The Lesson By Toni Bambar The Perseverance Of African American Society
The Perseverance of the African American Society
Nakia Gray
ENG 125
Marc McGrath
September 20, 2010
The Perseverance of the African American Society
The African American society has gone through years of challenges and turmoil. Through all the years, African American people have demonstrated the ability to overcome some of the most devastating events. This society of people has shown complete demonstration of perseverance of any society of people to live within the United States of America. With any community, all people are a product of their environment and will conduct themselves according to their society. This stands true with writers as well. I feel writers will write based on their surroundings and their environment. …show more content…
The work of these authors is generated to target certain groups from certain societies, normally the readers can relate to either the author or the story being told.
All of the authors come from different walks, but when it is all said and done, they have similar views and desires. These authors were more about education and opportunity for the individuals which were to come after them. These individuals paved the way for future writers, whether they were to be African Americans or any other groups of people within our societies. They did the things they felt were necessary for other to be successful.
In the story “The Lesson”, written by Toni Bambara, gave a great illustration of what African Americans went through during that particular time period.
During the early to mid 1900’s, the author was able to illustrate the life of this society from childhood all the way to adulthood. This story was written in a particular language which was relative to the environment of these children and the neighborhood they were being raised in. The children in “The Lesson” were a definite product of their society. The spoke, walked and conduct themselves according to the way they were raised and taught. The actions and conduct of the adults could be observed within the actions and conduct of the children. The author in this story used a college educated black woman, who took specific interest in helping to develop the young children in her neighborhood. She wanted to teach them that education was important and that they could achieve anything they set their minds to achieve. Miss Moore would take the children uptown to where the upper-class society lived, shopped, and frequent to show the children what other people had. She wanted the children to see that where they were from is who they are, but she also wanted them to understand it did not have to be that way (DiYanni, 2007). She also attempted to stress to the children that poor people had to demand their share of what society had (DiYanni, …show more content…
2007).
As many of the children of today’s society, they were not very interested in “The Lesson” Miss Moore was attempting to give them. All the children really cared about were enjoying their summer with their friends, going to the movies and neighborhood supermarket. The children did not understand the lesson being taught by Miss Moore, even though she really went out of way to get them to have an understanding. I think this story was a great illustration of the African American society and the author really illustrated the society as it was during that time period. In this story, I wondered if the author was writing about herself as Miss Moore or whether she was writing about herself as a young child growing up in an environment similar to what she illustrated in her story. Either way she did a great job in providing enough information that allowed the reader to become in tune with the story. The details in the story really gave the reader enough information to relate or transfer themselves into the story.
Toni Bambara was from New York; she lived during the mid 1900s. She earned her degree from Queens College. She put much of her efforts into educating young black women and dispelled many of the myths held by whites and blacks during that period (DiYanni, 2007). She wanted individuals from her community to strive to achieve and not feel as they were being oppressed.
The story “Girl”, written by Jamaica Kincaid was another great example of a story written during a time period, but also relates the readers to a specific society. This is told based on a dialogue between a mother and a daughter, where she is teaching the daughter lessons. The mother is teaching the daughter how to behave as a young woman and how not to act as she terms it, “like a slut” (DiYanni, 2007). The language in the story is key to the readers understanding the relationship between the mother and her daughter and is written in the process of the mother passing onto the daughter specific directions on how to carry out specific domestic responsibilities within the home. She stresses to the daughter how to wash clothes, sew clothes, specific cleaning of the home, sweeping the house, setting the table and ironing (DiYanni, 2007). The mother is so involved in the daughter’s business and keeps her close to her and does everything a mother should do to raise her daughter to be a respectable young lady. The mother’s actions in this story demonstrate strong identification of the daughter-mother relationship. As the story continues, it demonstrates the tensions between the mother and daughter from a prolonged period of time between mother and child. This particular metaphor is a great example of what happens often within the typical mother-daughter relationship. After time, the daughter gets annoyed with the constant teaching from the mother and eventually leads to acts of disobedience towards the mother.
