Race and Ethnicity: Analysis of Literary Works
Beverly J. Roach
Engkish Literature 125
Professor: Paul Wiltz
July 20, 2012
Race and Ethnicity: Analysis of Literary Works
Introduction
Exploring cultural literary works give us the luxury to travel across the world through our imagination. More importantly, we can travel within ourselves to see and evaluate how we perceive, how we feel about certain issues in our personal lives, and in society. Furthermore, evaluating literary works reveals the human experience in us, in such an artful way that it becomes a great exciting journey for us as the reader.
In this paper, I will compare and contrast the literary works of two writers’, Nadine Gordimer and Alice Walker. Both writings story provides a snapshot picture of racial inequality. In addition; we will discuss the similarities and different the literary elements of each story, such as its theme, content, form and style. (Clugston, 2010).
I have chosen, “Country Lovers” and “The Welcome Table” because of their intriguing themes of racial background and ethnicities that are represented. (Clugston, 2010).
Also, growing up in a discriminatory situation creates a more dramatic story in my opinion.
Both writers have dealt with the negativity of racism, and choose to write about it in a way that makes the reader think and feel what the characters are feeling. Although, each author has chosen different ways of portraying their theme, they share the same dilemma of racial inequality.
The Term Paper on Comparison And Contrast Of Two Literary Works
... stories shared some common general features with racial themes but were also different in some ways. This essay compared and contrasted the two literary works, ... to whites…” (Anonymous, 2009). These heartless laws segregated the two ethnicities in civilization such as restrooms, buses, schools, restaurants, or any ...
Discussion
Content
The main themes in “Country Lovers” are love and racial politics. Also, the setting was in South Africa during the time of Apartheid when mix races weren’t accepted. In contrast, the main themes of “The Welcome Table” are impartial Christ-like love and racism, with the setting in the south in the state of Georgia, during segregation time period. (Clugston, 2010).
The old black woman in “The Welcome Table” commits the social indiscretion of going to the white people’s church on a Sunday morning. When she failsace to take the polite hints extended to her, she is ejected from the congregation and ultimately walks down the road with a benevolent Jesus to her peaceful death. In its many ironic reversals of social roles, expectations, and events, this story uses the formal structure of parable also and suggests its derivation from the biblical heritage of Walker’s church-going childhood. The title is from a spiritual thought. (Helena, 2001).
Similarly, from a racial inequality perspective, divided into two distinct parts, the structure of “Town and Country Lovers” reflects the divided nature of South African society under apartheid. The settings that characterize these two sections—the “town” and the “country”—draw attention to the implications of racial segregation and gendered hierarchies for considering one’s place in terms of geographical, social, and political contexts. In the first part of the story, set in the city, a white Austrian geologist becomes sexually involved with a “coloured girl” who works in the drugstore across the street from his apartment. Although Gordimer depicts this relationship from the perspective of the geologist, she indicates that the young woman comes from a world that is separated from that of the geologist. Gordimer tells us that the young woman “lived a bus- and train-ride away” from the businesses and from where white people such as the geologist live, “in a township for people of her tint” and that her body betrays “its sense of being out of place” in the geologist’s apartment. The second part of the story, set on the veldt, similarly juxtaposes the “place” of the farmer’s son with that of the black girl who works for his father. Read together, the two parts of the story contrast the social and political positions of the men and the women, illustrating through sexual relationships with white men the intense confinement, abjection, and disfranchisement that women of colour experience.
The Essay on “This is the story of a young man/woman who was able to escape from a difficult past to make a success of…”
I tuned off the school principal's voice at this point, ignoring his excited gestures and flying spittle.I was eight then. The man came out of nowhere, and I remember pain, horror, screaming, torn clothes, more screaming…It was only afterwards, in the hospital, that I understood what had happened to me. Twenty years ago the society wasn't exactly sympathetic towards rape victims; it still isn't ...
Because interracial sexual relationships are prohibited under apartheid, the “town and country lovers” are in violation of South African law. Both illicit affairs result in trials that draw attention to the role of the state in breeding its own destruction, and both sections of the story end with quotations from the newspaper coverage of their respective trials. By providing a glimpse of how complex and wrenching stories like these might be portrayed in the press, Gordimer demonstrates the ability of fiction to afford a truer picture of the sexual tensions and institutionalized bigotry that characterize societies ordered by colonial regimes. (Lazar, 1997).
A particularly striking example of racism is “The Welcome Table”: having been ejected bodily from an all-white church, an old black lady meets Christ on a local road, walks and talks with him, and then is found frozen to death, with eyewitnesses left wondering why she had been walking down that cold road all alone, talking to herself. (Walker, 2003).
Form
The short story, “Country Lovers” is in third person point of view. Third person point of view is expressed by someone who is not a participant in the story (Clugston, 2010).
It is referred to as an omniscient point of view when the thoughts and feelings of only one of the characters are related (Clugston, 2010).
