...legendary disagreement between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. This intellectual debate sparked the interest of the Northerners as well as the racist whites that occupied the south. This debate was simply about how the blacks, who just gained freedom from slavery, should exist in America with the white majority. Even though Washington and DuBois stood on opposite sides of the fence they both agreed on one thing, that it was a time for a change in the treatment of African Americans. Booker T. Washington warned blacks that in order to earn the respect and equality from the white population, we must be prepared to start at the bottom. He meant starting at the bottom in jobs such as elementary teachers instead of college professors and manual laborers instead of CEO’s so we could earn the respect of whites. Washington knew that making strong demands wouldn’t get the black race anywhere, so becoming friends and earning the respect of whites seemed like a better option to him because it seemed to have better results. On the other hand, Washington recognized existing equally with whites wouldn’t be a simple task. Washington was often looked at as an “Uncle Tom” because of the things he did, such as advising blacks to remain in the South and to avoid politics and protest in favor of economic self-help and industrial education. W.E.B. DuBois was more popular among blacks compared to those views of Booker T. Washington. DuBois believed that America should give blacks what they...
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...often receive violent opposition from violent minds” Albert Einstein This quote typifies the conditions in which both Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois were challenged with. Not only were they two exemplary examples of African American greatness, but they proved themselves to be two of the greatest leaders of the early twentieth century regardless of race. However, as Aristotle once said “people fear what they don’t understand, and hate what they can’t conquer” thus steps were taken to dismantle their “movements” at all costs. It was because of this the two were commonly pitted against each other in media outlets to create a rift in their collective following. Not that there was any truth to their “rivalry”, contrarily many times they admitted to seeking the same result for the black race. They were seen as rebels to society because of their hopes to replace the oppressed psyche of our race with one of self-efficacy and prosperity. They perpetuated the notions of equality, diligence, self betterment, unity and accountability to name just a few of the platforms they spoke on which so affected our race during their time. They arguably had the potential to rectify three hundred years of anguish and repression had they been able to follow their directives unimpeded, but now we’ll never know. Although both Washington and Dubois had very similar intentions for the black race, they came from entirely different backgrounds and thus had different views on society. Booker T...
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...of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois United States History 1828 - 1914 Instructor Stewart King Clackamas Community College February 7, 2012 Accommodation vs. Integration In March of 1895, Booker T. Washington delivered his now famous Atlanta Compromise Speech. In brief, Washington proposed that blacks accept segregation and focus on getting jobs rather than demanding equality. He also proposed that blacks concentrate on learning trades and how to work with their hands – not necessarily in becoming book smart. Perhaps even more central to his message, Washington argued that if blacks focused on equality they would never make it anywhere in society. In short, Washington’s policy was one of accommodation and not rocking the boat. (Washington) Washington was very clear about what he felt black intentions should be, stating that blacks should only be seeking opportunity – not for the right to integrate with white society. He wanted white society to see the good in all black people, and not as a threat to their way of life. Eight years later, W.E.B. offered a critique of Washington’s proposal. While DuBois respected Washington as a black leader, he felt that his policy of accommodation was holding back the black race. Contrary to Washington, DuBois felt that "the right to vote," "civic equality," and "the education of youth according to ability" were essential for African American progress. (DuBois) DuBois felt if blacks wanted change...
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...Booker T. Washington “Up from Slavery” I detected a message in the first chapter of “Up from Slavery” other than the horrors of slavery, even though that message was painfully clear. The other message that I detected is that a shallow and indulgent existence deprives a person of developing rugged individualism, character and common sense. I felt this because of the sentences, “the black man got nearly as much out of slavery as the white man did. The hurtful influences of the institution were not by any means confined to the Negro.” “The slave system on our place, in a large measure, took the spirit of self-reliance and self-help out of the white people. My old master had many boys and girls, but not one, so far as I know, ever mastered a single trade or special line of productive industry.” The slaves seemed to possess a deeper sense of self and spirituality and realized that kindness toward other human beings and honor were more rewarding than material things. I was very surprised and awed by the fact that even though the slaves were provided with abhorrent living conditions and often endured immense cruelty at the hands of their masters, they still felt love and kindness towards them and they showed compassion towards the whites when they themselves fell upon hard times. One passage that confirms the importance of honor and the feeling of compassion is “In fear of “Yankee” invasions, the silverware and other valuables were taken from the “big house,” buried...