I feel this is a great metaphor as it basically illustrates how to become something or someone. The mother is only demonstrating to her daughter how she needs to conduct herself and stresses that her actions can lead others to have an assumption of you. So I think the author here does a tremendous job for the readers to understand the story being told. This story again relates to a time period and also relates to a specific society. The language spoken in this story is mostly the language spoken from the African American society and based on my own experiences in life is that spoken by a mother trying to teach her teenage daughter how to be right and maintain the home like a lady. It also resembles the time period of when the women maintained the home and the men went to work everyday.
Jamaica Kincaid is from Antigua, where she also went to school. She was faced with family issues as a child and into her teenage years. She comes from a broken home and was unsupported by her family. Her family did not approve of her being a writer or reader, and built a bonfire with her books. She later moved to the United States and became a successful writer in New York (DiYanni, 2007). The story of Kincaid is also very similar among the African American community. There are a lot of parents that will attempt to hold their children back from getting a good education, because they may feel that the child is the reason they were not given better educational opportunities. There are some parents that feel that maintaining the household is more important than getting an education.
In the “Marriage Is a Private Affair”, written by Chinua Achebe, is another story that has drama and conflict. This story also involves an African society and is based upon a traditions and belief during a specific time period. The story is written in the third person, and involves a father and his son. This story is primarily directed for the African American audience. The theme of the story is dedication and devotion to the future. The son in this story is completely dedicated to his wife, regardless of how his father feels about it. Within the story it is states that marriage is a private life story representing two phases of our society. The first is the older generation bounded by tradition and the second is the new generation that does not believe in the same traditions and values as the older generation. It illustrates the similarities and differences between today’s generation’s attitudes toward love and marriage and those of the generation before. The story conveys that today’s marriages are completely a private affair, where in the past parents chose their children’s life partner. The problem with that is that the personal freedom of the children comes in between the choice of their parent which normally leads to conflict. The mood during this story is if you are pregnant if affects the marriage; for some it makes the marriage stronger, but for others it ruins the marriage (DiYanni, 2007).
I think this story is a great example of our past and demonstrates the control parents had over their children, compared to now. Young adults are much more in control of their lives in today’s society, but this at times will create conflicts and problems that would not necessarily have existed in the past. Many parents go out of their way to mentor and develop their children and this story is just another example of this. Parents I’m sure felt that by them choosing their children’s partner, they have selected someone that will be their life partner, which probably ensured or at a minimum kept the divorce rate to a minimum. All of these things are tied in within the African American society, as the way the society of African Americans talk, think, and conduct themselves is a demonstration of a particular society within the American society.
Chinua Achebe is another established writer; he is from Nigeria and is one of a few natives from the homeland that writes in English. The significance of Achebe is that he too was alive during the time period where African Americans were “oppressed”. He took it upon himself to become educated, which is demonstrated by him learning English as a child (DiYanni, 2007). I think he relates to his writings because of the nature of traditions of the men from his native land. In his story “Marriage is a Private Affair”; he may relate to this story as the men of his native land are full of pride and will normally control the household.
Another great example of how the African American heritage functions is in the story “Everyday Use”, by Alice Walker. In this story Walker tells the story of a mother and her two daughters. They all have conflicting ideas and where they have come from and their ancestors. There seems to be a bit of identity crisis between the three women. The story is narrated by the mother, who is illustrated in the story as a rural black woman, who is traditionally a direct example of the southern society. The mother is described as a “big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands” (DiYanni, 2007). In the beginning of the story the mother her daughter Maggie are awaiting the arrival of the older daughter, who is described as a educated young woman that has moved and lives in the city. The story tells how when the girls were younger, a fire was set, which destroyed their first house and left Maggie badly burned and scarred. The two girls have a not so perfect relationship as Maggie has a bit of envy toward her sister.
