Summary Of The Conjure Woman

Alice Malsenior Walker, an African American born into poverty, came into this world on February 9, 1944 in Eatonon, Georgia. She was the youngest child of eight children born to Willie Lee and Minnie Tallulah Walkers. Both of her parents were sharecroppers as well as expert story tellers. Things were not easy for the Walkers and Alice often witnessed her mother’s frustration of having the burden to take care of eight children with little means. Even though children of share croppers were usually made to work the fields, Alice’s mother made sure that her kids received an education. Alice was brilliant at writing poetry.

The slave narratives also gave Northerners a glimpse into the life of slave communities: the love between family members, the respect for elders, the bonds between friends. They described an enduring, truly African American culture, which was expressed through music, folktales, and religion. Then, as now, the narratives of ex-slaves provided the world with the closest look at the lives of enslaved African American men, women and children. (in incheiere)

Frances Ellen Walker Harper published a wealth of short stories, poetry, essays, and novels in the middle to late 1800s. She was born into a politically active, free black family, attended her uncle’s school, and became the first female teacher at the Union Seminary. Harper’s unusually comfortable class-status and extensive education allowed her to become a skilled writer on topics that interested her, such as politics, civil rights, feminism, and religion. Harper used her skill and passion to become economically and emotionally independent. In fact, much of her work echoes her identity as a middle class woman of color who supported herself through writing. However, this nature of independence was unusual for a woman in the 1800s, especially a black woman. Though Harper’s portrayal of strong, independent womanhood is a much needed depiction of women, Harper is unqualified to establish expectations for black women in the 1800s.

Myths are one of the most important elements included in the history of not only African-American lives but also the lives of each and every one of us. Myths are inevitable human resources at times when no other idea justifies our being. As Barthes posits, for it is human history which converts reality into speech, and it alone rules the life and the death of mythical language. Ancient or not, mythology can only have an historical foundation, for myth is a type of speech chosen by history: it cannot possibly evolve from the 'nature ' of things. This study looks into the significance of "Myths" and their determining roles as semiological systems in August Wilson 's dramatic twentieth century cycle plays; Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and The Piano Lesson. In these plays, myths take the forms of individuals, rituals and even ancestral objects. It can be observed that each one of these elements performs the most important role in conveying the significance of the African-American psyche and delicately portrays the eminent influence of ancestral backgrounds in shaping the lives of each character. The works of scholars such as Roland Barthes, Henry Gates, as well as many more, have been employed to better grasp this matter.

Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman,” (Western Journal of Black Studies 36.4 [2012]: 325-336), Donald M. Shaffer Jr. argues that Chesnutt’s collection can be considered as a “racial project”. Chesnutt narrates these tales in order to destroy the concept of hierarchy and race in American society. The “race project” can be seen as linkages between the oral act of storytelling and the social status of black people after the Civil War. In addition, Shaffer states “Chesnutt's use of the conjuring tale as a touchstone of imaginative possibility and spiritual perseverance speaks to its cultural potency. Much of what Chesnutt knew of conjuration or "goophering" he gleaned from his childhood recollection having grown up in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Chesnutt (2001) describes the practice in an essay entitled "Superstitions and Folklore of the South. In the essay, he traces the origins of conjuration to Africa, where "it probably grew, in the first place, out of African fetichism" (QTD, Shaffer,

Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended legal Jim Crow, the perpetuation of prejudice, institutional racism, and discrimination towards African Americans continued. The tolling effects of this social paradox on the African American community are manifested within the works of Ann Petry, an African American writer whose short stories reflect her own perspective on the results of discrimination. The short stories, The New Mirror and In Darkness and Confusion conjunctively display the negative psychological consequences linked to racism, such as loss of personal identity, social reflectiveness, insecurity, anxiety/paranoia, weakened family bonds, and violent outbreaks.

What is the difference between superstitions and traditions? «The lottery» by Shirley Jackson provides a good example how superstitions of people from a tiny town affect on those traditions. This story shows dark side of Humanity. Whole community entrusts their life with a small black box. The allegory can confuse you, because the main purpose of the «lottery» is kill one of the citizens for a strange false belief. To my mind, the author tried to explain why new generation sometimes shouldn’t continue the weird and cruel traditions.

White explores the master’s sexual exploitation of their female slaves, and proves this method of oppression to be the defining factor of what sets the female slaves apart from their male counterparts. Citing former slaves White writes, “Christopher Nichols, an escaped slave living in Canada, remembered how his master laid a woman on a bench, threw her clothes over her head, and whipped her. The whipping of a thirteen-year-old Georgia slave girl also had sexual overtones. The girl was put on all fours ‘sometimes her head down, and sometimes up’ and beaten until froth ran from her mouth (33).” The girl’s forced bodily position as well as her total helplessness to stop her master’s torture blatantly reveals the forced sexual trauma many African females endured.

