The Story Of An African-American Narrator

A sentence from someone may mean one thing, but an action can have a million different meanings behind it so which one would you judge a person from? Many people experience fear and are scared to face them, so instead of standing up against it they just decide to be a new person. Their minds are manipulated to not face their anxiety and are frightened about what will happen to them. People think that being fearful of something and to overcome it is a difficult task. People often mistaken their strength to fight their fear and decide to give up. Both stories, “Quicksand” and “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” share the common theme of how they use fear as an excuse to escape to a new world, they become a different person and get rid of

Slavery was abolished after the Civil War, but the Negro race still was not accepted as equals into American society. To attain a better understanding of the events and struggles faced during this period, one must take a look at its' literature. James Weldon Johnson does an excellent job of vividly depicting an accurate portrait of the adversities faced before the Civil Rights Movement by the black community in his novel “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.” One does not only read this book, but instead one takes a journey alongside a burdened mulatto man as he struggles to claim one race as his own.

The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man depicts the narrator as a liminal character. Beginning with an oblivious knowledge of race as a child, and which racial group he belonged, to his well knowing of “white” and “black” and the ability to pass as both. On the account of liminality, the narrator is presenting himself as an outsider. Because he is both a “white” and “black” male, he does not fit in with either racial group. In the autobiography of an Ex-colored man, James Weldon Johnson uses double consciousness to show the narrators stance as a person that gives up his birthright for the “privilege of whiteness”.

The narrator of The Autobiography grows up his whole life thinking that he is white. It is not until one fateful day in school where a teacher indirectly tells him that he is black that he finds out. This revelation, which he himself describes as “a sword-thrust” (Johnson 13), suggests a transformation, a great change, a development in the Ex-Colored Man’s racial consciousness in the future. However, as M. Giulia Fabi says, “[The ECM’s] proclaimed loyalty to his ‘mother’s people’ is continuously undercut by his admiration for and identification with mainstream white America” (375). She also indicates how when contrasted with previous passers, “the Ex-Colored Man’s oft-noted cowardice,

‘The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass’ is an autobiography of Frederick Douglass, the slave who escaped and became one of renowned social reformers of his time. The book is a collection of actual experiences of the author during his time in slavery and experiences of fellow slaves. He describes brilliantly the oppressive conditions into which he was born, lived, as well as his struggles and triumphs. The author meant to make the reader comprehend life of the African Americans in slavery before the ending of slavery. He also meant to highlight the misuse of religion and to use it to control other people whom they deem inferior.

The narrative begins with Douglass being oblivious to the identity of his father. This theme of Frederick Douglass being young and naïve is continued throughout the beginning. The idea of slaves being young and naïve is seen in almost all slave narratives. One of the ways slave owners kept slaves captive is through keeping the slaves ignorant. It is nearly impossible for a slave to escape slavery if they cannot read and write. Slave owners knew how impossible this was so they kept them ignorant, they kept them from learning. Since ignorance is what seems to hold slaves captive, one could easily conclude that knowledge is the key to freedom. Douglass figured this out at a young age. He starts learning from Mrs. Auld but eventually ends up

The narrator of The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man was born to a “colored” mother and white father. This combination of his identity led him to encounter many internal and external challenges. Physically he appeared white, so he experienced being able to “pass” as both “colored” or white whenever he wished. Being able do such a thing, the narrator struggled with racial boundaries. He embodied almost every permutation, intentional or unintentional, of the experience when encountering various racial (white and “colored”) communities, eventually deciding to pass as white at the end of the novel. Due to cowardice, instead of representing his race, he suppressed the African-American part of his identity and destroyed his chances of

The novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man by James Weldon Johnson shows a story of a man with mixed blood of white and coloured. Throughout the story, the man is conflicted with his heritage, sometimes accepting his coloured heritage and at other times rejecting his coloured heritage and passing himself off as a white man. The main character travels all around the United States and Europe while observing how whites and coloureds behave separately and with each other. The nameless man goes through tough times and prosperous times his whole life and comes out with quite a few revelations.

In the book The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass the narrator, Frederick Douglass, tells his story of being born into slavery. Douglass uses his narrative as an argument to convince his readers to be against slavery, and the brutality of it. The details of Douglass’ life are examples of his argument to persuade his audience of being for the abolition of slavery. He shows the relationships between religion and slavery and education and freedom, one having an effect on the other to improve his argument against slavery. The relationships Douglass proves between the two strengthens his argument, accomplishing his purpose for writing his narrative.

Frederick Douglass in his writing Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, American Slave, he acts sometimes as a protagonist and sometimes as a narrator. He was a former slave, and his writing was about that. He made an effort to present the realistic issue of the slavery at that time. As was showed on the writing, he was a person that wanted to help others, especially slaves because he knew how it was. In his writing he narrow his emotion and others who had suffered the same think.

The main idea of my story, “An autobiography of an ex-colored man”, is about a young man who is mixed between African american and White. He doesn't know that he is mixed until his principle ask all the white children to stand in the middle of class and when he proceeded to stand the principal told him to sit because he was Black. After this dreadful day of discovering that he was part African American, the young boy started to view the world a lot different as he aged. The author uses pathos and ethos to really get the main idea across. The author uses pathos by expressing the feelings of the boy as he was discovering how the world treated African Americans.

Yale has a legendary Afro-American Cultural Center as well as a renowned African American studies program and although I do not plan to major in that area of study it is great to know that I can take classes in that program. In addition, the Yale Day of Service seemed like something I would want to be apart of because I like to serve whenever I can. Almost every weekend since the school year has started I have been picking up trash in a park and I would love to continue to serve the community at Yale.

In the James Weldon Johnson’s “Audio biography of an Ex-Colored Man”, Jonhson’s narrator at face first is written to be perceived as a white male, when in fact he is inherently of colored descent in regards to societies principle of the one drop policy. Consequently, the narrator is faced with an identity complex who finds it difficult to understand whether he is black because of societies has categorized him on the account of his bloodline, or white because of his appearance. For in the end of the novel, he makes the conscious decision to pass as white. Yet in erasing the traces of his his negro descent, this questions whether the narrator’s decision violates particular morals in “passing” as white. Or whether the narrator’s decision demonstrates that one must recreate themselves out of necessity to liberate themselves from societies categorization, in order for the individual to obtain their desired concept of happiness. For the notion of recreating oneself through concealing traces of the past to progress towards a future goal is understood in F.Scotts Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”. For lowly Jimmy Gatz is given an opportunity to recreate himself as Jay Gatbsy, yet can only do so through concealing his past identity from society. Yet in effect this enables Gatbsy to progress towards his idealized future. Therefore, this paper will the combine significant similarities between the two novels, to argue how the modes of recreation is an essential concept in progressing

A few months after the Black Panther was arrested, Jonathan was let out of the hospital in a wheelchair. The doctor said that he had to do three months worth of physical therapy before he could go back to his job. As Chad and Jonathan exited the hospital, they start to talk about what to do next. “Well I’m thinking about rejoining the force,” Chad said in a solemn voice. Jonathan was a little shocked by this revelation, but understood why.

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