The mother has many memories of her daughter Dee, some good and others not as good.
She remembers her daughter as a self-centered girl that lacks the understanding of the identity of her family. Once the daughter shows up and greets the mother and sister, she eventually informs them that she has changed her name to an adopted African name. In the story the mother wants to give the grandmothers quilts to Dee, who wants to hang them as she is thinking she would be preserving them. The mother gets upset and snatches them from Dee and gives them to Maggie. Dee is not happy about that and insists that Maggie will ruin them with “Everyday Use” (Farrell, 1998). This is one of several points in the story where there is drama. I don’t think it is so much that Dee has a lack of identity or disrespect for her ancestors, but she just feels that she has a different way of doing things or looking at things. This is normal among people in our societies. Parents always feel they know what is best for their children, but sometimes the best lesson is the lesson learned the hard way. I enjoy the story of Alice Walker; she is a great example of perseverance. She is a woman who came up in the mid 1940s, but when she was eight she was shot in the eye by her brother with his BB gun. She lost sight in one of her eyes, but this did not hold her back. She persevered and was valedictorian in high school. After high school she pursued secondary education and attended Spellman College and Sarah
Lawrence College in New York (DiYanni, 2007).
In the African American society, parents play a large role in the development of their children, some in the negative, but many others in a very positive manner. Because of the perseverance of the African American society I would say that by leaps and bounds strides have been made and African Americans have made major contributions to our society today. A perfect demonstration of this is that the 44th President of the United States is an African American. I think with all three of the stories I have chosen to reflect upon, the moral for many people is do not resist change. For many people change is good, but there are many people that feel change is not good and rather continue life as it was taught to them as they were being raised.
Reference Page
DiYanni, R. (2007). Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. New York:
McGraw-Hill Companies
Farrell, Susan. (1998). Fight vs. flight: A re-evaluation of Dee in Alice Walker’s
“Everyday Use”. Studies in short fiction, 35(2), 179-186. Retrieved September 20,
2010, from Research Library
Nakia Gray
ENG 125
Marc McGrath
September 20, 2010
The Perseverance of the African American Society
The African American society has gone through years of challenges and turmoil. Through all the years, African American people have demonstrated the ability to overcome some of the most devastating events. This society of people has shown complete demonstration of perseverance of any society of people to live within the United States of America. With any community, all people are a product of their environment and will conduct themselves according to their society. This stands true with writers as well. I feel writers will write based on their surroundings and their environment. …show more content…
The work of these authors is generated to target certain groups from certain societies, normally the readers can relate to either the author or the story being told.
All of the authors come from different walks, but when it is all said and done, they have similar views and desires. These authors were more about education and opportunity for the individuals which were to come after them. These individuals paved the way for future writers, whether they were to be African Americans or any other groups of people within our societies. They did the things they felt were necessary for other to be successful.
In the story “The Lesson”, written by Toni Bambara, gave a great illustration of what African Americans went through during that particular time period.
During the early to mid 1900’s, the author was able to illustrate the life of this society from childhood all the way to adulthood. This story was written in a particular language which was relative to the environment of these children and the neighborhood they were being raised in. The children in “The Lesson” were a definite product of their society. The spoke, walked and conduct themselves according to the way they were raised and taught. The actions and conduct of the adults could be observed within the actions and conduct of the children. The author in this story used a college educated black woman, who took specific interest in helping to develop the young children in her neighborhood. She wanted to teach them that education was important and that they could achieve anything they set their minds to achieve. Miss Moore would take the children uptown to where the upper-class society lived, shopped, and frequent to show the children what other people had. She wanted the children to see that where they were from is who they are, but she also wanted them to understand it did not have to be that way (DiYanni, 2007). She also attempted to stress to the children that poor people had to demand their share of what society had (DiYanni, …show more content…
2007).
