Summary Of Ntozake Shange's Poem For Colored Girls

During the entirety of the poem the speaker uses the contrast of light and dark to illustrate the divide of Caucasian and Native American in her life and the specific wording she uses throughout shows that she is ends up moving away from her white heritage’s side. We first start to see that she is upset with her white roots when she states that her mother left her with “large white breasts” that weigh down her body. This statement is quite important. With the addition of the word “white” and the use of the words “weigh down” the narrator seems to be implying that it is a burden to carry the whiteness. Also, the narrator uses specific wording in this statement in order to disassociate herself from her own white leanings since she refers to her breasts as if they were her mothers and not her own. The next time she mentions the word white comes in the third stanza. The speaker devotes an entire line to the short phrase “and is white” almost as if to single out that word in the poem and signify that being white

To begin with, “Brown Eyed Girl” uses figurative language. For instance, symbolism is used at the beginning of the song. The line “Days when the rains came” is a symbol for the dark days in a relationship. Next, symbolism is used in the second stanza. The day “Tuesday” is symbolic because Tuesday goes by “so slow” but he asks where it went as if it flew by. Then, a metaphor is used in the third stanza. The metaphor “playing a new game” is talking about the fun and new things in their life. In addition, a hyperbole is presented in the middle of the song. The hyperbole “hide behind a rainbows wall” shows they have

Once I was able to associate these words to emotions and issues present in everyday life, the poem started to make me feel sad. I began thinking about all of the emotions and feelings that everyone hides as they go about life. For example, how the waitress I see once a week may have an eating disorder, or how the singer I look up to just lost her son, or the businessman who got laid off today. Everyone has their own personal battle that they carry everywhere, at any given moment. This explains why the setting is so plain, since the internal struggles people face affect them even at a bus stop. While each person waits, the waitress may be thinking about how much skinnier the person next to her is. The singer could be remembering when she held her baby. And the business man could be planning how to break the news to his wife. No matter how small, everyone experiences a type of trauma or bad experience, and this poem seemed to show what happens when these emotions become bottled up. No one can help each other because they are so stuck within their own issues. The difficulty helping others reminded me of the idea of having to take care of yourself before being able to take care of others.

The author shows a great example of the power these men had against these women in the village. In the time period this story took place, it was amazing to the author to witness that gender inequality was still a very big issue in some places. The author described how shocked she was when she found out that these women were not allowed to

Women did not have any power in Chinese culture. Kingston describes how a man intimidates her aunt by telling her that he will beat and kill her if she tells anyone. It shows men dominance over women because the man is making Kingston’s aunt do anything he wants. In paragraph fifteen, “women in the old China did not choose. Some man had commanded her to lie with him and be his secret evil” (623). It adds to how women in China did not have any voice and were supposed to comply with any thing men said. Women had to be protective mothers. Kingston states, “as a last act of responsibility: She would protect this child as she had protect its father… mothers who love their children take them along” (629). This quote means that women would protect their children and always look out for the best interest for them. Women had to provide food for their family and their gods. In paragraph thirteen, “she plants vegetables gardens rather than lawns; she carries the odd-shaped tomatoes home from the fields and eats food left for the gods” (622). It shows one duty of women in Chinese culture and the role they had to follow.

One can see her act as a liberating step toward following ones own heart and not give into others expectations. Even in today’s society women are frightened of being judged by others, and pressured by what is considered norm. They are forced to give in to what is expected of them by their family, friends, and society. They are expected to get married by a certain age, marry with what society considers a qualified husband who is well educated and earns a good living, and have children by a certain age. Her act encourages women everywhere to give their own desire a chance instead of giving into the society’s norms.

Now this story talks about the feeling’s blacks or colored and how they still remember slavery. In both poems they use some form of

Lorde's central theme in this chapter is "difference" - differences of gender, class, race, sexuality, experience, etc. She discusses the differences between women and calls on feminists to recognize these differences, even to celebrate them, rather than attempt to overcome them by ignoring their existence. She argues that we must "take our differences and make them strengths" (99). The (white) feminist movement fears addressing difference, but only by addressing difference can it create community. Lorde uses the term "interdependence" to refer to the real connection between women and women's desire to nurture each other.

