The Theme Of Characterism In 'Snakes'

Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, examines a wide range of topics, delving particularly into morality, the black female experience, and friendship. The narrative follows childhood best friends, Nel and Sula, as they navigate life in the Bottom, a black community in Ohio. Although inseparable as children, even undivided after accidentally killing a two-year-old boy, they follow divergent paths as adults. Nel leads a life of conformity; Sula does the opposite. An enigma to all, society tries to make sense of Sula through her birthmark. It is a blank slate onto which people project whichever meaning most suits them. The different ways characters perceive Sula’s birthmark reveals more about the interpreter

“…. because a girl of my age ought to be able to brush her own hair and it was a travesty that my mother hadn’t taught me” (Evans 39). It is often the case that most people develop awareness of their identity when they become involved in diverse social circles, neighborhoods, or schools. In “Snakes”, Danielle Evans carefully chooses the characterization of her characters to give the reader an insight into the racial division that has been pervasive in America. Having never been aware of her biracial identity, Tara confronts the reality of her identity when she leaves her parent’s house to spend the summer with her grandmother. Evans portrays Lydia, Tara’s grandmother, as brutal, bigoted white grandmother to draw parallel between her and white

The story mostly takes place at Jessica’s house and at her school. The main characters in the story are Jessica, Fiona, and Jessica’s parents. Jessica is the main character in this story. There is a problem that Jessica has to face throughout the story and it kind of gets solved near the middle but mostly near the end. Fiona, Jessica’s best friend, tells her that she should be brave and go to school. She helps Jessica get through school and her problems.

“What is racism? Racism is a projection of our own fears onto another person. What is sexism? It’s our own vulnerability of our potency and masculinity projected as our need to subjugate from another person…” Gary Ross’s breakdown of the age-defying constructions of race and sexism exemplify how fabricated standards can take a toll on the well-being of individuals. American novelist Toni Morrison is renowned for her publications illustrating how racial stigma can dent a character physically, mentally and emotionally. “Sweetness”, an excerpt from God Help the Child, one of Morrison’s more recent works, follows the narrative of a guilt-stricken mother who allowed society’s predetermined notions of race interfere with her parenting, as her daughter was undeniably black while she and her husband have negro roots but are lighter skinned or ‘high-yellow’. As the story develops, it is obvious that the narrator, Lula Ann’s mother feels some sort of resentment for mistreating her child and holding her back from experiencing a blissful childhood like other youngsters, but is too shameful to admit it. With time, tables turn and Lula Ann, Lula Mae’s daughter is able to regain her self-esteem, moves away, builds a career, and is preparing to settle down with a family of her own and change her miserable fate given to her by her parents. Morrison successfully translates the destructive effects of prioritizing racial constructs through varied elements including: characterization, point of

Race in the South has always been a major topic within the canon of southern literature ever since John Smith’s discussion of Native Americans in “The Generall Historie of Virginia.” The majority of this ongoing conversation on race has revolved around African Americans, white people, and Native Americans. However, in Bitter in the Mouth, Monique Truong challenges these stereotypical ideas of race in the South, namely assumptions on how race and outside appearance impact cultural identity and personal ties to southerness. Her primary strategy of doing this is the structure of the paper, where she keeps Linda’s race a secret for the first part of the novel before exploring it in-depth during the second half. Within this larger structure, she uses the juxtaposition of place to contrast southern aspects of Linda’s identity with northern culture and highlights stereotypical cultural markers of southerness such as dialect and food within Linda’s identity. With these strategies, Monique Truong uses the unique point of view of Linda Hammerick, who is racially Asian but culturally southern, to challenge the reader's assumptions of how race affects cultural identity and to expand understandings of what makes someone southern in today’s cultural landscape.

It is often said that kids don’t usually understand race or racism, and that is true until Janie is met with kids who have faced oppression all their lives. Janie is a young girl who is raised by her grandmother in the deep South during the 1930’s. Janie lives among many white kids and doesn’t realize that she is not white until she sees a photo of the children and cannot identify herself in the picture. “Dat’s where Ah wuz s’posed to be, but Ah couldn’t recognize dat dark chile as me. So Ah ast, ‘where is me?’ Ah don’t see me’”(9). Janie didn’t know that she was a black girl because she had always been treated the same as the white kids, and they never treated her any differently than anyone else. The only kids that ever abused her with their words were the other black kids at school, they always teased her for living in