The point of view is consistent through the entire story. I believe that Nadine Gordimer told this story to show how racism affects people in South Africa. Racism affects people both directly and indirectly. Paulus and Thebedi were affected directly and their baby was affected indirectly. In “Country Lovers,” a white boy and a black girl grow up together and become teenage lovers. Although the girl, Thebedi, marries a black man, she soon gives birth to a child that was no doubt fathered by Paulus, her white lover. At the story’s end, the child is dead and the parents stand trial, but insufficient evidence fails to convict either parent for violating the law. (Hubel, 2002)
The Term Paper on Black Woman Harlem White Women
... Black woman and the White man stirred up anger and resentment from White women (Finkelman, Paul 18-20). The White southern woman scorned the Black womans physical attributes. The White woman ... outstanding visual stories of black painters and sculptors. Unfortunately, whites controlled the black exhibition of black art, ... table. This is an unfair image because it basically states that the Black woman ...
The main idea found all over The Welcome Table is concerning black women who desire to run away and be liberated but who are deprived of that sovereignty by the people she lives with and by her husband. Black men are depicted in a depressing light and are made to be the tyrants of their women.
The old woman in “The Welcome Table” exemplifies the ague that, though troubled from without, is aware of what is necessary for its fullness and tranquillity. Her story is about her relationship to God which, for her, is above and beyond any conventions to which people have oriented their solutions. In contrast to the young flower heroines of this volume, she is described in nature imagery that expresses endurance rather than sensuality: “She was angular and lean as the colour of poor grey Georgia earth, beaten by king cotton and the extreme weather.” Rather than smelling of flowers, she smells of “decay and musk–the fermenting scent of onionskins and rotting greens.” (Walker, 2003).
Again, Walker uses the third person, “She” and “They,” rather than the first person “I.” This time she uses it so that we can hear both the old woman’s mind and those opposed to her ague, so that we can experience the contrast in spirit. For what she must do is preparing her to be welcomed into the arms of her Jesus. For that overwhelming reason, she goes to the big white church without any regard for the breach of Southern convention she is committing. All that she is concerned with is the “singing in her head.” In contrast they see her act as contrariness. They see her as black and old, doubly terrifying to them because one state awaits them all, and the other frightens them. So they are able to throw her out of their church even as they beseech their God, according to convention, for protection and love.
The Research paper on Young Women Media Research Images
In this chapter I aim to gain a through understanding of sociological methods and to look at various methods and their merits and problems, i. e. quantitative etc. I will also attempt to show the methods that will be used in study, and asses the reasons for my choice. It will also be beneficial to look at possible problems and measures to minimise these problems At a basic level research falls ...
Walker contrasts the two points of view in “The Welcome Table” in much the same way as she does the Child and the Father in “The Child Who Favoured Daughter.” Neither the old black woman nor the white congregation has names or specific identifying characteristics, except that each lives in Georgia. This absence of personalized detail gives the characters a quality that is both archetypal and Southern while it emphasizes the contrast in the way the old woman and the white congregation relate to Southern convention. (Graff, 2007)
According to white Southern thought, Christianity is the system upon which its culture and definition of woman and man is based. The words of the old spiritual, the epigraph of this story, embodies this old black woman’s relationship to her Jesus:
A. I’m going to sit at the welcome table
B. shout my troubles over
C. Walk and talk with Jesus
D. Tell God how you treat me
E. One of these days
F. Spiritual (Walker, 2003).
One stereotypical image of the Southern black woman is that of the fanatically religious old mammy so in love with a white Jesus that she becomes the white man’s pawn. “The Welcome Table” obliterates that image as it probes the depth of black Southern tradition. For this old woman cracks the conventional shell of white Southern Christianity, and penetrates the whiteness of Jesus’ face to “the candle . . . is glowing behind it,” for she insists on the validity of her own faith and tradition and on the integrity of her relationship with her God. Walker further reinforces the integrity of a black Christian tradition, of which Southern black women were the heralds, by dedicating her composition of her spiritual in prose form to Clara Ward, the great black gospel singer. For, like the slaves in their spirituals, the old black woman in “The Welcome Table” makes Christianity her own, going beyond its European images to its truth as it applies to her. It is her spirit that “walked without stopping.” (Jones & Margaret, 1995)
This old woman’s act, and the acts, words, even dreams of so many of Walker’s protagonists in this volume appear to others, sometimes even to themselves, as manifestations of the innate contrariness of black women. The term, contrary, is used more often and with greater emphasis in Afro-American culture than it is in white culture. In fact, blacks often use it as if they all suffer from it. Yet behind their use of the word it is a grudging respect for, sometimes even a gleeful identification with, a resistance to authority. (Graff, 2007)
The Term Paper on Selecting An Automated Library System For Finnish Research Libraries
1 The Present Situation All Finnish academic libraries and a number of other Finnish research libraries have used the VTLS software during the 90’s. The contract with VTLS Inc. was signed in 1988 and implementation took place during the following years. A uni? ed network called Linnea was created, consisting of the local installations and a common physical union catalogue which all were connected ...