D. Ojo, “Black Magic: Witchcraft, Race, and Resistance in Colonial New England” by Timothy J. McMillan, and “Black Magic, New Orleans Style” by Alison Brouillette. By identifying the popular impression and observation that “belief in magic is almost universal throughout Black Africa,” Ojo is able to bring to attention the fact that in history, through a thought-provoking manner, the origin of black magic and witchcraft within the United States is greatly due to its African heritage. With the widespread belief in the practice of black magic, an occult was born as it made its way to the new world through slavery. As examined by McMillan and Brouillette, “many enslaved Africans brought remnants of their African cultures with them to the New World,” while “the arrival of slaves from the West Indies in New Orleans in the late eighteenth century was the beginning of voodoo in Louisiana.” Both sources rely on the idea that the origin of the practice of black magic is due to the introduction of Africans into American territories. With this being true, the fact remains that black magic was instituted in the U.S with the arrival of slaves establishing it as a historical truth just as much as the practice of

Charles W. Chesnutt, a well-educated mulatto man, lived his life on ‘the color line.’ Chesnutt’s skin was very light and was sometimes mistaken for a white man. Chesnutt chose to identify himself as a black man, but in his works, his characters move back and forth across the color line and struggle with the world they exist in. The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line was published one year before The House Behind the Cedars and included the short story, “A Matter of Principle,” where Chesnutt clearly begins to explore what options are available to a mulatto man and his family, which will later

The essay "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens" by contemporary American novelist Alice Walker is one that, like a flashbulb, burns an afterimage in my mind. It is an essay primarily written to inform the reader about the history of African American women in America and how their vibrant, creative spirit managed to survive in a dismal world filled with many oppressive hardships. This piece can be read, understood, and manage to conjure up many emotions within the hearts and minds of just about any audience that reads it. However, Walker targets African American women in today's society in an effort to make them understand their heritage and appreciate what their mothers and grandmothers endured to

The introductory line of Harriet Jacob’s preface to Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, “Reader, be assured this narrative is no fiction”, is short yet serving (Jacobs 224). Although brief in its nature, this statement manages to encompass two major aspects that characterize African-American literature: audience and truth. In all writing, understanding the target audience and how to arrange an argument or essay to appeal to that specific crowd is paramount. However, it is especially important for African-American authors, who typically need to expose injustices or call for social change in their works. In particular, two African-American authors who understood their audience and how to manipulate that understanding were Charles W. Chesnutt and Marcus Garvey. Although they were born only twenty-nine years apart, Chesnutt and Garvey technically wrote for different time periods. While Chesnutt’s work is associated with “Literature of the Reconstruction”, Garvey was grouped with authors and activists from the Harlem Renaissance (Gates and Smith 580 ). The separation of their literary epochs drove Chesnutt and Garvey to write for contradistinctive audiences that demanded unique written techniques and rhetorical strategies, but that both asked for utmost honesty.

Colleen McElroy uses her poetry to describe her culture and heritage in a very historical manner. McElroy’s poetry is very different from Hughes and Clifton in the sense that she uses so many references to her ancestors culture back in Africa. “My memory floats down a long narrow hall, A calabash of history. Grandpa stood high in Watusi shadows Where effigies of my ancestors are captured in Beatle tunes, And crowns never touch Bantu heads. My past is a slender dancer reflected briefly Like a leopard in fingers of fire. The future Dahomey is a house of 16 doors, the totem of Burundi counts 17 warriors-- In reverse generations. While I cling to one stray Seminole. My thoughts grow thin in the urge to travel beyond Grandma’s tale. Of why cat fur id for kitten britches; Past the wrought iron rail of first stairs In baby white shoes, To Ashanti mysteries and rituals.” The use of African language and the names of tribes paint a geographical image that readers can begin to follow. Heritage is more than following the lineage of a people, the land in which they live is equally as involved. This ethnic and topographical following of these people gives her Clifton’s poetry the breath

Folktales have the power to take us back to the beginnings of peoples’ lives, from their hopes to their defeats. African American folktales originated from people, most of who were long ago were brought to America from Africa to this country against their will. This group of enslaved people was torn from their individual cultures when they were forced to their past, families and their languages and customs behind him with their native land. The black people coming to America entered as slaves, and they were suppressed by white slave holders. They were not permitted to speak their own native tongues. The slave owners enforced that they speak American English but it was forbidden for them to read or write. They were forced to do hard labor

In Charles Chesnutt’s novel, The House Behind the Cedars, there are divides between individuals in the black community based off of skin tone. It reflects on the experience of John Warwick and his sister Rena Walden as they attempt to pass as white. Rena leaves home to come with John Warwick back to his home in South Carolina where he works as a white lawyer and Rena takes on the role of a white woman. But they face the reality that their attempt at passing comes with limited success.