...The new girl: “The New Girl” is a story about a narrator and his friend Allison. They are best friends and both live on Prospect Street. Prospect Street was a white, lower-middle-class neighbourhood. One day a new black family moves into Prospect Street and the story describes the meeting between the narrator, Allison and a new black girl. The story takes place in the USA, on a hot, bright summer day. The narrator is eight years old and Allison is ten years old. They are the only children in the neighbourhood. In their first meeting with the black girl the narrator and Allison are quite different. The friends are riding their bikes, when the narrator sees the new girl in the middle of the road. The new girl is laughing and the narrator is the first one to see her. The narrator smiles at the girl and the girl smiles back. When Allison sees the black girl, she says: “Get out of here, nigger”. The narrator is quite positive in his attitude, and Allison is quite negative. When the narrator sees the way Allison is reacting against the black girl, he is changing his attitude too and says: “Niggers are stupid”. The narrator is happy when he first sees the new girl in Prospect Street, because he then can get a new friend. There are not so many children in the neighbourhood to hang out with. The narrator smiles at the new girl, because children do not naturally have anything against other human beings. Children do not have prejudice against other children. The negative way Allison...
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...Imagery is the Key Throughout the short story “The Blue Bouquet” by Octavio Paz, there are several different types of imagery. The descriptive detail in the story adds a design of what the scene of the village looked like in Paz’s eyes. Without descriptive detail and imagery, the short story would be hard to understand and follow. With the use of visual imagery, auditory imagery, and kinesthetic imagery, showing more detail and visual imagination, throughout the story, helps the reader see and feel exactly what Paz is feeling throughout the story. Visual imagery is one of the factors Paz uses in his short story to help the reader’s visual and imagine what is going on. For example when he says, “Suddenly the moon appeared from behind a black cloud, lighting a white wall..,” (Paz 3), it is making the reader imagine the moon coming out of the clouds, so the little boy could see where he wanted to go. Another example of Paz’s visual imagery would be when the little boy finally turns around and faces the man who is trying to take his eyes. When Paz says “..He was small and fragile. His palm sombrero covered half his face. ..,” (Paz 12), that helps the reader understand and visualize what the old man looked like and who the little boy was up against. As the reader can conclude that without visual imagery in a story, the story is hard to understand and imagine. Without Paz describing the old man, the readers would have never known who the little boy was up against, and without Paz describing...
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...did not do anything to stop this. There were many discriminatory laws in place called the Jim Crow Laws, which basically made it legal for whites to treat blacks with cruelty. In the short story “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison, there are many examples of the cruelties done to blacks by whites. Throughout the story, the white men hurt the protagonist and the other black boys emotionally, psychologically, and physically, and yet the protagonist still feels that blacks should follow the cruel and unjust laws for the good of society. In the beginning of the novel, the white men use a naked stripper to gain control of the protagonist and his group and hurt them psychologically and emotionally. As the African American literature critic Lee states, “ the stripper is a synthetic metaphor of white Mother America, Pocahontas, Martha Washington, the Scarlet Woman—white-fleshed, an object for rape and adoration, a pleasure-object--and yet for this “Nigger” a locus classicus of threat, a taboo, a castration” (Lee 23). This woman is a metaphor for how the government is also controlling the black people’s lives. The stripper is meant as pleasure for men, but for black men, it could mean serious trouble. If black men look at a naked white woman, they could be put in jail, beaten, or even killed in the most extreme cases. The black boys, including the protagonist are psychologically and emotionally distraught. The protagonist “wanted at one and the same time to run from the room, to sink through...
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...Kamal Namou Comp. Lit. 121 Response Paper The short story of A Dark Brown Dog by Stephen Crane has meaning even before the story begins, its creative title brings to mind a dark brown dog who represents a man just being freed from the chains of slavery. The author, Shane Crane, uses his own experiences of owning a dog as a young boy and how the dog reacted to that. This makes symbolism the main literary element used throughout this story. Being written in 1890 the story is a response to the reconstruction era in the Untied States shortly after the time period of slavery was abolished known as Jim Crow. This was a time here in the United States after the civil war when slaves had been emancipated, and equality was supposedly underway. Unfortunately as we all know that was not the case, many blacks were still subjected to slavery in different ways across the country. In the story the dark brown dog takes on the role of a former slave, the symbolism then begins with a rope tied around the poor dog. It shows how yes the slave may now be “free”, but what can he do with that freedom when he has nowhere to live so the dog is forced to walk the long lonely path hoping someone will come and save him. When the dog is explained to be stumbling and awkwardly moving it resembles that of a being not knowing what to make of its newfound freedom without guidance. Then a little boy is introduced showing the new generation of southerners in the United States. When the two meet they...
