Maude Martha Character Analysis

However, she quickly began to realize that the racial-ideology espoused by white southerners was used as a means to oppress and subordinate the African American community. Although many blacks were content to accept discrimination, segregation, and disenfranchisement as the norm, Anne (from this moment on) refused to conform to her status as an “inferior.” Rather, she constantly questioned and criticized the treatment of African Americans, even as a young child. For example, she mentally chastised Raymond’s family for refusing to acknowledge her mother at church (pg. 61) and she refused to conform to Mrs. Burke unreasonable household rules (pg. 122). Ultimately, at this young age, Anne knew intuitively that the racial status quo in the south was morally wrong and unjust. In many ways, this awareness contributed to Anne’s tireless commitment to the cause of desegregation and racial equality later in

Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird occurs during the Great Depression. Despite the setting taking place fifty years after slavery had officially ended, Maycomb County is depicted as an immensely segregated and prejudiced town. As a result, many of the townspeople assume the characteristics of other residents through town gossip and rumors. Because having a strong opinion on controversial issues in the town could lead to cruel consequences, many of the residents’ opinions and ideas are greatly influenced by others. The fear of being judged and rejected from society causes many of Maycomb County’s people to conceal the truth about the false gossip which hoodwinks the others into misinterpreting and believing the gossip. Miss Maudie Atkinson, a young widow, is one of the few characters in the novel that displays her own individuality and protests against what she does not believe to be true. Miss Maudie's positive trait of bravery makes her an asset to the Maycomb community because through her distinctiveness, she becomes a role model for individuals such as Scout Finch.

I believe that the short story clearly presents the stereotypes of rural Black women, and the challenges and struggles that African women faced with regard to heritage, personal fulfillment, and family relations as the past collided with the present realities. The concepts of family and Black women within this short story are highlighted by the fact that the three main characters among who the story revolves are all Black women and members of the same family. The clash of the past and future, personal fulfilment, heritage struggles, and the stereotyping of rural Black women is visible in the clear contrast of attitudes and ambitions of Dee and her boyfriend, who represent the future, and mama and her daughter Maggie, who in this case embody the past.

Angelina Weld Grimké’s, Rachel, portrays an African American family’s experience and development over the course of several years during the segregation era. Act one begins in a domestic setting, introducing the main character, Rachel Loving. Rachel is eighteen, living with her mother, Mrs. Loving, and brother, Tom. Notably, the Loving household is presented as a cheerful and affectionate place, full of laughter and lightheartedness. In a like manner, Rachel emerges as warm and cheerful, yet overall naive; never once questioning the absence of her father and brother, who passed ten years earlier. Initially, Rachel is lively and passionate, bearing a deep infatuation for motherhood and constantly proclaiming her dream to raise a child. Nevertheless,

Glenda Gilmore, in her essay “Forging Interracial Links in the Jim Crow South,” attempts to tackle the charged concepts of feminism and race relations during the infamous Jim Crow era. Her analysis focuses on both the life and character of a black woman named Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a highly influential member of the community of Greensboro, North Carolina. Brown defied the odds given her gender and race and rose to a prominent place in society through carefully calculated interracial relations. Gilmore argues that in rising above what was expected of her as a black woman, Brown was forced to diminish her own struggles as a black woman, and act to placate

An End to the Neglect of the Problem of the Negro Woman by Claudia Jones

As hardworking women living of the prairie, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters can relate to Mrs. Wright’s situation. They know personally that long days of doing laundry, cooking, and cleaning can become very tiresome (Hedges 91). They realize that living on the prairie can force a woman to be confined to her own house for weeks at a time, and because Mrs. Wright never had children, the grueling loneliness that she suffered must have been excruciating. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters both experience the constant patronization and sexual discrimination that most women in the early twentieth century lived with. They empathize with the difficulties of Mrs. Wright’s life and almost immediately a bond is formed with a woman they do not even know.