As many of the children of today’s society, they were not very interested in “The Lesson” Miss Moore was attempting to give them. All the children really cared about were enjoying their summer with their friends, going to the movies and neighborhood supermarket. The children did not understand the lesson being taught by Miss Moore, even though she really went out of way to get them to have an understanding. I think this story was a great illustration of the African American society and the author really illustrated the society as it was during that time period. In this story, I wondered if the author was writing about herself as Miss Moore or whether she was writing about herself as a young child growing up in an environment similar to what she illustrated in her story. Either way she did a great job in providing enough information that allowed the reader to become in tune with the story. The details in the story really gave the reader enough information to relate or transfer themselves into the story.
Toni Bambara was from New York; she lived during the mid 1900s. She earned her degree from Queens College. She put much of her efforts into educating young black women and dispelled many of the myths held by whites and blacks during that period (DiYanni, 2007). She wanted individuals from her community to strive to achieve and not feel as they were being oppressed.
The story “Girl”, written by Jamaica Kincaid was another great example of a story written during a time period, but also relates the readers to a specific society. This is told based on a dialogue between a mother and a daughter, where she is teaching the daughter lessons. The mother is teaching the daughter how to behave as a young woman and how not to act as she terms it, “like a slut” (DiYanni, 2007). The language in the story is key to the readers understanding the relationship between the mother and her daughter and is written in the process of the mother passing onto the daughter specific directions on how to carry out specific domestic responsibilities within the home. She stresses to the daughter how to wash clothes, sew clothes, specific cleaning of the home, sweeping the house, setting the table and ironing (DiYanni, 2007). The mother is so involved in the daughter’s business and keeps her close to her and does everything a mother should do to raise her daughter to be a respectable young lady. The mother’s actions in this story demonstrate strong identification of the daughter-mother relationship. As the story continues, it demonstrates the tensions between the mother and daughter from a prolonged period of time between mother and child. This particular metaphor is a great example of what happens often within the typical mother-daughter relationship. After time, the daughter gets annoyed with the constant teaching from the mother and eventually leads to acts of disobedience towards the mother.
I feel this is a great metaphor as it basically illustrates how to become something or someone. The mother is only demonstrating to her daughter how she needs to conduct herself and stresses that her actions can lead others to have an assumption of you. So I think the author here does a tremendous job for the readers to understand the story being told. This story again relates to a time period and also relates to a specific society. The language spoken in this story is mostly the language spoken from the African American society and based on my own experiences in life is that spoken by a mother trying to teach her teenage daughter how to be right and maintain the home like a lady. It also resembles the time period of when the women maintained the home and the men went to work everyday.
Jamaica Kincaid is from Antigua, where she also went to school. She was faced with family issues as a child and into her teenage years. She comes from a broken home and was unsupported by her family. Her family did not approve of her being a writer or reader, and built a bonfire with her books. She later moved to the United States and became a successful writer in New York (DiYanni, 2007). The story of Kincaid is also very similar among the African American community. There are a lot of parents that will attempt to hold their children back from getting a good education, because they may feel that the child is the reason they were not given better educational opportunities. There are some parents that feel that maintaining the household is more important than getting an education.
In the “Marriage Is a Private Affair”, written by Chinua Achebe, is another story that has drama and conflict. This story also involves an African society and is based upon a traditions and belief during a specific time period. The story is written in the third person, and involves a father and his son. This story is primarily directed for the African American audience. The theme of the story is dedication and devotion to the future. The son in this story is completely dedicated to his wife, regardless of how his father feels about it. Within the story it is states that marriage is a private life story representing two phases of our society. The first is the older generation bounded by tradition and the second is the new generation that does not believe in the same traditions and values as the older generation. It illustrates the similarities and differences between today’s generation’s attitudes toward love and marriage and those of the generation before. The story conveys that today’s marriages are completely a private affair, where in the past parents chose their children’s life partner. The problem with that is that the personal freedom of the children comes in between the choice of their parent which normally leads to conflict. The mood during this story is if you are pregnant if affects the marriage; for some it makes the marriage stronger, but for others it ruins the marriage (DiYanni, 2007).
