Preview

Like a Winding Sheet

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
533 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Like a Winding Sheet
JULISA WRIGHT
AML 2600
MS. THORNERS CLASS
FINAL TERM PAPER ANALYSIS
Ann Petry’s “Like a Winding Sheet “defines a pivoting time line in history even though it is a fictional short story. This story took place in 1946 in the time when all the men would be at war and the women would be in factories making all the weapons and equipments that they would need. The women were the focal point in that era because they ensured that the men overseas were well equipped to be at war. The story was set in the summer of ’46 and had numerous place settings in which the conflict took place. The main characters of the story are Mr. Johnson and his wife Mae. Mr. Johnson’s love and fondness for his wife was a true testimony in this story. It also brought about the mere fact of racism and a man’s own conscience and mind playing tricks on him. LIKE A WINDING SHEET Like a Winding Sheet, written by Ann Petry in 1945, is a story that begins with a black man's tough day at work, but takes a twisted turn. Johnson comes home after a hard day planning to kick his feet up and enjoy a relaxing evening at home with his wife, Mae. The bad sense of humour Mae possesses begins to send Johnson over the edge and suddenly, something in him snaps. Johnson brutally beats his wife, quite possibly killing her. This story is very shocking, exposing to us a reality of our society, racism. In this essay I will try to show you that racism, specially in the United-States, can be a source for an imprisonment feeling for individuals, in this case, the bl

In Ann Petry’s 1945 short story "Like a Winding Sheet,". Johnson is a black male struggling with racism and societal pressures. Johnson faces many challenges. As one reads, one cannot help but feel his anger, frustration and tenseness. Petry tells it in the following way, "The knowledge that he had struck her seeped through him slowly and he was appalled but he couldn’t drag his hands away from her face." Petry goes on further to tell us, "He had

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    During the Civil War, Women’s lives were significantly affected very largely. Women were treated so terribly that it got to the point where they tried to dress like men and fight in the war. Mainly, the women who did not fight looking like men were nurses. Both Mary Chestnut and Rebecca Adams share magnificent readings looking at the Civil War through women’s eyes.…

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    During the most brutal war of the United States, women took the field in ways never imagined. In the historical fiction novel Two Girls of Gettysburg, Rosanna finds herself amidst the chaos on the battlefield, putting the needs of injured soldiers above her own. Rosanna was never the girl to get dirty, for what would the girls at the academy she attended think? However, as the needs of her country call her husband to fight, she follows her spouse where it was thought no girl should go. She, along with many other women, began to realize the soldiers’ need for their service. Women in both the North and South risked their lives to serve the injured, sick, and diseased men whom many would have not lived without the nurses’ self-sacrificing care.…

    • 1696 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Penny Colman, Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II (New York, 1995).…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rosie The Riveter Thesis

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Rosie the Riveters show the courage women had to serve their country even with society stigmas are against them. The propaganda used during World War 2 shows the evolution of advertisement over a couple of decades. I chose these three articles for the detail of involvement women had during the war. After World War 2, social standards for women would change, creating a chain reaction across the nation for equal rights, broken segregation and stigmas to be tested. Introducing females into the work force has slowly dissolved the stereo types regarding fragile stay at home…

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Citizen, by Claudia Rankine, is a compilation of poems and writings explaining the problems with society's complacency towards racism. Rankine also points out instances where underlying racism hurts more than flat out racist remarks. The novel is riddled with images symbolizing the discrimination towards African Americans, which contribute to the overall theme of racism becoming naturalized. Citizen works to debunk these natural assumptions and feelings of the common stereotypes of African Americans. Rankine does so most convincingly by using the theme of “being thrown against a sharp white background” (pages 52-53), an idea first introduced by Zora Neale Hurston in How It Feels To Be Colored Me. This overall theme connects the book completely.…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    While King's Letter from Birmingham Jail is clear with a very direct message, Gates' In the Kitchen’s message is conveyed indirectly through subtext. Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s story is full of sensory descriptions and sentimentality. King’s essay is written to educate the reader and to instruct her how to “prepare for direct action” and “grapple with underlying causes” therefore having an instructive tone. In the Kitchen, in contrast, is a memory piece that gently, and with humor, scrapes the surface of racism and exposes what it is like to “challeng[e] follicle prestidigitation” as a black person in America. The Letter from Birmingham Jail is a vocal social cry for acceptance and “direct action”; its purpose is to school the reader and make him understand why fighting for civil rights is important at the immediate time as there is “no other alternative”. In the Kitchen shares, from personal experience, in the first person, both the realities of the daily home life of a black person and the struggles of doing one's hair; Gates' approaches racism in a way that is not obvious to a superficial reading. He delicately integrates the ideals of the black civil rights movement by telling a story of childhood experience. King's Letter from Birmingham Jail masterfully manages to confront racism head-on and urge that action be taken to uproot it without offending or disrespecting those who refuse to acknowledge the urgency of combating racism and believe action is “unwise and…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    While many occupied more traditional roles such as nurses or Daughters of the Regiment, others served as spies, while others actually went into battle alongside their male counterparts. The fact of the matter is, woman who went into battle were forced to conceal themselves, and ultimately pose as men, spending the entire war in disguise. The grit and ingenuity of some of the women discussed in this paper, demonstrate the powerful presence of women during the American Civil War. Women motivated to reunite with their family members at war performed incredible feats in order to find their loved ones while at the same time surviving the gruesome realities of war. Other women single handedly braved danger and death to help their respective sides of war, crossing enemy lines, and gathering or imparting information, and in Thompson’s case, leading to the death of a Confederate General. In the end, the women who served in the Civil War will remain within the pages of history just as valiant, and heroic, if not more so than the men they fought alongside…

