Racism InDry September, By William Faulkner

     William Faulkner is one of America's most talked about writers and his work should be included in any literary canon for several reasons. After reading a few of his short stories, it becomes clear that Faulkner's works have uniqueness to them. One of the qualities that make William Faulkner's writings different is his close connection with the South. Gwendolyn Charbnier states, 'Besides the sociological factors that influence Faulkner's work, biographical factors are of great importance…'; (20). Faulkner's magnificent imagination led him to create a fictional Mississippi county named Yoknapatawpha, which includes every detail from square mileage of the county to the break down of

In The Ethics of Living Jim Crow by Richard Wright, various stylistic devices and rhetorical strategies are used such as symbolism, and colloquial language. The use of Wright’s symbolism of the “green growing things” establishes how African-Americans were disadvantaged in their upcoming. In this, the white boys which lived beyond the tracks were able to hide “behind trees, hedges, and the sloping embankments of their lawns.” The symbolism of these green things, displays how white people had an upper advantage in society, having luxurious lives to hide behind. Meanwhile, Wright remarked “I didn't have any trees or hedges to hide behind” displaying how African Americans were not protected, leaving them easily discriminated against and futile against attack. In this, Wright remarks that the green things “grew into an overarching symbol of fear.” Furthermore, the use of colloquial language by white people displayed how they had the freedom to say what they pleased, whereas Wright had to talk formally to white people using phrases such as “Yes, sir", and“No, sir, Mr. Pease.” Additionally, Wright had to question every word he said, in an attempt to not to offend a white man, describing how “To have said: "Thank you!" would have made the white man think that you thought you were receiving from him a personal service. For such an act I have seen Negroes take a blow in the mouth.” Together, these stylistic choices affect the tone and meaning of the work as they display the unjust

Racism is an issue that blacks face, and have faced throughout history directly and indirectly. Ralph Ellison has done a great job in demonstrating the effects of racism on individual identity through a black narrator. Throughout the story, Ellison provides several examples of what the narrator faced in trying to make his-self visible and acceptable in the white culture. Ellison engages the reader so deeply in the occurrences through the narrator’s agony, confusion, and ambiguity. In order to understand the narrators plight, and to see things through his eyes, it is important to understand that main characters of the story which contributes to his plight as well as the era in which the story takes place.

Phillis Wheatley is a black, African slave, female poet, and then Christian American (Acton/ American Literature). The life of Phillis is attractive, some painful and some pleasant (poetry foundation). At that time, black skin people cannot be educated while she was American Christian and educated. Wheatley was a model of all black skin people or those were persecuted (Acton/ American Literature). She is the owner of the first published poems book in the colonies at 1773 after brought her from Africa to America; by that Wheatley was the first slave and third American woman do that (Biography). Indeed, Phillis is not her real name, but it is the ship's name which carried her to Boston; she used it until she died. Wheatley did not only change

Faulkner grew up in Mississippi in the beginning of the twentieth century ('William Faulkner'; 699). He was the son to Murray C. and Maud Butler Faulkner (Hoffman 13). Growing up in the South in the early 1900's meant being exposed to harsh racism. He watched the blacks endure unbelievable amounts of cruelty and was amazed at how the blacks conducted themselves with such dignity. He witnessed, first hand, what discrimination is and could not comprehend why this goes on. In many of Faulkner's works I found that he portrayed blacks as quite,easy-going, well-tempered people. He attempted to show them as heroes. It is my belief that Faulkner writes about the south because that is the subject that has affected his life most.

Institutionalized racism remains as one of the dominate ways in which one race stays in control over other races, in “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison its illustrated socially, also economically in African Americans but it’s displayed through the men. In other words, the history of battling to survive and overcome institutionalized racism is the same as the battle of slavery the protagonist and is family are giving the tools to survive before the patriarch of the family dies. These two issues of social and economic are just two ways in which the elite whites kept African Americans in servitude and bondage of the mind, having them to think they couldn’t achieve greatness in life except for what was allowed by the dominate race. The narration within “Battle Royal” depicts a struggle that is passed down from one generation to the next until an elder in the family leaves a plan of survival.