Majority of African-Americans, about 89% of all black ethnicity, lived in slavery from the 1700’s to about 1863. (Mintz, “Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery”). A fictional African-American is Nanny, a woman who grew up in times when slavery was very popular. She passes on her experiences and stories to her granddaughter, Janie, which affects her decisions and choices in life. Janie Crawford receives Nanny’s advice and multiple traits in her adolescent years. Everything she had accomplished in life was based on what Nanny thought was best for her, only because she didn’t want Janie to be submissive like she was in her time of slavery. Janie, the protagonist of the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, is shown to be complex by her dialogue, thoughts, and actions. Janie was both serene and gleeful yet turbulent and upset.

Though born into slavery, Nanny had "dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do." She wanted to "preach a great sermon about colored women sittin' on high, but they wasn't no pulpit for [her]." She tries to fulfill her dreams first through her daughter and then through Janie. But slavery and years of dependence on a white family have warped

The early 1900s was a very challenging time for Negroes especially young women who developed issues in regards to their identities. Their concerns stemmed from their skin colors. Either they were fair skinned due mixed heritage or just dark skinned. Young African American women experienced issues with racial identity which caused them to be in a constant struggle that prohibits them from loving themselves and the skin they are in. The purpose of this paper is to examine those issues in the context of selected creative literature. I will be discussing the various aspects of them and to aid in my analysis, I will be utilizing the works of Nella Larsen from The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Jessie Bennett Redmond Fauset,

Gwendolyn Brooks is a famous, African American poetess who is famous for making a social commentary upon the urban society in which she lives. Clearly seen in three of her more popular poems, “the mother”, “a song in the front yard”, and “What shall I give my children? Who are poor?”, Brooks uses the struggles of impoverished motherhood to comment on the stymied lives of adult black women. This is obviously evident in her use of the tone of hopelessness, which transcends all three poems in differing forms that stem from regret in “the mother”, worry and overprotectiveness in “a song in the front yard” and frustration of lacking the necessities for children in “What shall I give my children? Who are poor”

The women of the late sixties, although some are older than others, in Alice Walker’s fiction that exhibit the qualities of the developing, emergent model are greatly influenced through the era of the Civil Rights Movement. Motherhood is a major theme in modern women’s literature, which examines as a sacred, powerful, and spiritual component of the woman’s life. Alice Walker does not choose Southern black women to be her major protagonists only because she is one, but because she had discovered in the tradition and history they collectively experience an understanding of oppression that has been drawn from them a willingness to reject the principle and to hold what is difficult. Walker’s most developed character, Meridian, is a person

There comes a point in one’s life when they must recognize the hardships placed upon them, and instead of being ignorant of those hardships, they must confront them head-on. In “Marigolds”, a short story by Eugenia Collier, the main protagonist, Lizabeth, encounters various struggles that come with living in a poor town in rural Maryland during the Depression, allowing her to learn more about growing up and accepting reality with all its flaws. Lizabeth is a 14-year-old girl who feels a conflict between her inner child and her inner woman, as she is unable to do anything that satisfies both sides of her. She feels too old to be a child, yet too young to be a

Two characters, Elisa Allen and Mary Teller, struggle with the idea of being accepted into the society of the 1930s. Women’s rights were not fully accepted in the 1930s, and these two characters were set in the common day view of men and women. In the 1930s, “[Society has] assigned to white women such roles as housewife, secretary, PTA chairman, and schoolteacher. Black women can now be schoolteachers, too, but they are most prominently assigned to such domestic roles as maid, cook, waitress, and babysitter” (Chisholm 123). These assigned roles have impacted women around the world, including the two characters in these short stories - “The Chrysanthemums” and “The White Quail”. Not being activists in women’s rights, these women conformed to society and lived their lives as any typical housewife in the 1930s. Their passions and choices during this time affected their way of living and relationships. The two stories reflect similarities of the women’s love for gardening and lonely marriages, but also reflect their different viewpoints on the world they live in.

     The essay “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” by contemporary American novelist Alice Walker is one that, like a flashbulb, burns an afterimage in my mind. It is an essay primarily written to inform the reader about the history of African American women in America and how their vibrant, creative spirit managed to survive in a dismal world filled with many oppressive hardships. This piece can be read, understood, and manage to conjure up many emotions within the hearts and minds of just about any audience that reads it. However, Walker targets African American women in today’s society in an effort to make them understand their heritage and appreciate what their mothers and