Percival

“Sir Percival, Sir Percival, I’m here, I’m here! I have my own sword and everything!” On a stifling summer morning in Camelot, Sir Percival turned and saw a little boy, about age five or six, bounding toward him. The young boy’s shaggy brown hair bounced as he raced forward, and his cheeks were flushed bright pink due to exertion. Only a few paces away from Percival now, the little boy tripped over the too-large sword he carried, and the weapon went sailing into the air. Percival was forced to duck to avoid the flying projectile. Meanwhile, the child stumbled forward and collapsed on the castle training field face first at Percival’s feet. “Friend of yours?” asked Sir Gwaine, Percival’s best mate and fellow Knight of Camelot. He shucked off his sweaty padded gambeson and chuckled. The rest of the knights…

out a bat that would win the team the pennant. When Roy was down no balls and two strikes, he felt a sense of defeat. Through the inspiration and confidence of the bat boy that Roy would succeed, his new bat, “Savory Special” enabled him to recover from him fear and win the pennant for the Knights. In the novel, Bernard Malamud, based the series of events off the arthurian legends. The main character, Roy Hobbs is characterized as Sir Percival. His baseball bat named, Wonderboy, represents…

“It was a dark and stormy night…” Sitting before the campfire with his fellow knights, Gwaine groaned. “Percival, it’s supposed to be a scary story. Not a dull tale with a trite start. We’re out on a dull mission! Keep us entertained.” “Fine.” The dancing firelight cast shadows across Percival’s face as his eyes narrowed. “What about a real story? Something more frightening than you can imagine. Something macabre.” Gwaine kicked up his feet onto a rock and grinned. “I am intrigued. Carry…

Despite efforts by early anthropologists to distinguish between races of humans, biologically and genetically all humans are similar to each other. Which leaves the conclusion that race is a social construct. In America, this major societal aspect yielded by those who have racial superiority complexes, whites, while the darker skin-toned Americans are the most marginalized. In Erasure, author Percival Everett argues against this collective “blackness” which so dominates society’s perception of…

Percival and Gwaine had been friends from the moment they met as rambunctious ten-year-olds. Their friendship had deepened over the years, but it was only when they were separated by a continent that they realized that they both wanted something more. Phone calls and Skype kept them going during the semester Percival spent in Japan teaching English, but once his contract was up, the tall blond was on the next plane home to Gwaine. Now, five years on, Percival felt the time was right to take…

Race and class are often combined; which can result in the questioning of someone’s authenticity when they do not act like the stereotype of a particular class. In Percival Everett’s Erasure, the story depicts an African American novelist who is unrecognized for his literary work due to his lack of ability to carry himself in the mannerisms associated with being an African American man. This confined point of view of how a group should convey themselves, places the African American into a crowd…

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim” (Wilde 1). However, on occasion art begins beautiful and then alters negatively. This is the case in both Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Percival Everett’s Erasure. Although the stories within each are very different in nature, they are interconnected in the way that the work of art within each alters and changes. Plato stated in Phaedrus, “writing has one grave fault in common with…

Percival White considered himself a marketing engineer and reasoned businesses could obtain valuable marketing intelligence through interviews and questionnaires (Hermans, n.d.). He was one of the first specialists to apply scientific management to marketing. White concluded, after he experienced many failed businesses, that understanding why customers bought products and how they used them would help businesses design better products. His landmark book in 1921, Market Analysis, specialized…

Erasure, a satirical novel by Percival Everett, reveals the misunderstanding of African-American life through the exploitation of stereotypes and usage of stock characters. Morgenstein, the novel’s example of a white character blinded by wealth, reinforces the growing rift between upper middle class whites and African-Americans through his hesitation when he says, “More…” and his tone when he says, “I don’t know, tougher or something.”. The word, “More…” is the most succinct representation of…

Colorism is the discrimination and or prejudice of one based not strictly on ethnicity but on skin color. Despite the belief that colorism does not exist in “post racial” America, it is actually true that colorism still exists in America today. In the novel I AM NOT Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett the main protagonist was a victim of colorism by his girlfriend’s parents. They believed he was too dark to date their light-skinned daughter. Despite disputing assertions, this blatant prejudice is…