I think this story is a great example of our past and demonstrates the control parents had over their children, compared to now. Young adults are much more in control of their lives in today’s society, but this at times will create conflicts and problems that would not necessarily have existed in the past. Many parents go out of their way to mentor and develop their children and this story is just another example of this. Parents I’m sure felt that by them choosing their children’s partner, they have selected someone that will be their life partner, which probably ensured or at a minimum kept the divorce rate to a minimum. All of these things are tied in within the African American society, as the way the society of African Americans talk, think, and conduct themselves is a demonstration of a particular society within the American society.
Chinua Achebe is another established writer; he is from Nigeria and is one of a few natives from the homeland that writes in English. The significance of Achebe is that he too was alive during the time period where African Americans were “oppressed”. He took it upon himself to become educated, which is demonstrated by him learning English as a child (DiYanni, 2007). I think he relates to his writings because of the nature of traditions of the men from his native land. In his story “Marriage is a Private Affair”; he may relate to this story as the men of his native land are full of pride and will normally control the household.
Another great example of how the African American heritage functions is in the story “Everyday Use”, by Alice Walker. In this story Walker tells the story of a mother and her two daughters. They all have conflicting ideas and where they have come from and their ancestors. There seems to be a bit of identity crisis between the three women. The story is narrated by the mother, who is illustrated in the story as a rural black woman, who is traditionally a direct example of the southern society. The mother is described as a “big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands” (DiYanni, 2007). In the beginning of the story the mother her daughter Maggie are awaiting the arrival of the older daughter, who is described as a educated young woman that has moved and lives in the city. The story tells how when the girls were younger, a fire was set, which destroyed their first house and left Maggie badly burned and scarred. The two girls have a not so perfect relationship as Maggie has a bit of envy toward her sister.
The mother has many memories of her daughter Dee, some good and others not as good.
She remembers her daughter as a self-centered girl that lacks the understanding of the identity of her family. Once the daughter shows up and greets the mother and sister, she eventually informs them that she has changed her name to an adopted African name. In the story the mother wants to give the grandmothers quilts to Dee, who wants to hang them as she is thinking she would be preserving them. The mother gets upset and snatches them from Dee and gives them to Maggie. Dee is not happy about that and insists that Maggie will ruin them with “Everyday Use” (Farrell, 1998). This is one of several points in the story where there is drama. I don’t think it is so much that Dee has a lack of identity or disrespect for her ancestors, but she just feels that she has a different way of doing things or looking at things. This is normal among people in our societies. Parents always feel they know what is best for their children, but sometimes the best lesson is the lesson learned the hard way. I enjoy the story of Alice Walker; she is a great example of perseverance. She is a woman who came up in the mid 1940s, but when she was eight she was shot in the eye by her brother with his BB gun. She lost sight in one of her eyes, but this did not hold her back. She persevered and was valedictorian in high school. After high school she pursued secondary education and attended Spellman College and Sarah
Lawrence College in New York (DiYanni, 2007).
In the African American society, parents play a large role in the development of their children, some in the negative, but many others in a very positive manner. Because of the perseverance of the African American society I would say that by leaps and bounds strides have been made and African Americans have made major contributions to our society today. A perfect demonstration of this is that the 44th President of the United States is an African American. I think with all three of the stories I have chosen to reflect upon, the moral for many people is do not resist change. For many people change is good, but there are many people that feel change is not good and rather continue life as it was taught to them as they were being raised.
Reference Page
DiYanni, R. (2007). Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. New York:
McGraw-Hill Companies
Farrell, Susan. (1998). Fight vs. flight: A re-evaluation of Dee in Alice Walker’s
“Everyday Use”. Studies in short fiction, 35(2), 179-186. Retrieved September 20,
2010, from Research Library