... for the matriarchal figure that speaks to her son. The first two lines of the poem, "Well, son, I"ll tell you; / Life for me ain't been no crystal stair" can be interpreted as a tired and weary parent delivering a lifetime of experience to her son (lines 1-2). This is the principal statement of the poem and introduces the metaphor. The first line appears to be in ... Climbing Jacob's Ladder" originally sung in the fields and later becoming a traditional spiritual hymn in the churches. The metaphor comparing the mother's life to a crystal staircase simultaneously personifies the pain in ...

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... assume Atticus normally does not look his age because Jem and Scout say he looks as old as he was for once. Atticus' character isn't focused of for its appearance, but for his personality and inner strength. Atticus is very fair and just person. In a time when black people were still considered ... by almost all, Atticus believed in equal rights for all. Atticus fights for Tom Robinson with all of himself, he does not care about his skin color, only his innocence. Atticus represents all of the honorable people in Maycomb County. Atticus Finch is a very honest man. When his children ask h...

• Word Count: 435
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

In one quote Baldwin is saying that no matter where white people go or wherevery they are, they can't be strangers. They can't be strangers because so much of the modern world ha sbeen modeled after the white man's world. In this quote he describes what it means to be the village. It also relates to the short story, " ... might not look Iraqi. In the quote and in the text, the villages cause the strangers pain that they village doesn't know it causes. Another quote describes how the rage of the people who get put on a lower level is fruitless;pointless. People dont' understand thier rage, ev...

• Word Count: 406
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... Moniter magazines (respectively) have each written exceptional articles on the subject. Although they find themselves on the same side of the war, Wiley proves himself to be the better of the two warriors of persuasion, by use of superior imagery and diction, believable evidence, and critical analysis. Michael Alvear writes a very concise, clear and understandable essay. His title, "Confederate Flag "so un-Southern,"" ... to a South Carolina boycott called by the NAACP. The team usually brought a great deal of publicity and money to the school during their practices, and after hearing t...

• Word Count: 1335
• Approx Pages: 5

Analysis of "In Search of Our Mothers" Gardens" This is a literary analysis of "In Search of Our Mothers" Gardens an essay by Alice Walker a contemporary, African-American writer. Walker was poised to write about the historical black woman's role during the post-reconstruction era. "In Search of Our Mothers" Gardens was written to show the contemporary young black woman of today how the historical black woman kept intense ... spirituality. The contemporary young black women of today ... black woman was also called Matriarchs because the historical black women basically ran the house. The men ...

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... Papa, she retorted "I"m Philomene Daurat, and he is my father." I should have smacked that girl then, maybe it would have ended the ever-increasing level of how color struck my descendants got. Philomene had two little girls by another black man, Clement. At the time she was told that while she was ill ... lived with him as if she was his wife. They lived a horribly public life until violence forced them to stop. Perhaps Emily was this bad because of how Narcisse doted on her. Joseph would publicly declare that she was his only family and that race didn't matter. By this time interracial ...

• Word Count: 627
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

An Analysis of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn In the first few decades of the 19th century, the rapid development of the American politics, economy and culture led to the growing acuteness of sectional struggle between the North and the South, the central point of struggle is over slavery. Began from 1830, abolitionist grow more powerful in the Northern states, many anti-slavery groups were established, such as ... for freedom, then he meets Jim the slave, the novel is motivated by two conflicts, the external conflict to achieve Jim's freedom, and the internal conflict is his own sense of...

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... ANALYSIS - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain, the author of the one of the greatest novels in American literature, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, portrays his opinion of prejudice of African Americans during the 19th Century in the United States by criticizing the white people who have "racism". In Twain's novel, prejudice, meaning irrational suspicion or hatred of ... " and says, "there was a free nigger there from Ohio They said he was a p"fessor in college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the wust. They said he could vote wh...

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... have a chance to circulate through the generations to come. Sam Whitsitt, "The quilts might leave the home, but how they do so is significant. They must move through the hands of Mama and Maggie" (2). Maggie wasn't lucky enough to be sent off to school, and therefore has to work extremely hard to have anything at all. Nancy Tuten writes, " Mama is ... her younger daughter" (3). By the time Maggie is old enough to marry, she will have almost certainly experienced a rough childhood, like that of her mother and grandmother, therefore appreciating the quilts in a different way. Cowart write...

