efforts to show her off. Although her skin was too light to match the blacks in Harlem, it was much too dark to fit in with the white community in Denmark. In this instance, her difference is considered beautiful and her relatives racialize Helga by treating her as a mysterious exotic creature to decorate rather than a human being because of her black blood. Similarly, the white women of Denmark do not view Helga in the same light that they view one another. At a party, Helga attracted the attention of the men but the women are not jealous or even mildly upset because “to them this girl, this Helga Crane, this mysterious niece of the Dahls, was not to be reckoned seriously in their scheme of things. True she was attractive, unusual, in
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Correspondingly, in Robert Paul Lamb’s essay, “‘A Little Yellow Bastard Boy’: Paternal Rejection, Filial Insistence, and the Triumph of African American Cultural Aesthetics in Langston Hughes 's ‘Mulatto,’” he writes about the struggles of a mixed race person. He claims that “the figure of the light-skinned, biracial person who is never fully accepted, or able to accept himself, as either black or white—a figure who in the nineteenth century was termed ‘the tragic mulatto’” (Lamb 134). Essentially what Lamb is saying is what is reflected throughout all of the African American literature, both in stories and poems. Racism in society caused a great divide between white and black people, there are numerous struggles for the two groups but one could find belonging by identifying with one or the other. However, for mixed individuals, those who are both black and white but at the same time neither, there is not true place of belonging because the group will accept one side, whether it is black or white, and scorn the other. This is why mulatto children and adults live with a sense of unfulfillment and are oppressed by both whites and …show more content…
However, those with the most social unrest are not from the moon or sky but the stars, these racially mixed people, or mulattos, suffer the most from racism because they live without a sense of wholehearted acceptable that both black and whites are given from their families and peers. Because black people are only allowed to live freely in the dark of night and the blackness of their skin, it is suitable to use the night sky to represent this group of people. White people are shown through the moon that watches over the night in a superior manner, not unlike the way whites dominated over blacks during the cruel slave times and discrimination that followed years after. However, a night sky is not complete without the yellow stars just as African American literature would not be the same without the narrations placed in the perspective of a mixed person. These individuals received the worst end of racism because although the whites tormented the blacks, they still had one another and a community amongst slaves or former slaves. The mulattos only had themselves because they were rejected by the white culture and also alienated by their black peers, which caused great turmoil and an immense sense of longing for their own place. Just as Helga desperately searches to find satisfaction in life, either
Correspondingly, in Robert Paul Lamb’s essay, “‘A Little Yellow Bastard Boy’: Paternal Rejection, Filial Insistence, and the Triumph of African American Cultural Aesthetics in Langston Hughes 's ‘Mulatto,’” he writes about the struggles of a mixed race person. He claims that “the figure of the light-skinned, biracial person who is never fully accepted, or able to accept himself, as either black or white—a figure who in the nineteenth century was termed ‘the tragic mulatto’” (Lamb 134). Essentially what Lamb is saying is what is reflected throughout all of the African American literature, both in stories and poems. Racism in society caused a great divide between white and black people, there are numerous struggles for the two groups but one could find belonging by identifying with one or the other. However, for mixed individuals, those who are both black and white but at the same time neither, there is not true place of belonging because the group will accept one side, whether it is black or white, and scorn the other. This is why mulatto children and adults live with a sense of unfulfillment and are oppressed by both whites and …show more content…
However, those with the most social unrest are not from the moon or sky but the stars, these racially mixed people, or mulattos, suffer the most from racism because they live without a sense of wholehearted acceptable that both black and whites are given from their families and peers. Because black people are only allowed to live freely in the dark of night and the blackness of their skin, it is suitable to use the night sky to represent this group of people. White people are shown through the moon that watches over the night in a superior manner, not unlike the way whites dominated over blacks during the cruel slave times and discrimination that followed years after. However, a night sky is not complete without the yellow stars just as African American literature would not be the same without the narrations placed in the perspective of a mixed person. These individuals received the worst end of racism because although the whites tormented the blacks, they still had one another and a community amongst slaves or former slaves. The mulattos only had themselves because they were rejected by the white culture and also alienated by their black peers, which caused great turmoil and an immense sense of longing for their own place. Just as Helga desperately searches to find satisfaction in life, either