Stereotypes In Ula Taylor's 'The Death Of Dry Tears'

Narrative Paper
Ever since the beginning on mankind, societal inequalities have existed, and as a result, stereotypes are placed upon groups of people. As time went on, more groups emerged in society, covering race, gender, wealth, ability, etc. Therefore, more stereotypes are assigned to the groups of people. Due to the fact that not all groups describe one category( black and white describes race, male and female describes gender, etc. ), people fall into multiple categories, and thus, are subjected to multiple stereotypes. Fields of studies, such as African American studies, have been established in order to examine the stereotypes and their effects on a group of interest. Unfortunately, fields of study do not focus on intersectionality, …show more content…
Although not particularly close to her colleagues, Taylor knew that they were not only influential to their respective departments but also to her own work, which explains why Taylor felt the impact of the passing of her colleagues as much as she did. She, then, tells her story of struggling with losses of loved ones and how she recovered from these losses and continue with her life. The main obstacle that she had to overcome was crying wet tears instead of dry one. What makes it difficult for Taylor to make this transition was the fact that she was swamped with work which hindered her from fully accepting her losses. She tried to progress with her work and deal with her losses simultaneously, and as a result, she was only able to cry dry tears. In this article, dry tears symbolize suppressed sadness. By holding back her emotions, she is unable to grieve correctly and healthily. She eventually made the correct decision to take a break from her work in order to “learn how to grieve in a healthy way” (177) and to “seek out new experiences (178), one of which is learning how to swim. This marks an important event in Taylor’s life because it “completely altered my relationship with water-and ultimately to wet tears”(178). Now that she is able to cry wet tears again, she is able to resume progressing in …show more content…
One friend in particular, was going through the roughest of times, and I only found out his situation after his situation was cleared up. He showed signs that should have triggered red flags, but with high school students nowadays, it is difficult to tell who is seriously in trouble, as the red flags are desensitized. It seems that everyone is going through a terrible time, but I digress. My friend lost his grandparents, and all he showed was disinterestedness in schoolwork and sports. He repeatedly declined invitations to hang out with the squad. Eventually, he didn’t show up to class for a week or two, and I just assumed he was suffering from a cold or something similar. When the next semester started, he seemed back to normal, so maybe he recovered from his cold. He started trying in this tennis matches. He contributed even more than what he used to during Socratic Seminars. Everything seemed in order. Near the end of senior school year, we were ordered to give a presentation on a world problem, and he chose depression. During his presentation, he brought up his own struggle with depression caused by the passing of his grandparents near the end of the first semester. Everything made sense now. His underperformance in sports and academics was caused by his internal struggle to cope with the lost of his loved ones. However, he managed to grief properly during his time away from