The book goes through Jeannette’s life exposing the mistakes she, her siblings, and her parents made to become the family they were. As her life grows older, Jeannette finds herself in more responsible positions in the world, with editing school newspapers, to writing columns in a small New York newspaper outlet. Her troubles have raised the issue of stereotyping, a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Due to her status in her childhood, it was not hard for her to fit in with the other members of the poor community. “Dinitia explained that I was with her and that I was good people. The women looked at one another and shrugged.” (Walls 191) The quote talks about how members of the black community in Welch accepted Jeannette to go swimming with them in the morning hours before the white people went in the afternoon. The people who knew Dinita, Jeannette’s friend, knew that Dinita was trustworthy, and let Jeannette pass. This relates to the thesis because it shows how she was accepted amongst the people who were

The women of the story are not treated with the respect, which reflects their social standings. The first image of the women that the reader gets is a typical housewife. They are imaged as “wearing faded house dresses and

“Virgins,” a short story by Danielle Evans is a coming of age tale that details the arduous journey of upcoming womanhood taken by a young girl and her friend. This young girl is named Erica and her friend is named Jasmine they are both black teenaged girls living in a lower income neighborhood. As one reads, the question emerges of how Evans presents a commentary on the issues that girls on the verge of womanhood must overcome, appears. What aspects must be portrayed to fully paint a picture into this world? Danielle Evans uses teenage ideals of self worth, themes of maturity, and a common disregard of morals to present a commentary on the issues girls on the verge of womanhood must overcome to fully prosper.

The movie gives the message that women must do acknowledge their responsibilities towards themselves, which can and should never be neglected or postponed for the sake of anyone or anything. Nothing in this world is worth sacrificing your own aspirations for. A person’s greatest assets are self-respect, dignity and individuality. Woman should safeguard her identity by not letting her individuality get submerged and by keeping her priorities intact all her life and creating a place for herself.

“For Colored Girls” involves seven women who represents a different shade of the rainbow. The colors are brown, red, yellow, white, green, orange and blue. Their costumes and make-up transformed each of them and were significant of the color their character embodied. As a group their acting made all of their roles of equal importance, without one dominating the other. These women together formed a bond through their various adversities, gradually taking them from strangers to companion. From an objective view, the audience is allowed to simply observe the events as they take place chronologically. Throughout the movie during some of the conflicting and traumatic scenes, one of the women recites a poem to signify and release the emotion being felt at that time.

In this poem there is a lot of figurative language. One of the biggest types of figurative language used in this poem is irony. The irony in this poem is how the mother wouldn't let her child go to march because she feared her child would get hurt. Instead she sent her child to church because she believed it was a safe and sacred place but ironically the church ended up being bombed. Another piece of figurative language that is very effective in this poem is imagery. The way the poem is written helps me create images in my head for example, "She raced through the streets of Birmingham." I can imagine her running around desperately, looking for her child. The metaphors and hyperboles in this poem also help with the imagery, for example, "...night dark hair," and "…rose-petal sweet." These metaphors make me think of the girls smoothly combed black hair and her fresh and beautiful rosy smell. A hyperbole that had a huge effect on the tone was, "But that smile was the last smile to ever come upon her face." This hyperbole really helps me understand the effect of a tragic moment like this and how it can completely ruin

For a long time the participants had suffered from being treated almost inhuman like but there was a moment when the blacks where ready to stand up and fight for their rights. Maya Angelou used lots of metaphors to describe the people’s feelings and make the reader fell them too: “I say the night has been long” (The Million Man March, line 1 but repeated through out the poem). “The nigh has been long” is used metaphorically to say that enough suffering has been endured. This quote is related to suffering because when darkness is present monsters and such lurk about (scared). “I say” is metaphorically used to show strength and leadership. So “I say the night has been long” stands for stop being cowardly, you don't need to suffer just come together with all your strength. Although Maya Angelou is showing that the participants have strength she also shows where it’s coming from: “The wound has been deep, the pit has been dark and the walls have been steep” (The Million Man March, lines 2-4 but repeated through out the poem). These phrases remind the people of what they had to endure in life and they get strength from this to go against the government and make a change. “The wound has been deep” represents the pain the dark skinned people had to endure in their lives which they know their children might have to too. “The pit has been dark and the