Through Literature: Know Your Place
Slavery will forever be engrained in the minds of the world’s population. Regardless if you are college educated or never been to school in your life, you are aware of the times of slavery and the mistreatment of African Americans. Slavery was an epidemic of sorts in a figurative sense, the only difference was a disease was not taking the lives of African-Americans, whites were. Slavery and racism was wide-spread geographically and in terms of time, yet their turbulent and disruptive characteristics are best reflected in the slavery era of America and the subsequent era of Jim Crow. Those times manifested unmoral deaths that were lawfully ignored, hardships, and inequality. Although, the African-American …show more content…
Uncle Tom’s Children is a compilation of short stories that reflect the hardships of African American men and women in the Jim Crow era. Wright wrote these stories relying heavily upon character dialogue, which gave the characters a voice of their own. In the first short story titled The Ethics of Living Jim Crowe, Wright provided the readers with a self-proclaimed “autobiographical sketch” of his life in the Jim Crow era, contrary to expectations of life in slavery displayed by Kindred. Wright provided the readers with insight on what his life was like as an African-American in the Jim Crow era. Wright was frequently called explicit names such as “you black son-of-a-bitch” and “nigger” throughout the autobiographical sketch. In response to being called these names, Wright responded with “yes sir” or “no sir” because that was the expectation of African-Americans. Whites would try to get African-Americans to be submissive because they considered themselves the dominant race. While working at an optical company, Wright attempted to learn more about his job and take on more responsibility. His fellow white coworkers did not take kindly to this and told him he was fired. The following excerpt briefly describes this …show more content…
Naw, Lawd! Ah can’t break down now! Theyll know somethings wrong ef Ah keep acting like this…Ah cant cry bout Lulu now… He wiped tears from his eyes with his fingers.
Regardless if Mann’s wife had just passed away, the soldiers demanded of Mann that he helped repair the levee. This is mainly due to fact he is a man of color. Consistently thought out this story, Mann was called explicit names and was treated with no humanity or sorrow for the loss of his wife. Mann would always respond respectfully, as he knew that was what was expected of him. This story follows the reoccurring theme in Kindred and other stories in Uncle Tom’s Children of African-Americans being submissive to whites and knowing their role in an era were racism was accepted and prevalent. While Octavia Butler and Richard Wright’s writing style vary greatly, their works both display common characteristics that are reoccurring in other American-American literature. Kindred approached African-American oppression in a fictional sense, incorporating time travel, in order to display the expectations of African-Americans under slavery and 1976 Los Angeles. Richard Wright took a more non-fictional approach that relied heavily on dialogue. As stated, these writing styles vary greatly. What they have in common, though, is providing the reader with fictional and non-fictional anecdotes that display the expectations of African-Americans under slavery and the Jim Crow
Slavery will forever be engrained in the minds of the world’s population. Regardless if you are college educated or never been to school in your life, you are aware of the times of slavery and the mistreatment of African Americans. Slavery was an epidemic of sorts in a figurative sense, the only difference was a disease was not taking the lives of African-Americans, whites were. Slavery and racism was wide-spread geographically and in terms of time, yet their turbulent and disruptive characteristics are best reflected in the slavery era of America and the subsequent era of Jim Crow. Those times manifested unmoral deaths that were lawfully ignored, hardships, and inequality. Although, the African-American …show more content…
Uncle Tom’s Children is a compilation of short stories that reflect the hardships of African American men and women in the Jim Crow era. Wright wrote these stories relying heavily upon character dialogue, which gave the characters a voice of their own. In the first short story titled The Ethics of Living Jim Crowe, Wright provided the readers with a self-proclaimed “autobiographical sketch” of his life in the Jim Crow era, contrary to expectations of life in slavery displayed by Kindred. Wright provided the readers with insight on what his life was like as an African-American in the Jim Crow era. Wright was frequently called explicit names such as “you black son-of-a-bitch” and “nigger” throughout the autobiographical sketch. In response to being called these names, Wright responded with “yes sir” or “no sir” because that was the expectation of African-Americans. Whites would try to get African-Americans to be submissive because they considered themselves the dominant race. While working at an optical company, Wright attempted to learn more about his job and take on more responsibility. His fellow white coworkers did not take kindly to this and told him he was fired. The following excerpt briefly describes this …show more content…
Naw, Lawd! Ah can’t break down now! Theyll know somethings wrong ef Ah keep acting like this…Ah cant cry bout Lulu now… He wiped tears from his eyes with his fingers.
Regardless if Mann’s wife had just passed away, the soldiers demanded of Mann that he helped repair the levee. This is mainly due to fact he is a man of color. Consistently thought out this story, Mann was called explicit names and was treated with no humanity or sorrow for the loss of his wife. Mann would always respond respectfully, as he knew that was what was expected of him. This story follows the reoccurring theme in Kindred and other stories in Uncle Tom’s Children of African-Americans being submissive to whites and knowing their role in an era were racism was accepted and prevalent. While Octavia Butler and Richard Wright’s writing style vary greatly, their works both display common characteristics that are reoccurring in other American-American literature. Kindred approached African-American oppression in a fictional sense, incorporating time travel, in order to display the expectations of African-Americans under slavery and 1976 Los Angeles. Richard Wright took a more non-fictional approach that relied heavily on dialogue. As stated, these writing styles vary greatly. What they have in common, though, is providing the reader with fictional and non-fictional anecdotes that display the expectations of African-Americans under slavery and the Jim Crow