What is the conflict of individual personality? “White Lies” by Natasha Tretheway’s is a poem about personal features, pressure, and yes the conflict of individual personality. The poem expresses how racial quality should be appreciated and not disparaged. Tretheway uses the literary devices of irony, symbolism and imagery to express the true meaning of racial identity. This helps show the poems purpose; to understand her childhood through the mulatto girl, a character in the poem, by looking through her racial identity.
Tretheway uses symbolism with soap in the text; “then washed out my mouth with Ivory soap”. This is important because this expresses how as a society, we see how back then and still today how we have problems with our racial …show more content…
The little mulatto girl lied about where she lived, where she bought her clothes, and she would also lie about her dark origin because she was just “light-bright” enough to look white. In a certain case when the girl lies about her skin color; she says, “I could even keep quiet, quiet as kept, like the time a white girl said (squeezing my hand), Now we have three of us in this class.” When Tretheway writes “squeezing my hand,” you can see her standing there with her head down ashamed of herself because of her color. The little girl sees the white girl as more acceptable in society so she passes herself as white which is a lie. The girl tries to claim white people as the best race. When the girl says, “I could act like my homemade dresses come straight out of the window at Maison Blanche,” it paints an image of corruption because its showing white identity taking over society and how a white dress coming from a white place is better than another dress bought from anywhere else. The little girl thinks that the white racial background is better whether it be about races, clothes, minds of white people or through acceptance in society. This shows us how important racial identity is to
Tretheway uses symbolism with soap in the text; “then washed out my mouth with Ivory soap”. This is important because this expresses how as a society, we see how back then and still today how we have problems with our racial …show more content…
The little mulatto girl lied about where she lived, where she bought her clothes, and she would also lie about her dark origin because she was just “light-bright” enough to look white. In a certain case when the girl lies about her skin color; she says, “I could even keep quiet, quiet as kept, like the time a white girl said (squeezing my hand), Now we have three of us in this class.” When Tretheway writes “squeezing my hand,” you can see her standing there with her head down ashamed of herself because of her color. The little girl sees the white girl as more acceptable in society so she passes herself as white which is a lie. The girl tries to claim white people as the best race. When the girl says, “I could act like my homemade dresses come straight out of the window at Maison Blanche,” it paints an image of corruption because its showing white identity taking over society and how a white dress coming from a white place is better than another dress bought from anywhere else. The little girl thinks that the white racial background is better whether it be about races, clothes, minds of white people or through acceptance in society. This shows us how important racial identity is to