• Word Count: 567
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... depicts the racism that African Americans have endured from the white society. Racism and Justice collide when two drunken and remorseless young white men shatter the life of a ten-year-old black girl, Tonya Hailey, as they brutally beat and rape her. In John Grisham's novel rape, racism, and justice all prevail ... throughout the story A Time to Kill. Carl Lee Hailey, the father of the ten-year-old child takes justice into his own hands by murdering his daughters assailants. As his young defense attorney struggles with the law to save ... his clients life, racism spreads through the s...

• Word Count: 656
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... they do. The people in the painting have their ordinary, everyday life on display to everyone that walks past their front yard. This shows the openness of their lifestyle. They are saying that they have absolutely nothing to hide. The caption is dwarfed by the painting (as captions usually are), and I think ... to read the caption because the painting is almost self-explanatory. When I looked at the painting for the first time I was struck by his use of colour to highlight certain things. The toilet in the background is red, the people are green, the flowers are yellow and the dog is bla...

• Word Count: 992
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... to become a Lawyer and changes how Lily sees the world when she tells him she never heard a black lawyer before. Towards the end of chapter seven, the beginning of chapter eight, Zach gets arrested when he doesn't rat out who threw the glass bottle at the police officer. Being in jail makes Zach different ... that it is a community she loves and that it does not matter that her "family" members are black and she is white. In the beginning of the novel, Lily dreams of dying and saying "Mother, forgive. Please forgive" and tell her it wasn't her fault; telling her ten thousand times over a...

• Word Count: 768
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... lives in Chicago. Both set in heavily populated, low-income neighborhoods. The protagonists of both stories, Bigger in Native Son and Sara in Bread Givers, struggle to find their way in a harsh ethnically segregated society. In comparison of the general plot, the analysis of the novel's origin, and in the examination of the character's actions, Yezierska's Bread Givers can be read as a similar journey ... through a more civilized path as Wright's Native Son. Bread Givers is the story of a young immigrant woman living under the roof of her tyrannical father. The protagonist, Sara, battles...

• Word Count: 1142
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... or not. I sat up and took notice, and I'm not even Christian -- I am Jewish. Furthermore, the fact that Madonna is singing in front of the crosses (and consequently, not doing anything to stop the crosses burning) implies that she condones cross-burning. This thought asks three questions. Does she also ... made which focused on relationships between white men and black women; an example is the film "Soul Man.") Does Madonna have any feelings for men of other races? Should America care? Knowing Madonna's sexual liberalism (she "confessed" to having partial feelings for women in an intervie...

• Word Count: 905
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... identity and purpose, and this is done through symbolism, imagery, and diction. The poem begins with the instructor giving the class the assignment of writing a paper and asking that what they write comes from within them and only then it'll be truethis is immediately followed by the characters ... line, "I wonder if its that simple?" The character has doubts of what is asked of him, feeling what his, "truth," is will not be accepted, having grown a man with different background. "I am twenty-two ... lives in(1), "feel," "hear," "see," all depict sensory imagery, showing the reader this...

• Word Count: 1440
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... second line, Blake inserts the religious reference to the soul by saying, "I am black, but O! my soul is white." Because white is the symbol of purity and innocence, the boy's statement is immediately addresses the racial indifference and inserts the boy's desire to be white. The boy acknowledges that because he was ... till he can bear, to lean in joy upon our father's knee," the little black boy has an inclination toward subordination despite his acting out of love. Even in heaven, the little boy has will have an inherited distinction that forms a barrier between him and the white boy....

• Word Count: 876
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the paths in which they would each preach to attain those goals in their speeches varied with great distinction. While the content and underlying ideas of the speeches may have inconsistencies with each other, they both use many common literary devices and rhetorical strategy. King is best known for his ... peaceful protests and his non-violence movement. The underlying purpose of the "I Have a Dream" speech is to compel his audience to strive for equality among blacks and whites. King had two audiences in mind; ... the second paragraph, "We are Africans, and we happen to be in America. ...

