The Conjure Woman By Charley Chesnutt Analysis

Hillenbrand and the author of the text about Mine’ Okubo explain how perseverance and resilience are essential for surviving difficult times. Throughout both texts, the authors use several methods to develop this central idea.

The American industrialist Henry Ford once said, “ Life is a series of experiences, each of which makes of bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character , and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.” In Laura Hillenbrand’s nonfiction book Unbroken, the fearless Louis Zamperini epitomized Ford’s words when, he survived imprisonment for over 2 years only after his World War II bomber crashed into the middle of the Pacific . Thankfully Louie’s fearlessness helped him return home and share his story with the world.

The famous author Chesnutt presents “The Passing of Grandison” to demonstrate that racism destroys the intelligence of southern white men. He does this to express his conception of the negativity revolved around racism. Chesnutt’s novella “The Sheriffs Children” relates to “The Passing of Grandison” by presenting a southern white man having a mixed child and the lack of education for most racist southern white men. Chesnutt presents racism in “The Sheriffs Children” by exhibiting the quickness of the town to lynch the black man for supposedly murdering a respected white citizen. Chesnutt also presents racism in “The Passing of Grandison” by demonstrating the master's degrading acts towards Grandison by surmising his caliber of education as nonexistent. He utilizes these two examples to emphasize racism clouding the southern white men’s intelligence. Chesnutt also presents sex between slave owners and slaves in both short stories as degrading because of the white slave owners view of slaves as property. Chesnutt demonstrates the shamefulness of raping a slave to reveal primitive forcefulness of sex and lack of respect the southern white men had for African Americans. Chesnutt reveals the hatred it would take for a father to sell his own child. Chesnutt presents these events to reveal a southern white slave owners action as negative because the injustice the African Americans went through. Chesnutt presents all images and examples of racism to reveal the face of adversity for

Many live under the assumption that those who come to the United States want to become Americanized and assimilate to the melting pot our culture has formed into. This is the populations ethnocentric belief, which is the belief that the ways of one’s culture are superior to the ways of a different culture, that wants others to melt into the western ways. In Ann Faidman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Faidman fails to completely remain objective when demonstrating how cross-cultural misunderstandings create issues in the healthcare field, specifically between the Hmong and western cultures that created dire consequences between the Lee’s and their American doctors. Faidman uses her connections with the Hmong and the doctors who cared for them in order to disclose the different views, beliefs and practices the Hmong and Western cultures practiced. With her attempt to be culturally relative to the situation, Faidman discusses the series of events and reasons as to why the Lee’s faced the fate that they did and how it parallels to the ethnocentrism in the health care system.

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,

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,

Writing is really important to make our voices heard and it also can be use as a source to express ourselves, especially if we do not have much freedom to do it orally. Readings such as daily newspapers have really large audiences and it also can be use as the ‘vehicle’ to deliver our thoughts and make sure people hear our opinions or things that we want to deliver. Based on a reading with a title “Broadening Representational Boundaries”, written by Rooks, we can see that the first black women millionaire in America, Madam CJ Walker, also authored numerous articles about her life and her business empire to be issued in various news sources around the country (76-95). Madam CJ Walker is not the only person who wrote her own stories to make her voices heard. There are many other public figures that also writing stories about themselves, such as Booker T. Washington who wrote “Up from slavery” and Du Bois’s who wrote “The Souls of Black Folk.”

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.

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

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

Charles Waddell Chesnutt is an African American writer who writes many novels and short stories about African American superstitions and folklore of the south in The Conjure Woman. The Conjure Woman is a collection of folktales that explore complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War. Chesnutt writes these stories in vernacular forms to represent the oral act of storytelling and express Chesnutt’s black identity and cultural heritage of African American people. Chesnutt's folktales show how whites treat African American people as second class citizens. Chesnutt also uses African American folklore to celebrate his black identity throughout telling these stories. Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman represents African American traditions through telling stories about superstitions and folklore of the south and displays Uncle Julius’s purposes of telling conjure tales.

Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. She had a job as a social worker, teacher, lecturer and she also wrote: “Elethia” which was written on 1981 which means she wrote “Elethia” when she was about 37 year of age. The story Elethia is about the afterlife of Uncle Albert from her view. “Elethia” is a pleasant young girl who works at a restaurant which was owned by the man that had an ancestor who was slave owners of a big plantation in a town. At this restaurant slavery still existed in some ways even after the law was passed, which the commandment ended the slavery, but it still existed in lots of our communities. However, the scatter of slavery was still in the community because of the presence of slave owners who has experience slavery in different ways. The slavery was so essential for them that Uncle Albert was stuffed as a worker and has been made the attraction for the people in the community to view in the restaurant. Even though the restaurant was named after him, the racism and slavery have still been an unchanging fact for American word.

     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