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...MOMENT BEFORE THE GUN WENT OFF It wasn’t easy to be black during apartheid in South Africa. And though the whites were superior to the blacks, one moment can make your life as white turn from being a good life into a terrible life. ‘The Moment Before the Gun Went Off’ is a short story written by the South African short story writer and novelist, Nadine Gordimer, and it is published in Harper’s in 1991. The main plot in the short story is about a white man, Marais Van der Vyver, who by an accident shoots one of his farm labourers, Lucas, while they are out hunting. Marais and Lucas were driving in a truck on a dirt track; Marais was in the car, and Lucas stood on the back of the truck to look for kudus. Marais had a riffle beside him in the truck, and unfortunately, the gun was loaded. In the same moment as a kudu passed Lucas’ sight, Marais drove over a pothole, and the jolt fired the rifle. The bullet went trough the roof of the truck and straight into the head of Lucas. This became the last moment of Lucas’ life. Marais Van der Vyver is an Afrikaner farmer, leader of the regional party and Commandant of the local security commando. He is in his late thirties and he has three children, Magnus, Helena and Karel, and a wife, Alida. He is the son of Willem Van der Vyver, and he inherited his father’s best farm. Marais takes really good care of the farm, but he is a white man in a community where both withes and blacks are settled, so he has, as many other whites, a high barbed...
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...The short story of A Dark Brown Dog begins even before the first word is read on the page. Its ingenious and creative title brings to mind an image of what the story will be focused on, a dark brown dog who represents a man who has recently be freed from the chains of slavery. Stephen Crane writes a comprehensive description of this little dog and its experience of being taken in by a little boy. The amount of symbolism used throughout this essay is staggering, and is the main literary element used in this piece of work. Written in 1890, this story represents the period of time that came shortly before. The dog, the boy, and the father all act as important symbols in this classic retelling of the reconstruction period know as Jim Crow. Jim Crow was the period of time in the United States after the Civil War. Slaves had been emancipated, and equality was supposedly underway. Unfortunately that was not the truth of what really went on in the United States. Many blacks were either still kept as slaves, or subjugated into a serf like state. The dark brown dog, which the story derives its title from, enters the story and takes on the role of a former slave. He is seen in the beginning as walking down the road, tripping over the long piece of rope tied around his neck. This piece of rope is symbolic of the former slavery which he just became free of. However, it is impossible to do anything with that freedom because now the dog has nowhere to live; the dog is...
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...non-forgettable, haunting, short story about a lottery that takes place in a rural city. The author writes the story to take place in a small city in New England. This is not the typical lottery that first comes to mind. This is not a lottery where a one or more lucky winners are chosen at random to be given a great amount of money, but rather a lottery that is held annually in the city and one individual is selected at random to be killed by the citizens of the village. The tradition of the lottery has been practiced for many years by the people living in the city. The setting of ‘The Lottery’ hides the significance and the purpose of the lottery that actually takes place in the small city. Typically, if a ritual such as “The Lottery” has been part of society for such a great amount of time the habit is hard to break. Even as negative as someone being chosen at random to be killed by the people around them, others seek out that it will happen once per year no matter what. Jackson uses symbolism throughout the short story through objects and names of characters that hold meaning to the lottery. This short story may infer that a theme for the story is that not all traditions are positive and the outcome could literally be life changing. The name of each character in ‘The Lottery’ holds a symbolic meaning within the story. By using symbolic names, Jackson can foreshadow things that will come later on in the story. Jackson uses names in the story to help foreshadow the new...