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...W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington could be considered the “twin towers” when it comes to black history in America during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although from different generations, their attention focused on the African-American struggle for political, social and economic equality. However, they sharply disagreed on strategies for black social and economic progress; to better understand their opposing philosophies, it is helpful to also consider their radically different backgrounds, which influenced their world-views. W.E.B. Du Bois was born in Massachusetts, three years after the end of the Civil War. His great-grandfather had fought in the American Revolution and his family had been part of the community for generations. Du Bois learned of his African roots from his grandmother, and was given a sense of destiny from his mother, who raised him after his father left home. Du Bois was a brilliant young man, working as a correspondent for New York newspapers while still in high school, and, with the help of influential members of his community, went to Fisk University in Nashville. His years at Fisk changed his life – there Du Bois met sons and daughters of former slaves, who embodied the cultural and spiritual tradition that Du Bois had glimpsed as a child. He also encountered the White South, and saw how they were destroying the achievements of Reconstruction. He saw the suffering of rural blacks when he taught school during the summers...
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...LIT 327 W.E.B DuBois’ Theory on the “Double Consciousness” & Conflict/Radical Marxist Theory as it applies to the Novel – A Lesson Before Dying DuBois’ theory on the “Double Consciousness” states, “After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,--a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,--an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,--this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.” This theory states that as a black man, one has no choice but to look at oneself through the eyes of others, “others” being the rich and powerful, the superior – white people. The way the rich and powerful sees you, as a black man, is the way society views you. A black man must always take into consideration the views and perception of the superior, rich and powerful in the American...
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...Mélanie Urvoy English 102-005 13 February 2012 Research paper A Conflict as a Poker Game In the early twentieth century, women were still dependent on men. It was difficult for a woman to have a job and be financially independent. In addition, at this time, women had to keep their virginity to have a chance to get married. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is placed in the picturesque French Quarter in New Orleans. The play starts when Blanche DuBois comes in New Orleans to visit her sister Stella after she lost the family plantation Belle-Reve because of money problems. She then meets her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski, a World War II veteran. As soon as they meet each other, a mistrustful rivalry starts between them. A Streetcar Named Desire depicts the conflict between two opposing views as a poker game between Blanche and Stanley for control. From the beginning of the play, Williams starts distinguishing Stanley and Blanche by their mentalities. In fact, Blanche has the Old South mentality. She grew up in a plantation where she learnt how to behave as an aristocrat whereas her brother-in-law is an industrial and a Polish immigrant representing the New South. Blanche is described as delicate and fragile whereas Stanley is rude and violent. Blanche lives in a world of illusion. She acts as a queen and wants the men to treat her like it. Unlike Blanche, Stanley lives in a rude world, a world where if a person are strong enough physically and mentally, he...
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...Stanley Kowalski is a distinguished character in the play A Streetcar Named Desire, he is Stella’s husband, (a women which is from an upper class family) however he comes from a very different and less elegant background, than both Stella and Blanche (Stella’s older sister). We can tell this from the first impression Blanche give ‘Where were you? In bed with your Polack!’ this shows the clear lack of respect that Blanche has not only towards Stanley but towards Polish people and people of a lower class, we know that Blanche shows no guilt in what she has just said as she said it in such a shocking and shameful gesture, she is also clearly referring to him as a ‘lower class working man’. In Scene 1, Stanley is shown as having ‘animal joy’ and being a ‘richly feathered male bird’ this shows his superiority and this is also shown in most of his conversations that he has with his friends and wife, Stanley is typically the dominant speaker, he refuses to accept that someone tells him that his actions are wrong and he shows this throughout the play when he uses Stella’s upper class status against her by mentioning his ‘Napoleonic code’ meaning that everything that his wife owns, or partly owns is his. This shows that his character is very dominant and has an aggressive side to him. Stanley’s ‘animal joy’ can also show us that he has animalistic qualities for example when in scene three (the poker scene), Stanley and Blanche have a disagreement about the radio playing out loud, Blanche...
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...In Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the main antagonist, Stanley Kowalski, can only be described as down-to-earth and brutish. This is unquestionable, and is evident numerous times throughout the play. Stanley serves as the antithesis to Blanche who, in turn, is quiet, fragile, and deceitful. The conflict in the play arises from Blanche’s arrival to the Kowalski’s residence and is a direct result from the meeting of these two contrasting characters. As such, it is perhaps not difficult to see that the motivations for most of Stanley’s defining actions in the play stem from Blanche who, from his point of view, is just a disruptive presence that doesn’t belong and only serves to annoy him. Blanche’s occupancy, coupled with Stanley’s dominant personality, is the basis for his multiple signs of aggression and assertion in the play. Stanley, as is so often claimed by Blanche, is simple. His motivations throughout the play aren’t very complex: he wants to be able to do what he wants, and to maintain control while he’s at it. Stanley is evidently an alpha male; if someone is doing something that he doesn’t approve of, whether it makes sense or not, he’s going to disagree. This makes it very easy to understand his actions. Blanche came uninvited into his home – the place where Stanley dominates. This already puts their relationship off to a bad start. Throughout the play Blanche made changes to his home as well as ripples in his relationship with Stella. Stanley...
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...------------------------------------------------- Analysis of Major Characters Blanche DuBois When the play begins, Blanche is already a fallen woman in society’s eyes. Her family fortune and estate are gone, she lost her young husband to suicide years earlier, and she is a social pariah due to her indiscrete sexual behavior. She also has a bad drinking problem, which she covers up poorly. Behind her veneer of social snobbery and sexual propriety, Blanche is an insecure, dislocated individual. She is an aging Southern belle who lives in a state of perpetual panic about her fading beauty. Her manner is dainty and frail, and she sports a wardrobe of showy but cheap evening clothes. Stanley quickly sees through Blanche’s act and seeks out information about her past. In the Kowalski household, Blanche pretends to be a woman who has never known indignity. Her false propriety is not simply snobbery, however; it constitutes a calculated attempt to make herself appear attractive to new male suitors. Blanche depends on male sexual admiration for her sense of self-esteem, which means that she has often succumbed to passion. By marrying, Blanche hopes to escape poverty and the bad reputation that haunts her. But because the chivalric Southern gentleman savior and caretaker (represented by Shep Huntleigh) she hopes will rescue her is extinct, Blanche is left with no realistic possibility of future happiness. As Blanche sees it, Mitch is her only chance for contentment, even though he...
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...Where is the Light? Tennessee Williams uses light, and the absence of light in A Streetcar Named Desire to show the relationship between truths and hidden realities. The role of the absence of light is best seen in the relationship between Mitch and Blanche and how Blanche shies away from light in order to hide her age from Mitch, and in a more subtle attempt to hide her past and the reality of what actually happened in Laurel. The most literal “hiding” that occurs is Blanche’s hiding of her real age; she refuses to let Mitch see her in full light as she does not want him to know that she is older than she says she is, by hiding in the shadows she hopes to hide her wrinkles and her fading youth from Mitch. Her not allowing Mitch to see her in full light also plays a more meaningful role in the text, she is hiding her past from him, the details of her previous marriage and the fact that her first husband was homosexual and killed himself because of how she reacted to that fact. She is also hiding her history of being banished from the town due to her scandalous escapades at the Flamingo Hotel; she attempts to portray herself as a very well mannered, upstanding women. Blanche hides the reality of her past in the shadows while creating a new fantasy world that she presents to Mitch, and to herself because she cannot bear to deal with the harsh truths of reality. However this all comes tumbling down for her in the end, with Stanley’s discovery of her true past. Stanley tells Mitch...
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...A Street Car Named Desire Tennessee Williams suggests that Blanche represents the faded American past in a few different ways. One way is her difficulty fitting in with life in New Orleans. New Orleans is a modern urbanized city unlike Laurel, which is a small rural town where Blanche comes from. Blanche's life is crumbling just like the old south is crumbling. Blanche and Stanley were in two completely separate and different worlds, which caused major conflicts between the two. The biggest conflict is between illusion and realism. Blanche lives her life avoiding the truth and trying to erase her past. She lives for how things should to be, not for how they are. She prefers magic and shadows to facing facts in bright light as she says "I don’t want realism. I want magic". A lot of the things she does are to make her feel pure which she is not. She blames herself for the death of her husband and therefore constantly bathes to cleanse herself of her past. Blanche also doesn't accept the fact that she is getting older. She stays away from lights because "electric light bulbs go on and you see too plainly" and she does not want people, in this case Mitch, to see what she actually looks like. Stanley looks at the world as it is and not what he wants it to be. He doesn't buy into all of the things that Blanche says. When Blanche said that she lost Belle Reve, Stanley didn't trust her because she didn't have any proof. We see he didn't trust her when he said "In the state of...
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... Midge Wood (Barbara Bel Geddes) in Vertigo (1958) is a girl friend, fiancée and a mother figure combined into one. As Scottie Ferguson’s (James Stewart) fiancée she tries to pacify and help him when she finds him lonely and withdrawn in the hospital sequence after Madeleine’s death. She tries to be brave and amusing and adds more emotion. Midge as a girl friend stands by Scottie’s side at the time of the difficulties and during his mental breakdown. She is very much loyal to him. Like a true friend and mother Midge tries to console and embrace Scottie saying: Please try, Johnny. You’re not lost-Mother’s here . . . You don’t even know I’m here, do you? Well, I’m here.” (Spoto 289/qtd from the film). According to Spoto Vertigo is “as much the tragedy of a lost and exploited woman as it is the bizarre story of an abused man” (291), and in the end only one survives and the other is lost forever. The victim is the woman. These words suggest that woman is ready to sacrifice her life for the sake of others. Woman is just a plaything in the hands of a powerful, freedom-loving man. Hence Madeleine (Kim Novak) is exploited twice by Galvin Elster (Tom Helmore) and then by Scottie (James Stewart). Scottie loved blonde Madeleine just as Hitchcock. He was bothered about Judy’s red hair. He transforms her and wants her to wear dress that dead Madeleine used to wear. Judy (Kim Novak) is willing to do anything to attain Scottie’s love and attention. People try to transform others...
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...Censorship in A Streetcar Named Desire Author of A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams - stated that his plays are “Pleas for the understanding of delicate people”. A Streetcar Named Desire explores dysfunctional relationships and conflicts that arise in the breakdown. The 1930’s production code forced Kazan - director of A Streetcar Named Desire - to change the original text. The censors of the Breen Office forced Kazan to omit the film’s raw and candid portrayal of human behavior and relationships. Because the Breen Office controlled of the film industry, it definitely took away the audience’s understanding of the characters and their relationships especially in Stella’s descending of the staircase, dialogue between Blanche and Stella, and any sexual glances from the married Stanley Kowalski towards Blanche. The code forced Kazan to rid the movie of any seductive looks; thus, reducing Stanley and Stella’s passion and lust for each other. The original text suggests that Stanley’s bellows for Stella seduces her as she gazes down the stairs at him. As Stanley bellows out for Stella she, “Slips down the rickety stairs… [And] they stare at each other. Then they come together with low, animal moans” (p.67). The actions taken by Stella show how her relationship with Stanley is fully based upon lust and sexual desire. Though Stanley abuses Stella she continues to come back to him because she is physically attracted to the violence. In the film adaptation of A Streetcar Named...
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...The overshadowing theme of wealth depicts how the setting influenced the characters and the playwrights context. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the Dubois family came from a very wealthy aristocrat family but after many generations, the money ran out. The day after Blanche encountered Stanley’s anger episode, she went looking for Stella because she went back to him even after he beat her. Stella wakes up the next day as if nothing has happened while Blanche is planning all sorts of ways to leave. In the middle of her speech, Stella says, “I know how it helps your morale just having a little pocket-money on you” (Williams 4.79). Although money cannot buy you happiness, in this play, it seems like money can buy Blanche some confidence. She loves...
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