    • 2480 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    For the purpose of this paper I was asked to compare two short stories that have similar meanings. The two stories I chose were “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892), and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin (1894). I chose to pick these two stories because both the authors use a variety of literary techniques, including situational irony and symbolism to portray what it was like for women in their era. They both deal with severe contrast between societal roles that men and women occupy in the 19th century.…

    • 1322 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are many lessons we can learn from In the Heat of the Night. The most important of these is that racism and segregation have negative effects on human well-being and social harmony. Common sayings represent people’s underlying moral codes. For example we like to say: “Appearances are deceptive.” and “What goes around comes around.” Each of the sayings below helps us to explore moral hazards presented by John Ball in his fascinating and powerful novel.…

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    All of the characters in this book played a pivotal role in developing the themes of the book: justice, racism, prejudice, and sexism. The use of rhetorical devices allows for the author’s ideas to surface and enable the readers to encapsulate the concept of the text. Harper Lee used…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    states exactly what was going on in the time of this story. Black people were no longer…

    • 1257 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Right Place, Wrong Face

    • 909 Words
    • 4 Pages

    As I strolled home from work on a late night, I heard a loud siren with blue and red lights headed my way. Minding my own business, I kept walking because I absolutely knew the cops were not looking for an innocent man like me. The police car got closer and closer, quickly approaching my side. I noticed my shoes were untied, and I bent down to tie them. Within a blink of an eye, I was being arrested for attempted robbery because I was black and out late at night. In “Right Place, Wrong Face” by Alton Fitzgerald White, the stage is set for racial prejudice against an innocent man. Racial prejudice is not rare based on someone’s race or color. The way society provides a certain image for a particular set of people decreases their opportunity of showing their true character. Unfortunately White was caught in the right place at the wrong time, which led to his unjust arrest at his Harlem apartment building. His perception of everything was forever changed.…

    • 909 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The narrator was conscious that “there were some black and brown boys and girls” (Johnson 13) at his school and that they were “in some way looked down upon” (13), but as for race and racism, the narrator was entirely ignorant, until his principal segregated him from the other white students in his class. For the first time in his life he “noticed the ivory whiteness” (15) of his skin, which led him to…

    • 1088 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lee illustrates the prevalence of discrimination and racial profiling in America’s 1930’s. That is still the case in world today. Attitudes towards inequality in a negative way can bring out an ugly side of a person, one message Lee shows in her novel. An example of a negative attitudes towards minorities are racial slurs. Racial slurs, also used in the book, are tossed around like they do not mean anything. This exemplifies that the race or group being discriminated against are still inferior like in the book that is based in the 1930’s.…

    • 370 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tillie Olson’s “I Stand Here Ironing” is a story told from the perspective of a young mother during the Great Depression. The woman reflects on the hardships she faced while raising her first-born child, Emily. The mother’s experiences were common to many women. The 1930s was a time when patriarchy was prevalent. Women were expected to adhere to domestic duties and pass these practices on to their daughters. Women strove to find husbands to care for them and start families with. Few women obtained the satisfaction of fulfilling their personal ambitions. After years of striving to fit the socially constructed role of a “woman,” the mother in the story regrets the decisions she made and feels a lack of accomplishment. Emily shares this realization as she witnesses and learns from the mistakes of her mother. She refuses to conform to societal norms in the hopes of achieving a fulfilling life. From the feminist critical perspective, I interpret this story as a depiction of women in a male-dominated society who progress from blind subjugation to realization, resulting in the desire for their daughters to accomplish the things they could not.…

    • 1156 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays