because it showed that he did not know what to do. The non-whites were a part of a cutthroat world, so Xuma learned two things: every man for himself and everyone is always running. It is plausible to say that the character Leah was used to help Xuma develop from his
Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.
Frost further points out that the stretch of woods being viewed is very rural. This is made possible by the reference to the location between the woods and frozen lake. In closing the final sentence of the second stanza Frost reiterates the fact that this occurs on “the darkest evening of the year” stating the darkness of the mood.
When I had first started looking at the poems off of the website, I found two that I liked, but I chose this one. The title caught my interest, it made me want to read the poem because it was catchy and short. The title doesn't give too much away but it still tells me enough. If I were too rename it I would just call it “Bike Ride.” The title is always an important part of a poem, when I was reading the list of titles, I didn't actually read some poems because the title didn't intrigue me. This title intrigued me and when I read the poem I could relate to a lot of things in the poem.
The four stories show how black males had different obstacles to overcome in gaining their manhood while living in the racist society during the mid 1900’s. The boys in all
One main theme in the novel is cultural difference. Fitting in for Chan, the protagonist of the story, was extremely difficult due to racial discrimination. His whole family experienced intolerance from the inhabitants of the small-minded town. Chan and his family were settled comfortably
Poetry is a beautiful way to express the subtext within it, using literary devices which enhances the poem 's beauty. Poetry is considered to take distorted ideas and transforms it into beautiful words. Therefore, resulting the harsh truth being displayed in a form of a poem for readers to sink into another point of view. These creators called poets, are a group of people with a wide variety of experiences that an average person does not usually experience. They can create a more unified meaning in their masterpiece, without taking up 300 pages to exhibit their meaning, and still hold different interpretations by different readers. Poets are known to uncover the truth, which could be their experiences or reality based ideas, by beautifying the reality with literary devices to make it more relatable and enjoyable but still hold that very core of the meaning behind the poem. Poetry is a powerful vessel, between creator and reader, to change a person’s outlook of life or one’s surroundings. A poem can change moods, enhances one’s personality, gain a sense of people knowledge and become a bit more sensitive around one 's world. Even if poets are not aware of the power poetry holds, they still do it to convey an experience, a lesson or a journey. All of this relates to 'Love and Roses ' by Tracy Marshall, where the speaker is telling the reader a journey of their blinding love. The abusive relationship exists in the speaker 's life but is distracted by the idea of the
To begin, important theme that runs through the novel is the idea strong female characters like Taylor and Lou Ann. Furthermore, Taylor does not care about a man in her life and tries her best to do everything in her
The Minefield by Diana Thiel starts with a heartbreaking story of a young boy and his friend running between towns ends horribly when they took a short cut to find food. One of the young boys ran off ahead only to accidentally step on a landmine, taking the young boy’s life. The story was being told by a father at dinner to his family, but the father did not seem fazed by the horrific story of his friend. The narrator states throughout the poem, it seems as if the father is still living in the minefield by the anger busts and the bruises he leaves on his family. With the father’s violent outbursts and the way, the author talks about the abuse is both the father and the narrator suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The structure the author used of the poem says a lot about what the author is trying to say. As well as the words themselves. The words and the structure may cause the reader to have mixed feeling about the father throughout the poem, do you feel bad for the father for what he has been through or anger for abusing his family?
“Chris Orr was a good respectful young kid, there was nothing wrong with him except he was a heroin addict” stated Rick Anderson, local pier bowl merchant and longtime San Clemente local. Personally, I remember growing up in San Clemente, CA and waking up each morning and walking out on to my family deck and looking out onto the beach, thinking to myself how lucky my family was for the opportunity to be by the beach. I loved the beach, the feel of the ocean’s spray upon my face, the sand beneath my toes, but it wasn’t until heroin began to directly affect the lives of people around me that I truly began to understand that something darker lingered along the shoreline. For example, Chris was my friend, we grew up together, we played together as kids, and as we got older, we partied together. For a short while Chris even lived at my house. His sweet personality and loving heart made him hard to resist. No matter how much we loved him, he had a problem and he just couldn’t seem to overcome it. Finally, Chris lost his struggle with addiction in 2002. Many people mourned the light that was extinguished on that day, thought of what could have and what should have been done differently to prevent such a tragic death. Since his death, I have lost several friends to heroin use and the numbers are growing in this small beach community. In examining the reasons behind the recent increase heroin use in Orange County, including the impact on the youth, available medical
To mimic men’s actions and lost of civility in times of war and need, William Golding, narrates a story in which all characters are boys, with the intention of taking the reader through the journey made by those who descend to savagery when facing certain conditions. This essay is going to explore and explain the symbolism behind one of the novel’s main characters and how his presence influences other characters’ actions and the way things turn out.
“The narrator’s concerns about “dignity” and “potential” are significant because they announce the search for a culturally sanctioned identity that will dominate the novel until
Alex Kershaw and the Bedford boys is a story from a little town of only 3000 in Bedford Virginia. It 's a small town that never recovered from the Great Depression. Effect of this is most of the young men in Bedford joined the towns armory National Guard unit. Alpha company was one of many company 's threw out Virginia numbering around 7500 guardsmen. In the days to come, it would be decided that the 29th infantry division the "Blue and grey" would land on the Normandy beaches to start the invasion. Alpha company and the boys from Bedford would soon be breaking threw the defenses at "Dog one “Omaha beach.
Masculinity, as developed in the dime novel, has provided a model for modernism by reforming the social world in terms of both literary and art form. This claim holds valid as representations of frontier masculinity with literary modernism’s representations will be reviewed. Within Western literature, gender and queer theory seems to not only reform manhood, but also challenges the tendency to read literary western masculinity as embodying patriarchy, and heteronormativity. Instead, many nineteenth-century writers use the frontier and its assertion of masculinity to protest masculinity by presenting it as performative, rather than being the physical characteristic of the male body.
Poetry is a reduced dialect that communicates complex emotions. To comprehend the numerous implications of a ballad, perusers must analyze its words and expressing from the points of view of beat, sound, pictures, clear importance, and suggested meaning. Perusers then need to sort out reactions to the verse into a consistent, point-by-point clarification. Poetry utilizes structures and traditions to propose differential translation to words, or to summon emotive reactions. Gadgets, for example, sound similarity, similar sounding word usage, likeness in sound and cadence are at times used to accomplish musical or incantatory impacts.
“I, Too” a poem written by Langston Hughes, in a perspective of an African American narrator during the Harlem Renaissance Era. He shared his feelings and thoughts about how he was treated an simply how he felt towards the way black people were being treated by the white people and segregation of race during the 20th century. The poem was written in five different stanzas in a form of free verse, meaning the poem does not rhyme or have a regular meter. The sentences of the poem were shorts but yet the tone was very strong. The poem is titled “I, Too”, the first and the last stanza of the poem ends with the same words. the authors idea is to remind his readers that no matter how different the way that he was being treated or his