Jacqueline Amanda Woodson was born on February 12th, 1963, in Columbus, Ohio. When she was about two months old, her parents separated, which caused Woodson to spend her early life in South Carolina, raised by her mother and grandmother. When she was seven years old, Jacqueline Woodson moved to Brooklyn, New York where she has resided ever since. She attended Adelphi University, where she received her BA in Literature, and has yet to drop her pen and paper.
Jacqueline Woodson is an author who has written an abundance of books and poems, typically focused in the genre of realistic fiction. In an interview with Reading Rockets, Woodson stated that she writes realistic fiction because she wants to put onto the page what she did not get to see …show more content…
Woodson uses figurative language, such as imagery, to appeal to her reader’s senses when describing specific situations or events. For instance, in what everybody knows, Woodson uses visual imagery to further express and make reference to a historical time period when segregation was considered constitutional. In the first stanza, the speaker describes the legacy of oppression left behind after Jim Crow. It explains how the speaker’s grandmother avoids the perceived prejudice of whites by stating, “Easier to stay where you belong.” (Line 9) This coping mechanism ultimately reflects a small degree of internalized oppression and signals that although the laws have changed, social norms have …show more content…
Her written style is meant to connect feelings with words. The words used are easily understandable and “immediate”, rather than complex, such that even a child would be able to read it. Diction, however, also plays a controversial role in Woodson’s poem, the right way to speak.
Mother urges her children to appease the white imagination by stripping them of their Southern identity. In the poem, language is symbolic of identity. When the mother tells them not to use words like “ain’t” she is sending the message that who they are, and where they come from is less respectable and that in order to be successful, they must strip away a bit of themselves their Southern background.
When the mother whips her brother, with a switch, commanding him to never say “ain’t” in her house again, it is reminiscent of the whippings doled out by slave master’s to get their African slaves to relinquish their names. This ultimately introduces the complexity of parenting young black children. The mother while well intentioned represented the old generation just like her grandmother in the previous poem. Their method of survival was compliance and assimilation. Here again, Woodson highlights the problematic nature of this strategy as it strip saway black identity and gives up
Jacqueline Woodson is an author who has written an abundance of books and poems, typically focused in the genre of realistic fiction. In an interview with Reading Rockets, Woodson stated that she writes realistic fiction because she wants to put onto the page what she did not get to see …show more content…
Woodson uses figurative language, such as imagery, to appeal to her reader’s senses when describing specific situations or events. For instance, in what everybody knows, Woodson uses visual imagery to further express and make reference to a historical time period when segregation was considered constitutional. In the first stanza, the speaker describes the legacy of oppression left behind after Jim Crow. It explains how the speaker’s grandmother avoids the perceived prejudice of whites by stating, “Easier to stay where you belong.” (Line 9) This coping mechanism ultimately reflects a small degree of internalized oppression and signals that although the laws have changed, social norms have …show more content…
Her written style is meant to connect feelings with words. The words used are easily understandable and “immediate”, rather than complex, such that even a child would be able to read it. Diction, however, also plays a controversial role in Woodson’s poem, the right way to speak.
Mother urges her children to appease the white imagination by stripping them of their Southern identity. In the poem, language is symbolic of identity. When the mother tells them not to use words like “ain’t” she is sending the message that who they are, and where they come from is less respectable and that in order to be successful, they must strip away a bit of themselves their Southern background.
When the mother whips her brother, with a switch, commanding him to never say “ain’t” in her house again, it is reminiscent of the whippings doled out by slave master’s to get their African slaves to relinquish their names. This ultimately introduces the complexity of parenting young black children. The mother while well intentioned represented the old generation just like her grandmother in the previous poem. Their method of survival was compliance and assimilation. Here again, Woodson highlights the problematic nature of this strategy as it strip saway black identity and gives up