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...“The Boy Who Painted Christ Black” John Henrik Clarke, moved to Harlem and committed himself to a lifelong pursuit of factual knowledge about the history of his people and creative application of that knowledge. Over the years, Clarke became both a major historian and a man of letters. Although he is probably better known as a historian, his literary accomplishments were also significant. He wrote over two hundred short stories. "The Boy Who Painted Christ Black" is his best known short story. Being a black young fellow, Aaron Crawford was the smartest boy in Muskogee County School for colored children. His teacher always looked upon him as a “star student”. He heard to compliment “one day he might be the president of the United States of America”; but the only problem was, he was not white. He was the brightest of them all, but not one of the best looking as described in the story, “both his nose and his lips seemed a triffle too large for his face…to say he was ugly would be unjust and to say that he was handsome would just be grossly exaggerating.” Among the students of the school, he often startled his teachers with his astonishing talents such as drawing and writing. He’d draw holiday themed pictures around the season’s turn, such as turkeys and pumpkins around Thanksgiving, and flags and little hatchets on George Washington’s birthday. But one day, on his teacher’s birthday, he drew a picture that would make him the most talked about colored boy in Columbus, Georgia...
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...The Whipping Boy Slavery has always been a debated subject especially in the United States. Slavery began in the United States when some African slaves where brought to the North American in 1619. There has been slavery throughout the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1861 a political and military war between the Northern and Southern states began because they had different views of the human rights and the southern states still used blacks as slaves in some areas. This war was called the Civil War. The short story “The Whipping Boy” is about the three slaves Martha, Mikey, and, Tommy, who have lived as slaves during the Civil War. It’s a short story about slavery, freedom and their revenge on Sterling Gage who has tortured the three slaves throughout their lives. The short story is published in 2011 and is written by the author Richard Gibney. The short story shows how harsh and brutal it was to be a slave and how they fight to achieve freedom. It also shows how revengeful the slaves were because they were treated very badly throughout their lives. The short story takes place in the United States in the end of the American Civil War. “It was the day after the boy from the Union had come to the farm to let the slaves know they were freemen” (Page 1 lines 1-2). This is the first quotation in the short story and it already tells us that it takes place in America in the Southern states. The key word “the Union” says that the story takes place in the Southern...
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...Racialism And Ethnicities in “Country Lovers” and “What it’s like to be a Black Girl” Racial background and ethnicities are represented in the short story “Country Lovers” and the poem “What It’s like to be a Black Girl”. Both this short story and this poem have a main character or protagonist black female. Both of these women deal with to some degree of discrimination because of their race. Racism is something that we see, hear, and experience in our everyday lives. It may be something that we do not speak about, just like in the short story “Country Lovers “. The short story entitled “Country Lovers” was written by Nadine Gordimer in 1975” (Clugston, 2010). This short story is about a forbidden love between a young black girl named Thebedi and a young white boy named Paulus Eysendyck; which took place on a South African farm. The main characters Paul us and Thebedi were raised together since they were kids. Paulus was a white boy and Thebedi, a black girl. The two of them played together and spent much of their childhood days with one another. As time passed they begin to grow up and the distances between the two also grow apart. Paulus Eysendyck was the son of the farm owner and Thebedi’s father worked on Mr. Eysendyck’s farm. They both knew they could not be together publicly. Throughout this short story there are many dramatic effects. The first takes place when the narrator talks about Paulus going away to school “This usefully coincides with the age...
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...grandparents, who were restrictive Seventh-day Adventists. Wright moved from school to school, graduating from the ninth grade at the Smith Robertson Junior High School in Jackson as the class valedictorian in June 1925. Wright had published his first short story, "The Voodoo of Hell's Half-Acre," in three parts in the Southern Register in 1924, but no copies survive. His staunchly religious and illiterate grandmother, Margaret Bolden Wilson, kept books out of the house and thought fiction was the work of the devil. Wright kept any aspirations he had to be a writer to himself after his first experience with publication. After grade school Wright attended Lanier High School but dropped out after a few weeks to work; he took a series of odd jobs to save enough money to leave for Memphis, which he did at age seventeen. While in Memphis he worked as a dishwasher and delivery boy and for an optical company. He began to read contemporary American literature as well as commentary by H. L. Mencken, which struck him with particular force. As Wright reveals in his autobiography Black Boy, he borrowed the library card of an Irish co-worker and forged notes to the librarian so he could read: "Dear Madam: Will you please let this nigger boy have some books by H. L. Mencken?" Determined to leave the South...