Both stories are told in a straightforward manner and tone, but the emotional impact of the events is strongly suggested. In the compact form of a short story, Gordimer effectively captures the impact of South African laws upon individual lives.
Style
Most of Gordimer’s stories and novels evoke a sense of compassion for the characters, who are enmeshed in circumstances of their own creation. She manages to develop in her readers a genuine sympathy — even an empathy — for them; understanding, forgiveness, identification are her goals rather than condemnation, advocacy, and partisanship. Further, she manages to show the ineffable bond between individuals of different races, social status, and value systems that can be developed and sustained by respect for individuals as such: Almost all of her characters come from divergent backgrounds, yet they somehow manage to find fulfilment in each other. “Town and Country Lovers” shows the gradual growth and maturation of love between couples and suggests that when that love is fulfilled in sexual relations, it is honest and honourable — though it can be destroyed through the interposition of an artificial, arbitrary, and extrinsic morality. Ultimately, this becomes a question of whether persons should be allowed to decide their own course in life or be obliged to accept a dictated one. (Gordimer, 1988)
It is significant in the Welcome Table, that the white men, all of whom seem younger than the old black woman, are the ones who express this confusion. It is the white women who are clear about their true relationship to this old black woman, for they do not idealize it. From their point of view, in her coming to their church, this old black woman challenges the very thing that gives them privilege. Both they and she are women–but they are white, their only claim to the pedestal on which they so uneasily stand. (Gaynor, 2012)
The Research paper on Business Research Study Of Wal-Mart’s Profitability
When first quarter results came in for Wal-Mart, the new CEO was not too happy and quickly recognized the challenges he would face as he strategized to increase sales. The results showed that profits decreased by 5% and that the future months were not looking good for the organization. Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer and has witnessed its fifth straight quarterly decline in U.S. sales ( ...
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that race and ethnicity have been sorrowfully discussed in both works “The Welcome Table” by Alice Walker and “Town and Country Lovers” by Gordimer. Racism is popularly conceived of as a form of hate. The existence of “hate groups” in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere is one impetus for this type of characterization. (Saperstein, 2012).
While the proliferation of hate group ideology, through print media, the Internet, and other forms of mass communication, as well as the violence associated with racial supremacist groups, are forceful examples of racism, the expression of hatred is not a component to all aspects of racial inequality. For instance, when members of an “inferior” or devalued racial group pay more for goods and services because of where they live, they are discriminated against by industries that control the distribution of resources. This is an example of racism that has more to do with economic exploitation than hatred. (Gaynor, 2012).
References
Clugston, R.W. (2010).
Journey into literature. San Diego, California: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/books
Engle, Lars. (1989).
The political uncanny: the Novels of Nadine Gordimer. The Yale Journal of Criticism, 2 (2), 101. Retrieved June 30, 2012 from Research Library. (Document ID: 5969500).
Gaynor, A. (2012).
The Racial, Ethnic, and Social Class Achievement Gaps: A Systems Analysis International Education Studies, 5(1), 28-49. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from Research Library. (Document ID: 2645551021).
Glenn, Ian. (1994), Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzec, and the politics of interpretation. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 93 (1), 11. Retrieved July 1, 2012 from Research Library. (Document ID: 6178470).
Jones, Margaret C. (1995).
Reviews, Liberating Literature: Feminist Fiction in America by Maria Lauret [review of “The Welcome Table”]. Journal of American Studies, 3, 29,465. Retrieved July 1, 2012 from Research Library (Document ID: 9109032).
Kitchen, Judith. (1995, April).
Nadine Gordimer: The Realism of Possibility. The Georgia Review, 49(1), 284. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from Research Library. (Document ID: 4582879).
Lazar, Karen. (1997).
“A feeling of realistic optimism”: An interview with Nadine Gordimer. Salmagundi, (113), 150-165 +. Retrieved June 30, 2012, from Research Library. (Document ID: 11623095).
Postel, G. (2007).
The Diviner’s Task: Confinement and Transformation through Myth and Ritual in Gordimer’s The Conservationist1. Research in African Literatures, 38(4), 47-60. Retrieved June 29, 2012, from Research Library, (Document ID: 1367728581).
Porter, Evette (2003, March).
Absolute, Black Issues Book Review, 5(2), 34-38. Retrieved June 29, 2012, from Research Library. (Document ID: 326554111).
Saperstein, A. (2012).
Capturing complexity in the United States which aspects of race matter and when? Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(8), 1484. Retrieved July 1, 2012 from Research Library. (Document ID: 2700965571).
Walker, A. (2008).
LEST WE FORGET: AN OPEN LETTER TO MY SISTERS. The Black Scholar, 38(1), 44. Retrieved July 1, 2012 from research Library. (Document ID: 1521034401).
Walker, Alice. (2003, February).
The Welcome Table (published in 1967).
Literary Cavalcde, 55(5), 32-35. Retrieved July 1, 2012 from Research Library. (Document ID: 276937311).