The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset,

Alice Walker, a protuberant African American writer from the rural South, understood all too well this idea of “double consciousness”, which she demonstrated in many of her writings. In her short story, “Everyday Use”, Walker makes the African American struggle palpable and brings it into the present by interlacing the double consciousness into characters and settings that investigate the social and personal struggles facing the African American people. In her story, she has three main characters Mama, Dee, and Maggie. Walker incorporates the struggle of being an African American as the centerpiece of her story “Everyday Use.” The author uses Mama, who is unwilling to submit to the expectations of white America and what it must offer. Mama is not in a rush to pick at herself to be accepted into America. The next character Maggie is also not in a rush to grow up and get in line with the rest of society and being a part of the White supremacy that her nation must offer. Finally, Dee, Mama’s oldest is returning from college and does

In this autobiography Anne Moody gives detailed information of how she grew up poor in Centreville, Mississippi, a racist town. Starting from age four throughout her childhood, to high school, on to college and graduation, Anne give us a picture of the good, the bad, and the ugly she had to endure. Anne’s story of family and friendships, poverty, and racism is depicted in an in-depth account of her life. Although Anne had lots of family around, there always seemed to be emotional distance between them.

Emerging from a state of corrupt politicians within an oppressive environment, many will struggle through one`s feelings of fear that can dismantle their self-identities of seeking strength. The violent systematic oppression and patriarchal society that one may face, is challenged through gaining empathy, strength, and purpose. In the critically acclaimed novel, ''Brown Girl In The Ring'', Nalo Hopkinson conveys the economic collapse of Toronto's inner city that is stricken with poverty and ruled by, Rudy Sheldon, who`s commissioned to find a heart and preys on the helpless within the dystopia community. Forced in the oppressive city, a young woman, Ti-Jeanne, navigates through the ancestral pasts magical powers taught by her grandmother

“Racitatif” by Toni Morrison and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, both tackle the subject of race on a microscopic level in the hopes of magnifying the social injustices that tore the united states apart. “Everyday use,” Tackles the subject of race, from the vantage point of a single family and the generations that lay between the mother and daughter. Morrison, in a unique manner, tells the story of two girls, Twyla and Roberta, and their ability to communicate with each other during such racially motivated times; all the while, leaving the reader in the dark about the race of the two girls.

John Steinbeck wrote “The Snake” after witnessing an incident in the Ed Ricketts’s laboratory. If the prologue was not clarified in the introduction, I think I would have not believed “The Snake” was based on true events. The lifestyle of Dr. Phillip is so astonishing and yet hard to believe. In the story, Dr. Phillip was mentioned to “throw off his leather coat and built a fire in the tin stove; he set a kettle of water on the stove and dropped a can of beans into the water. Then he stood staring down at the sack on the floor. He was a slight young man with the mild, preoccupied eyes of one who looks through a microscope a great deal.” Doctor Phillip calmly selects a cat from a cage and kills the animal in the quest of scientific knowledge. Those characteristics that portrayed him isn’t a life of a normal being. The snake that Doctor Phillip owns is described as having “dusty

Pauline was happy and free for the most part of her life, until she finally met Cholly. Pauline started to compare her life with those of white women in the neighborhood. She started to look at pictures of white families and their homes. “White men taking such good care of they women, and they all dressed up in big clean houses with bathtubs right in the same room with the toilet. Them pictures gave me a lot of pleasure, but it made coming home hard, and looking at Cholly hard.” This made Pauline ashamed of what her family is like. As a result, she decided to focus on perfecting another white family’s home. She took up a job as a house nanny in a white family home. Pauline cleaned their house, bathed the children, and cooked the food. All the while, she had forgotten to take care of her own home. She didn’t even care enough to call her own daughters by their names in front of the white girl. Shame led her to hating herself, along with hating her entire

At the core of the story, the main characters are Julian, who is trapped between the white supremacy of his mother and the liberal anti-racist attitude of the modern times, and his mother, who is unyielding in her views. During this time, there was a surge of change of American society with African Americans as a huge social force leading to a truly multicultural society. However, there was constant conflict in the mind of the older generation. Julian’s mother symbolizes this. Her ancestors kept slaves and she hesitated to even travel with them. She speaks about it nostalgically, the times where owning slaves was a sign of superiority, or aristocracy. “Well let’s talk about something pleasant,” she said. “I remember going to Grandpa’s when I was a little girl. Then the house has double stairways that went up to what was really the second floor- all the cooking was done on the first.” (O’Connor, 1979). She was blind to the worlds advancements and changes in racial equality.

     When the snake first came to the water-trough, the narrator was excited and glad "he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water trough." He "felt so honoured" at this visit whilst at the same time, the voices of his "accursed human education" advised him to kill it, for it was a gold snake and therefore venomous.