Violence In The Underground Railroad And Desert Blood

In the annual household survey, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics earlier this year, it was reported that 84 out of 100 incidents of rape or sexual misconduct were reported by women (FiveThirtyEight). In most cases, when women immigrate to the United States they are either alone or have paid a great deal of money to have a smuggler help them on their journey to reach the US and Mexico border, which means that they are in a situation where they are very vulnerable, which can lead to them getting raped, or even murdered. Throughout the novel “Enrique’s Journey”, Nazario writes about how Enrique witnessed the rape of a seventeen-year-old girl named Wendy while heading to America. She too was immigrating when Chiapas, a gang group, took her. “‘If you scream,’ he says, ‘we cut you to bits.’ Then he rapes her.” (97). Having Nazario write about the gang rape of a young woman immigrating to America has a very powerful effect on the reader because it shows the trauma that thousands of women go through when looking for a better

From infancy onward, parents and teachers have drilled into the young generation that violence should be avoided at all costs. They have preached cooperation, tolerance, and “using one’s words” as tactics to combat difficult situations. Although those lessons are valid, Gerald Jones claims there is an alternative way. In his essay, “Violent Media is Good for Kids,” Jones argues that “creative violence- bonking cartoons, bloody videogames, toy guns-gives children a tool to master their rage” (Jones). In other words, media violence, used correctly, can serve as an alternative method for powering through adolescence. By reading and writing violent stories, children are able to express

Amazing how a little girl can make history and contribute so much to society. Despite the things she went through she stayed strong. She is great influence to all of us. Like Bridges says,“Don’t follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail. When you start a new trail equipped with courage, strength and conviction the only thing that can stop you is

“Beautiful and Cruel” marks the beginning of Esperanza’s “own quiet war” against machismo (Hispanic culture powered by men). She refuses to neither tame herself nor wait for a husband, and this rebellion is reflected in her leaving the “table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate (Cisneros 89).” Cisneros gives Esperanza a self-empowered voice and a desire for personal possessions, thing that she can call her own: Esperanza’s “power is her own (Cisneros 89).” Cisneros discusses two important themes: maintaining one’s own power and challenging the cultural and social expectations one is supposed to fulfill. Esperanza’s mission to create her own identity is manifest by her decision to not “lay (her) neck on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain (Cisneros 88).” Cisneros’ rough language and violent images of self-bondage reveal the contempt with which Esperanza views many of her peers whose only goal is to become a wife. To learn how to guard her power

Freedom Riders exposed the many ways of Southern resistance by the numerous acts of violence committed towards them. Violence was experienced not from civilians, police officers and a mass of Ku Klux Klan members (KKK). The Freedom riders faced bus bombings, being beaten, and near lynching. The Freedom Riders decided to unmask what was happening in the south to showcase the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia in 1946 and Boynton v. Virginia in 1960, which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional.The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. "The Riders' dangerous passage through the bus terminals and jails of the Jim Crow South represented only one part of an extended journey for justice that stretched back to the dawn of American history and beyond" (Arsenault 10). The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sponsored most of the Freedom Rides, but some were also organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The Freedom Rides consisted of dramatic sit-ins against segregated lunch counters, conducted by students and youth throughout the South, and boycotts of retail establishments that maintained segregated facilities, beginning in 1960.The Supreme Court's decision in Boynton supported the right of interstate travelers to disregard local segregation ordinances. Southern local and state police considered the actions of the Freedom Riders to be

To begin, Dede’s ability to support and stay in contact with her sisters without getting too involved with the dangers of the government allow her to stay safe, as well as tell accurate stories from the time of Trujillo’s reign. Through all the struggles her sisters undergo, Dede still supports and cares for them. Even after her sisters are freed from jail, Dede still finds herself in the habit “of staying over the nights before our visits. She said she had to be at Mama’s early the next day anyhow to help with all of the children once we left”

Macaria’s Daughter, by Americo Paredes, is a murderous tale of male dominance and female virtue where there is a sacrifice between an altar of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the marriage bed of two distinct cultures. This story is set in south Texas and surprises the reader with the murder of a beautiful young woman named Marcela. She is found in the bedroom, lying on the floor in a pool of blood, 30 to 40 knife stabs decorate her breasts, while the local men gaze indifferently on her lifeless body. Her husband, Tony, who is at the scene, hands over the knife to the local authorities, the Texan police, who are dressed in tall, spiffy Stetson hats.

