The two stories I chose to write about and found interesting were Country Lovers by Nadine Gordimer and What It’s like to be a black girl by Patricia Smith. The comparison and contrast seems ironic because these are stories of two different ethnical backgrounds that share some of the same struggles. All the way through this paper I plan to show and tell how some of the events and stories within this paper are compared and contrast one another respectfully. In these stories racism and prejudice reared its ugly head.
The average life of a young black teenager and that of a white skinned boy from Africa lives seemed to have intertwined with one another. What it’s like to be a black girl told the story of an African woman going through terrible struggles within the society of the times. There was always prejudice and the struggles were plenty. This nine year old girl who was not comfortable with being black went so far as to try and add food coloring to her eyes to make them blue.
This story showed how the girl’s attitude and also her tone seemed to have changed over the different stages throughout her life. In the beginning she talked of being nine years old and sad. Near the end of the story she was somewhat bitter saying “to fuck with grace and fucking without it”. That was the life of a girl growing up in 1955. (Patricia Smith, 1955).
The Essay on Ideal Woman In Kincaid’s Short Story “Girl”
In an endeavor to define an ideal woman, we compare two Literature works which are the Kincaid’s short story “Girl” and Jane Martin’s play, “Rodeo”. Comparing these two works, we see two contrasting definitions of an ideal woman as they are brought out in different settings. In the Kincaid’s short story, “Girl”, we notice for instance that a girl should live a humble life that is respectful to all ...
When it comes to the perception of many, the relationship between black and white seems to be somewhat taboo in a sense. The fact that this was forbidden then and frowned upon really drives home that point.
These are two stories of innocence and the understanding that what we think as children always turn out to be wrong in the eyes of older adults. Being raised in the south, I know from first -hand experience that the struggles of African Americans and people from other countries as well. In our country this has been well documented. This is truly a story of a young black girl transitioning into a woman and trying to come to grips with the fact that her body is changing and having to accept that.
