Literature and Time
Literature and Time
"What lasts is what is written. We look to literature to find the essence of an age" --- Peter Brodie What the quote above is saying is that literature is left within the time that it was written. So when one reads a piece of literature, they read about more than just what the author writes. They also may learn what kind of person the author is, or when the author lived. Literature gives readers insight as to what life was like around a certain time period. This can be seen in the novels of Invisible Man and Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter through the characters of Trueblood, Nai Nai, and Big Sister. Trueblood, from Ellison’s Invisible Man, shows what time period he lives in through his dialect, and where he lives. Nai Nai, from Yen Mah’s Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter, shows what time period she lived in through her tiny and bounded feet. Lastly, Big Sister shows what time period she lived in through her arranged marriage and her living in Communist China. Trueblood in Ellison’s Invisible Man, shows that he lived in the Reconstruction time period through the way he spoke. A lot of his words were shortened, or said a lot more differently than how they are supposed to be pronounced. Since a lot of African Americans were uneducated back then, the way they spoke was a lot different. An example of how he spoke is when he tried to explain to Mr. Norton what happened between his wife, daughter, and him. He explained, “You see suh, it was cold and us didn’t have much fire. Nothin’ but wood, no coal. I tried to git help but wouldn’t nobody help us and I couldn’t find no work or nothin’. It was so cold that all of us had to sleep together; me, the ole lady, and the gal. That’s how it all started, suh” (Ellison 53). The way Trueblood spoke shows that he was uneducated and spoke as if he were still in the slave times. He also shows what time period he lived in through where he lived. Trueblood
"What lasts is what is written. We look to literature to find the essence of an age" --- Peter Brodie What the quote above is saying is that literature is left within the time that it was written. So when one reads a piece of literature, they read about more than just what the author writes. They also may learn what kind of person the author is, or when the author lived. Literature gives readers insight as to what life was like around a certain time period. This can be seen in the novels of Invisible Man and Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter through the characters of Trueblood, Nai Nai, and Big Sister. Trueblood, from Ellison’s Invisible Man, shows what time period he lives in through his dialect, and where he lives. Nai Nai, from Yen Mah’s Chinese Cinderella: The True Story of an Unwanted Daughter, shows what time period she lived in through her tiny and bounded feet. Lastly, Big Sister shows what time period she lived in through her arranged marriage and her living in Communist China. Trueblood in Ellison’s Invisible Man, shows that he lived in the Reconstruction time period through the way he spoke. A lot of his words were shortened, or said a lot more differently than how they are supposed to be pronounced. Since a lot of African Americans were uneducated back then, the way they spoke was a lot different. An example of how he spoke is when he tried to explain to Mr. Norton what happened between his wife, daughter, and him. He explained, “You see suh, it was cold and us didn’t have much fire. Nothin’ but wood, no coal. I tried to git help but wouldn’t nobody help us and I couldn’t find no work or nothin’. It was so cold that all of us had to sleep together; me, the ole lady, and the gal. That’s how it all started, suh” (Ellison 53). The way Trueblood spoke shows that he was uneducated and spoke as if he were still in the slave times. He also shows what time period he lived in through where he lived. Trueblood