• Word Count: 986
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... great-grandfather and father seem to exemplify the "tragic view of the mulatto," in which they both experienced an innate feeling of not belonging to either white or black culture, thus facilitating a damaged psyche. This content of Espada's poem is further enhanced by the way he uses language. Upon completion of my analysis, I thought of the author as a chef who sprinkles just the right amount ... of various ingredients (in this case, elements of craft) into his dish, with the finished product coming out just right. Espada does not ... saturate his poem with different aspects of langu...

• Word Count: 1024
• Approx Pages: 4

... his feet are tied/so he opens his throat to sing." (27-30). The grave of dreams that are spoken of refer to dreams that will go unfulfilled and opportunities that will remain closed because of the color of their skin. The clipped wings and tied feet refer to the little and restricted freedom given ... the sky his own." (23-26). In this stanza the white race is shown as the obviously dominant race. The "wind," is even symbolic of the white tradition in history, the white race being the superior. Opportunities ("fat worms") are always waiting for them and their heads are held high with .....

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• Approx Pages: 4

... skinned, his chances for passing as white are higher than a darker skinned black person. The protagonist is a fair-skinned individual, thus capable of passing. The pressures of the prejudice asserted against blacks were too difficult for the protagonist to cope. Often times the prejudice attitudes against the black man forced fair-skinned ... having 2 children. Shortly, after his wife died. He continued to live as a white man so his children would not have to go through the terror of racism. "My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am, and keeps me from desiring to be oth...

• Word Count: 1633
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... great-grandfather and father seem to exemplify the "tragic view of the mulatto," in which they both experienced an innate feeling of not belonging to either white or black culture, thus facilitating a damaged psyche. This content of Espada's poem is further enhanced by the way he uses language. Upon completion of my analysis, I thought of the author as a chef who sprinkles just the right amount ... of various ingredients (in this case, elements of craft) into his dish, with the finished product coming out just right. Espada does not ... saturate his poem with different aspects of langu...

• Word Count: 969
• Approx Pages: 4

... not treated as equals to their white counterparts, and he attempts to make a difference. In the opening paragraphs, Kennedy writes thoroughly of a specific set of guidelines his parents taught him. These rules depict how he as a black boy must behave around whites in order to both protect him ... appeal to the emotions. The author uses a direct quote from his parents; they "reasoned that their strictures would at least improve our chances of surviving and thriving" (Kennedy 24). Kennedy uses this quote to trigger the reader's sympathy for not just his family, but African-Americans every...

• Word Count: 1498
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... , at other people "and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside" (pg. 103). This is the first clue to Baldwin's theme of oppression; Sonny's brother is letting us know that he has not escaped Harlem and lifestyle that goes along with it. This "Light vs. Dark" example is ... killed him. This goes along with all the violence and Baldwin refers to in the ghettos in the other two stories, particularly in "Notes of a Native Son." The people of Harlem rioted and became very violent, because that is what people do when they are oppressed, they want to escape but can't and gr...

• Word Count: 1632
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... South. How does he picture himself as typical as well as highly individual. Frederick Douglass was not a typical slave in the South in the times of slavery because he chose to fight for his freedom and not to accept his fate, although he wanted those that had not experienced slavery in their ... lives to not hold the common prejudices of the time. Therefore, in his speaking as a free slave, he tried to make it known to all that he was typical and that the ... how Douglass maintains objectivity on the one hand, and how he expresses his subjectivity on the other. Explain how successful yo...

• Word Count: 1116
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... to be. He is understanding and lets her make her own mistakes. He doesn't reprimand her for not being like the other girls in the town of Maycomb. While most girls in Scout's position would be wearing dresses and learning manners, Scout is wearing overalls. She doesn't understand why people in her ... he agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a black man, in a rape trial in which he knows the man is innocent. Atticus's decision makes him the object of aggression and is shunned in his hometown, Maycomb, but he is simply too admirable if a person to be shunned for long. After the trial, he is he...

• Word Count: 1317
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School