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..._______________________________________________________________________________________ “Sister, am I son of an American soldier?” (p. 30, line 16). This quotation is a 6-year-old boy, Joe, asking a nun about where he comes from. During World War 2 many soldiers had affairs and slept with the local people when they were on a foreign assignment in for example Germany. One of the consequences of this was that several children were born having soldiers as fathers and a local woman from the given place as mother. The child were in most cases born long after the soldier had left the given town or village. The short story D.P. by Kurt Vonnegut, JR is showing us this problem through a telling about a young black boy named Joe, searching for his identity. The title D.P. stands for “Displaced Person” and this is exactly how Joe feels. At the time the story takes place black people were being discriminated, and especially in Europe. This meant that there were not many black people in Germany. The story shows us an image of a youg black boy, Joe, who was raised by nuns in a small German village. He lives on an orphanage with several other children. He was named Karl Heinz by the nuns but the townspeople dubbed him Joe Louis. He has never seen another black person in his life. He do not know who he is, who his mother is or who his father is. Therefore, when he finds out that there are black people among the American Soldiers passing through town he is determined to find his real father – his identity. He finds out about the soldiers...
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...Everyone follows tradition, whether it's good or bad. Shirley Jacksons short story " The Lottery" shows how a village participates in a horrendous tradition that nobody can't seem to forget. The lottery is an old tradition in where each member of every family must draw a paper to determine who will be stoned to death that year. Jackson is sure to use literary devices throughout the short story to describe the village, the people, and the tradition itself which ends with taking someone's life. One of the literary devices that Jackson uses is foreshadowing. The first example takes place in the second paragraph where it reads, "Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting...
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...Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Men or Children? The gangster is a fictional story written by Colson Whitehead in 2008. It is a short story about African- American teenagers and its setting is in Sag Harbor, in 1985. The story begins with a question, “When did you get out?” The opening question emphasizes the title of the story on a particular notion to the reader. In the fictional story, the gangster, Benji and Reggie are twin brothers of ten months apart. They grew up together inseparably in every aspect. It was common for them to be seen together and when they were not, people always question them on where the other is. High school and puberty brought the difference between them physically. They would be seen away from each other severally, and they even looked different physically with Benji being skinny while Reggie looked chubby. Benji and Reggie are brought up in an upper middle class family, and their parents own a beach house in Sag harbor where they go to during the summers. In the summer of 1985, Benji was 15 years old, and Reggie was 14 years old. During the summer when the whole family left for their beach house, the boys would be left alone for some time when their parents went back to the city to work during the weekdays. Benji and Reggie are described, in the story, as Siamese twins when they were young, describing their inseparable nature. This is clearly brought out by the language used as quoted “Where is the surgeon, who is gifted enough to...
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...The Moment before the gun went off In the short story, the moment before the gun went off, written by Nadine Gordimer, we hear about a white man shooting a black boy by accident. The white man, Marais van der Vyver, describes in his statement, that it was an accident, that his gun went off through the roof, shooting the black man dead. The story tells us about apartheids fall, black mobs burning down buildings and the tireless fight for equal rights, in the cities. Marais van der Vyver has his farm wired with huge fences around, and we’re told they have a 24/7 radio system with the other farmers to be able to scout for the black mobs or other possible treats, to kill the whites as an act of revenge for the black suppression. Marais is trying to express in the press and in his trial case, that he cared for the boy, and took him hunting now and then. But even though he bought a nice coffin for the boy, he knew that the black people and the whites that are fighting for the black’s rights, would tear him apart and use the incident in the papers and their anti-apartheid propaganda. No one will be able to know whether he shot the boy on purpose or by accident, apart from what the white farmer had said. The narrator is telling the story from the view of white people. How terrible things have become for them, after the fight for equal rights really has taken off. She is showing us a picture of whites trying to do everything to be superior, even when the apartheid is falling, the...
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