Hurston’s words express the presence of racism even after the time of slavery had passed. She shows that the feeling of whites being superior to blacks still existed through the minds of white people. She even showed, through Mrs. Turner, that people with both white and black backgrounds chose to consider themselves white in order to feel superior. Mrs. Turner even sought out Janie as similar to her, because she was “fair skinned”. Here, Hurston stresses discrimination as a major part of the human condition. She shows, that over time, discrimination will never cease as long as the history between ethnicities exist. Her belief is related to God, seeing all human beings are equal before God, a belief that is occasionally overlooked. All human

Authors of fiction often write about the human condition as a way to connect with a broad range of readers. Unlike factual textbooks, fiction gives characters feeling and emotion, allowing us to see the story behind the basic details. In many cases, readers gain a new perspective on a period of time by examining a fiction novel. In Kindred, by Octavia Butler, the near death experiences of Rufus Weylin transports a 20th century African American woman named Dana to the ante bellum South to experience exactly what it’s like to be a slave. Through her day-to-day life on the Weylin plantation, the reader begins to understand just how complex slavery is and how it affects both the slaves and the plantation owners; thus, giving new

and learn to grow up the right way in a racial environment. Faulkner's setting is one of

Hughes’s descriptive writing prompts the reader to visualize strong images of oppression in America. The speaker provides an image of an extremely suppressed group of people in the statement: “I am the red man driven from the land” (Hughes 21). This simple phrase creates a picture of the Native Americans being driven from their lands and forced to live on undesirable land, and, as a result, this invites the reader to acknowledge their severe oppression. Similarly, the speaker mentions the people who were “torn from Black Africa’s strand” (Hughes 50). This generates an image of boats packed with a depressing amount of broken people, waiting to be sold into slavery. These visual examples portray the severity of the situation that many Americans found themselves in. These

Richard Wright and William Faulkner both examine the psychologies of excluded members of society. While in Native Son, Wright studies someone oppressed and downtrodden beneath society, Faulkner looks at a family of outsiders cast far away from a common community in As I Lay Dying. For both, a central question becomes the function of their characters’ minds in relation to one another, and to reality. Through different approaches, both Wright and Faulkner conduct modernist explorations of the social outcast’s interiority. To accomplish this, each author’s narrative voice traverses the gradient from realism to experimental fragmentation, Wright constructing a vertical consciousness, articulate and omniscient regarding Bigger’s psychological

In William Faulkner’s novel, Intruder in the Dust, racism at the beginning of the civil rights movement is a key theme. During this time period in the South, people were expected to behave a certain way towards those whose skin was different form their own. However, in this novel, William Faulkner defies the norm by creating friendships between those of opposing races. The friendships between Charles Mallison and Lucas Beauchamp, Miss Eunice Habersham and Molly Beauchamp, and Charles Mallison and Aleck Sander were not predictable for this time period, but regardless of their race, they each shared respect and a strong bond between one another.

Oxford provided Faulkner with intimate access to the rich character of the rural south which was conscious of its past and separated from the urban-industrial mainstream that Faulkner found very distracting. He wanted to accurately portray life in the south and he “could not have done otherwise than to include Blacks among the people who inhabit the lands of his novels”(Glissant, pp. 56). Faulkner did not pretend to understand the suffering and complexity of the lives of the black community but, because he grew up witnessing their struggle he was able to represent them in an honest and sometimes brutal fashion. He spent his whole life in the south and, “Blacks lived there … They were servants in the Falkner family or perhaps workers for the railroad company founded by his great grand-father. They were surely mule drivers or farm laborers …”(Urgo and Abadie, pp. 137). It is difficult to say whether or not Faulkner felt sympathy for these people but it is clear through Faulkner’s writing that he believed their story needed to be told.

It is seemingly impossible to separate the past from the present among characters in southern literature. In this paper I will examine three characters and their romanticized view of their ancestors, as well as their burden. I will be considering Gail Hightower and Joanna Burden in William Faulkner’s Light in August, and Cheyenne Cotterell in Tiya Miles’ The Cherokee Rose: A Novel of Gardens & Ghosts. All three of these characters idealize their ancestors while simultaneously feeling burdened as a result of it.

His novel explores the healing process as well as the digression and push back of those in the South unable to compromise with the loss and renewal of life they had to make. The complex and alternating speakers and stories are laced together disruptive families that carry ties back to one another. The problems of intermarriages between blacks and whites, incest, the individuality being stripped from what people had known reaches peoples limits. Faulkner plays with these important moments, memories, ages and thoughts that prove his beliefs of this broken image of America.