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Raisin Cane: A Harlem Renaissance Odyssey And Siddhartha

Decent Essays

The issue of identity has been an ongoing struggle for individuals from all cultural background and throughout all time periods. The question of the self is asked and answered in both, Siddhartha: An Indian Tale and Raisin Cane: A Harlem Renaissance Odyssey. In Hermann Hesse’s novella, Siddhartha: An Indian Tale, Hesse provides an unusual approach towards achieving Nirvana, enlightenment. Although the group setting has an impact in the story line, Hesse uses individualistic ideas and methods to contrast the character’s search for identity. Harry Clark’s theatrical performance Raisin’ Cane: A Harlem Renaissance Odyssey, expresses collective cultural identification in African-Americans during the Harlem period of the 1920’s. These two works of …show more content…

The performance itself is a band of African-Americans who exhibit their individual talents to celebrate the achievements of the race they belong to, African-Americans. During the Harlem Renaissance, Blacks developed a sense of identity in the Unites States that no person could eradicate from them. They were not whites and they knew it being proud of their culture. Due to their oppression as a society, a sense of fight and identity rose in that population. In the poem To Usward by Gwendolyn B. Bennett, she expresses that “Not still with lethargy and sloth,/But quiet with the pushing of our growth./Not self-contained with smug identity/But conscious of the strength in entity” (6-9, Barbee, 2008). Bennett explains that African-Americans do not need conceited ideologies because individuals know their strengths regarding the community. They do not need a false sense of pride in order for their voices to be heard and grow. Additionally, throughout the poem Bennett talks in first person plural defining man in relation to the group. By using pronouns, ‘we’ and ‘us,’ she includes every

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