In her book, Another Kind of Public Education, Patricia Hill Collins describes a startling personal incident, which reveals the prevalent inequities still present in the American school system. The author attended Philadelphia High School for Girls, where she was one of few African Americans in her class. As a result of her minority status, the author transformed into a quiet girl and felt uncomfortable in her classes. One day, Patricia’s teacher invites her to deliver a Flag Speech. Patricia composes a speech, but she also includes personal information about the failures of American ideals, which her teacher eventually deletes.…
Segregation from the society “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don 't matter, and those who matter doesn’t mind.” – Bernard M. Baruch. In today’s society teenagers are more concerned about fitting in with the widely held groups that they forget to discover their own aptitudes and faculties. This book hints on the issues of the young people who find it difficult to fit in. The Cage of Butterflies is a book inscribed by Brian Caswell in 1992.…
Society plays a crucial part in shaping lives, but some people are destined to be a certain way even without society’s influence. Bigger Thomas and Holden Caulfield from Richard Wright’s Native Son and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye are testaments that society is not always to blame for every issue. Their psychological deterioration is progressed and encouraged by their societies, but their falls were destined to happen. Bigger and Holden, though from different environments, experience a similar psychological decline.…
The counter-society development of the 1960s was a response created by the recorded amnesia from the 1950s. This forced peace, which is known as the "false accord", was broken by the impacts a generational hole. The generational crevice permitted the discontent to uncover the "shrouded" prejudice of the United States, subsequently making a counter-social development. In part 22 of Anne Moody's personal history, The Coming of Age in Mississippi, she describes the start of this counter-social development, which turns into the Civil Rights development. She delineates the different ways African-Americans opposed bigotry and the troubles in evolving society.…
MacLeod’s Finding’s: Norms, Values and Ideologies in Ain’t No Makin’ It In the study, Ain’t No Makin’ It, Jay MacLeod introduces us to two extremely distinct groups of male youth, the Hallway Hangers and the Brothers. The Hallway Hangers are a dominant group of teenagers who constantly rebel and openly resist the American ideology of education.…
The American teenager is an individual created by growing multiple cultural changes in our society. In his book The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager, author Thomas Hine describes this stage of life as energetic and exciting, adding that teenagers carry qualities our culture simultaneously loves and fears, such as boldness, greed and being idealistic (Hine, p. 10-11). The behavior of teenagers is influenced by a multitude of factors. One of those factors includes social class, which can influence how teenagers socialize, as well as how they are treated in their education endeavors.…
S. E. Hilton’s novel and popular film The Outsiders expresses a variety of internal and external conflicts including the main conflict in the novel, which is the division and struggle among social class. The two groups, Socs and Greasers, are drastically different, but also similar in a variety of ways. Socs and the Greasers are merely adolescents struggling with personal and social complications that unfold within society. As the greasers are portrayed as low-life scum no-good-for-nothing-dirt-bags, and on the other hand, Socs are depicted as privileged rich kids who catch all the “big breaks.” What determines to where each member of society belongs which group is the individual’s appearance and finance.…
Differences on how the individual affects society The stories “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut and “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin are different in their use of theme, setting and imagery which helps describe different ways that people view how the individual affects society. “Harrison Bergeron” is set in the future, and everyone has been handicapped to become equal, no one is smarter, stronger, or more beautiful than anyone else. It tells the story of Harrison is a fourteen year old boy who is in jail for trying to overthrow the government. “Omelas” is a parable that is written about a community where everyone is happy, and there is no fighting or violence, but this comes with a price because one child must suffer…
Frederick Buechner once wrote “You can kiss your family and friends goodbye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives with you.” This thought applies to The Other Wes Moore, a book written about two young boys with the same name. Both Wes Moores go through twists and turns in their lives. One grows up to be a successful certified U.S Army trooper, while the other will spend the rest of his life behind bars. Each boy’s environment greatly impacted his choices, chances, and opportunities.…
The book, The Outsiders, is about a constant battle between a group of west side rich kids, called socs, and east side poor kids, called greasers. The socs are always jumping the greasers and beating them up but they never get caught because they have rich parents and are high up in society. Throughout the book it gives details on the struggles that the kids with no money have to go through every day. It also gives insight into the true motives and feelings of people and how not everything is perfect, even for the people who seem to have it that way This book is told from the view point of a fourteen year old greaser named Ponyboy Curtis.…
Cisneros, having grown up in America, often experienced rifts between her Mexican parents and their cultures as well, and this is reflected in her writing. In “Only Daughter” she writes, “Being only a daughter for my father meant my destiny would lead me to become someone’s wife. That’s what he believed.” Here, cultural values clash as Cisneros recounts the conflicts she has faced in her life due to different ideologies in within her household. Similarly, in “Woman Hollering Creek”, the main character feels isolated from both her father and husband due to the oppression she feels under the traditional Latino values that dictate a woman as property to the men in her life.…
According to statistics, African American high school student’s graduation rate is at 69 percent. This is impacting since it’s relatable to The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore. Both Wes Moore’s lives significantly took different turns, there outside expectations were for them to fail and to make responsibilities their priorities. Outside expectations contributed to the other Wes because he became part of the stereotype of the average African American male, while Wes proved it wrong. Responsibilities play an important role in how their lives turn out since Wes stuck to military school and the other Wes had kids not supporting wasn’t an option.…
Einstein’s Letter: Summary: On July 16, 1935 internationally acclaimed scientist Albert Einstein wrote the letter whose unforeseen actions would cause the greatest calamity of the modern world. With one simple signature the ignorant Einstein condemned the lives of around 200,000 Japanese via the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While the main impulse for this tragedy occurred on the day of the writing of the letter, many events took place before the time in order to force Einstein’s hand.…
Bridging the Gap Between the Rich and the Poor The Outsiders is a very well-known novel written by the author S. E. Hinton in 1967. The book follows the story of two conflicting gangs named the Socs and the Greasers who are separated by their positions in society. There are countless themes and main ideas throughout the book which teens can easily relate to, including themes of isolation, violence, innocence and even love. The Outsiders mainly talks about the theme of Society and Class; how the city that the book takes place in is divided into two by factors of wealth and position in society.…
The story, “Brokeback Mountain” by Annie Proulx presents us with a character named Ennis del Mar who is unwilling and unable to reach for his heart’s desire, a man named Jack Twist. Jack and Ennis meet when they are both young men, having grown up in almost identical situations. Both were high-school country boys with no prospects, brought up to hard work and privation, both rough- mannered, rough-spoken, inured to the stoic life. Both are real cowboys, both are also living the life expected of them including dating and having sex with women; at this point Ennis is even engaged. It is only after they begin working together on Brokeback Mountain that acknowledge that they are homosexual and fall in love with one another.…