McCarthy’s novel, Blood Meridian, is an interesting story about a boy who grows up in the chaos of the world, but unlike most authors, McCarthy, creates a more complete image of humanity. McCarthy includes violence and barbarism as a natural part of who we are as humans. The protagonist, the kid, grew up with a father who was a drunken teacher who did not care for him or teach him how to read or write. The kid was not taken care of, wasn’t shown love, and wasn’t given love; therefore he did not know how to care or what being taken care of was. In the very first pages of the novel, McCarthy constructs a violent image of the kid by stating, “… in him broods already a taste for violence” (McCarthy 3). McCarthy uses this quote as a starting point

During the Freedom Riders’ travels, they encounter plenty of angry mobs willing to kill anyone in support of the rights of African Americans being moved forward. Regardless of race, many Riders have been mercilessly beaten. A recent incident involved Jim Zwerg, originally from Wisconsin, who was sympathetic to the movement. He boarded a bus with a group of Freedom Riders in Nashville and got off in Montgomery. As he was leaving the bus, an angry mob of segregationists attacked him, and beat him to a pulp. This is just one of many examples of the violence that this decidedly non-violent movement faced. Due to the common extreme violence that happens, the media is very engaged in the movement. Reporters often capture pictures of the unsolicited

Violence is shown in this book by having rumbles between the Socs and the Greasers. Rumbles are usually a gathering of both the Socs and the Greasers and would fight to try to prove which group was superior of the other. For example, “While he was prying my fingers loose, Dally knocked him backward, so that all three of us rolled on the ground, gasping, cussing, and punching” (Hinton pg. 144). This shows how quickly violence can escalate during a rumble. In the quote you can see how the violence was at first with two people but then quickly grew and involved other people.

Both works demonize America as a whole, regarding the nation’s violence, oppression, and dark history. The Underground Railroad shows the reader firsthand exactly what slavery in America was like, and the violence associated with it. Whitehead states, “She had seen men hung from trees and left for buzzards and crows. Women carved open to the bones with the cat-o’-nine-tails. Bodies alive and dead roasted on pyres. Feet cut off to prevent escape and hands cut off to stop theft,” (Whitehead 45). This graphic description of the violent horrors of slavery in such a seemingly nonchalant way shows just how violent this aspect of America was. Whitehead goes on to clarify in Ridgeway’s chapter that this particular brand of violence was American in nature, not just violence that could reasonably occur with equal prevalence in other nations. He states about Ridgeway and the other slave catchers, “In another country they would have been criminals, but this was America,” (Whitehead 103). The novel also makes explicit that slavery and racial prejudice against black Americans are not the only shameful aspects of the country’s past; The novel also mentions Trail of Tears and other instances of the white man’s treatment of Native Americans. It is especially significant that, despite occurring before the novel takes place, the forced migration of Native Americans was integral to the view of America portrayed in the Novel. Whitehead remarks, “The trip to Missouri was much more

In this book they tell how women are promised work, then sold into sexual slavery and imprisonment, while authorities turn a blind eye. They tell how these women are beaten, and raped, and drugged if they try to resist the men who have bought them; how many contract AIDS from forced sex work without protection, and die in their twenties; and how returning them

Although prostitution may be one of the world’s oldest professions to this day it is seen as a degrading and disrespectful career especially when regarding female prostitutes. In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the town is very critical and strict about chastity and premarital sex. Maria Alejandrina Cervantes is the town madam which by society’s standards makes her to most marginalized, but ironically she is not brought down by her society’s rules. Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses characterization and irony to demonstrate Maria Alejandrina Cervantes’s contradictory role and to develop the theme of going against society in Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

Violence can be described as a behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. Violence has been around from the beginning and can be seen through history in writing and events that occurred. In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, violence’s jarring effects on societal members are evidenced through various relationships and partnerships, portraying society’s corrupt ideologies and ethics.

Violence is a concept which can be felt more aptly than defined. The word ‘violence’