The Girl Who Fell From The Sky Analysis

I am white: It’s a fact that I never question. When I look at myself in the mirror, my whiteness is reflected back. Printed on my birth certificate is “Caucasian,” another reaffirmation that I am, indeed, a white person. Being white is an integral part of both my social and biological identities, and never do they contradict one another. In Paulette Jiles’ News in the World, however, biology and identity do not reside in perfect harmony. Johanna Leonberger is a 10 year-old German girl who is kidnapped by a tribe of Native Americans at the age of six. Four years later, she is returned by her captors, but with an entirely different identity. Through Johanna’s relationship with the Captain, the man responsible for

At the start of the book a naïve, young and innocent African American girl lived life almost oblivious to the socially constructed issue of race. She did not see the difference of skin color and believed it was perfectly normal to socialize with whites. As far as she was concerned raced did not exist. This view was quickly altered and changed as the little girl named Essie-Mae Moody grew up fast in a society dominated by racial boundaries involving whites, blacks and a hierarchy of people who had parts of both. Essie’s first encounter with race which initiated her first change, from being oblivious to being confused, occurred early in life. When she was young, she was friends with and often played with white children. This all changed

The daughter of a mixed race marriage, and later a broken household, Natasha Trethewey explores the lives and jobs of working class people in her early works, particularly of the colored in the South. In her second book she researched women of mixed race in the red light district and combined it with her own mixed race experience in the deep south. Her ethnicity has greatly influenced the mindset that she approaches her writing with and is displayed in her writing style.

Accepting where one comes from can affect one’s life in so many different ways. The novel, “the house on mango street” by Sandra Cisneros is composed of how much a negative view of that person's self can affect them in their lives. Coming to terms with where you come from can affect someone's life so much. As you grow up your always wondering to yourself where you stand in life. Esperanzas negative view of herself slowly changes as she begins to focus on her larger community and her place within it. Through this, Cisneros shows that knowing and accepting where one comes from is an important part of growing up and determining one’s identity.

In the poem “Persephone, Falling,” Rita Dove portrays the angst of a protective mother who ultimately fails to guard her most prized possession: her daughter. The poems within Dove’s Mother Love illustrate the often strained relationship between mother and daughter through the mythological tale of Demeter and Persephone. While some interpret the poem as delineation of a specific tragedy, it also embodies the modern mother and daughter relationship that struggles to conform to sexism. Specifically, “Persephone, Falling” delineates the capture of Persephone and questions who should identify as the culprit, exemplifying a warning from a present mother to daughter. Within “Persephone, Falling,” Dove details the struggles of motherhood

What if a person was forced to change their identity and escape from who they truly are inside? In the novel, Caucasia by Danzy Senna a girl named Birdie goes through an identity crisis not knowing where she belongs. Her mother is white and her father is black making her a tan skinned girl while her sister is more similar to her father’s looks. Confused with her race, she is overlooked and not noticed by others, this causes her to become depressed and develops an invisible quality about her. Throughout the book, Birdie feels pressure multiple times to pass as either white or black. Caucasia explores controversial topics of racial passing, invisibility, and identity crisis within the text through the confused and lonely character of Birdie.

Feeling like an outsider can affect the way someone view the world or how they think the world views them. In the essay “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie,” by Junot Diaz, this theme of alienation is apparent as he tells of a teenager who changed where he lived and how he acted in order to fit in. Throughout the essay, girls of different ethnicities are brought back to Yunior’s apartment and react to Yunior’s actions by responding how a typical girl of that ethnical race would respond according to Yunior’s speculation/experience. By changing the arrangement of his room, his actions, and by explaining his interpretation of different ethnical girl’s reactions, Diaz conveys his theme of “otherness.”

In the book Passing, by Nella Larsen, the main characters, Irene and Clare, are light-skinned African Americans living in 1920s Harlem. Because of their light-skin privilege, they can “pass” for white in certain social situations or permanently. The book points out how flawed American society is because race is just used to degrade people so they feel the need to reject their heritage so they can receive more opportunities. Nella Larsen uses vague narration and ambiguous plot lines in her book, Passing, to reflect the misconceptions of race by American society and destroy all the ideas about categorization.

In the novel Quicksand by Nella Larsen the main character Helga struggles to find her racial identity. She is unhappy with who she is no matter where she goes and the story shows the different treatment and conflict that she experiences in daily life. It follows this women as she tries to find herself in life moving from place to place. Helga questions her value in everything she does, work, relationships with men and those in her family. As a bi-racial women one struggles to find happiness and a sense of belonging regardless of where they live.

Throughout her novel Passing, Nella Larsen explores the limits of a monochromatic world and the separation of black and white. Larsen reveals what it means to be black, what it means to be white, and ultimately the struggles one faces should they try to be both. Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, two African-American women in post-World-War-I-America, find themselves on opposite ends of the spectrum despite having started from the same place: the ‘black’ streets of south side Chicago. Clare, passing as white, searches, from the depths of her ‘new life,’ to re-immerse herself in the life she left behind, however despite her desperate efforts, finds her self lost in a grey area. Clare has a vast hole in her identity, which progressively grows as she struggles to find herself culturally, physically and emotionally bouncing back and forth between two races.

Rachel struggles to come to terms with her identity as she grows up. She juggles between her Danish and Black ancestry, but it is difficult for her to fully embrace each side as a result of the way that others perceive her. From the very premise of the novel, Rachel’s mother, Nella, is aware of the fact that Rachel and her siblings will never be accepted for who they are. Nella knows that the world is not a safe place for her mixed children, and as a mother who loves and cares for her children, she does not wish for any harm to come unto them. For this reason, she resorts to taking

She shows here how she doesn’t see race to be a big factor to how she can interact with people, because even though these two different groups see her as different races they don’t affect how she acts around them. With both groups she is herself and is just a social person who doesn’t see race as being a barrier. She feels that if her husband does find out that she is black, it’s not a big deal because even though she would have lost him, she would still have the black community and either way she will be fine.

At such a young age she realizes that she won’t be like the other white girls and boys. This example leads to a far broader dilemma than it would seem. We each are raised in homes with certain beliefs, and any information not consistent with our beliefs is discarded until we are left with a singular chauvinistic view. Additionally, we purposefully separate ourselves from those who hold contrasting views, leading to cultural

Katie wakes up in an unfamiliar room with two men debating whether or not to kill her. Currently she does not know her name and is completely unable to ruminate. To give herself a chance at survival she needs to be tacit and try to remember who she is and how she got where she is. The author April Henry created a novel, The Girl Who Was Supposed To Die, with a perfect title that accumulates and captures the importance of her character’s struggle. The titles importance displays Katie’s possible death, hiding, and potential communication.

Being young and impressionable, Laurel, the protagonist, is often deeply affected by the actions and opinions of others. She is quite introverted and withdrawn, preferring not to venture an opinion amongst the chatter of her troop. Laurel’s troop—girls from the south suburbs of Atlanta— consider white people to be “baby pigeons, real and existing, but rarely seen or thought about” (4). When they hear they’re staying