The Road To Memphis By Mildred D. Taylor: Literary Analysis

The Road portrays the journey of the father and son across a black and white world that is analogous to my experiences of the quest of survival in Afghanistan and the refugee camp in Pakistan. Where many have abandoned their beliefs and morals to survive the hellish situation. Those who survive with their beliefs and values still in intact are constantly challenged on a day-by-day basis. Their survival must be persevered to keep the fire burning, however small for their own children. There must be some goodness that remains for their children to carry into the next generations. They must always remain

Have you ever felt that you knew you your home but then realized that it actually wasn’t what you thought it really was? Well, that’s how Jacqueline Woodson felt. As we grow and change, so do our perspectives on a variety of things that we experience in life. In, When a Southern Town Broke a Heart, Woodson introduces ideas changing as you get older as a central idea of the story.

This story is mostly about a ten year old girl named Opal. she wants friends because she is new in Naomi, Florida. She also wants her mama, who left her when Opal was only 3 years old. In the book, Opal learned that she can’t hold onto something that wants to go.

In the Novel To kill a Mockingbird Author Harper Lee uses Literary Elements to develop the theme of Racism. He uses these elements to also help the reader understand the characters. For example everybody thinks that the book is about racism but it’s mostly about Coming of age. When Scout ask Atticus ‘’Do all the lawyers defend negroes’’and he answers “Of course they do scout”. This quote was one of the most important ones because the reader can see that Atticus is not a racist person.

The Outsider. The one who is looked down upon. The one who chooses to follow their own path, who is not afraid to challenge society. Although someone who does not conform to society faces isolation, harassment, or bullying, they will benefit from being their true selves. As Oscar Wilde once said so eloquently, "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

Elijah’s daughter, Luvenia, struggles to get a job and into college in Chicago while her brother Richard travels back to South Carolina. Abby’s grandson, Tommy works with civil rights and protests, and tries to get into college for basketball. The story ends with Malcolm, Richard’s grandson, getting his his cousin Shep, who is struggling with drugs, to the family reunion. In reading this story one could wonder how the transition from slavery to segregation in the United States really occurred. The timeline can be split into three distinct sections, Emancipation, forming segregation, and life post-Civil War, pre-civil rights.

Mississippi Solo: In the memoir, Mississippi Solo, Eddy Harris views nature as a friend of his through the literary device of personification. For example, he describes the river’s sounds as, “the idle chatter that you get when you walk with your favorite niece or nephew going nowhere in particular with nothing special on your minds and the kid just jabbers away because it’s comfortable and he feels like it.” This evidence demonstrates how he thinks nature is a friend based on the positive description, using words such as favorite and comfortable, as well as comparing him to a family member. Furthermore, when he states that “the voice of the river came out and spoke to me teasingly but with a chill of serious down my spine”, he ends up being

In the short stories “A Rose for Emily” written by William Faulkner and “The Yellow Wallpaper”” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the protagonists experience mental illness, loneliness, feelings of being in control of their lives, and feelings of being insane. Both main characters struggle against male domination and control. The two stories take place in the late 1800’s - early 1900’s, a time where men’s place in society was superior to that of women. Each story was written from a different perspective and life experiences. “A Rose for Emily” was written by a man and told in third personal narration, while “The Yellow Wallpaper” was written by a female and told in first person.

In the Rusty Belt of America there a minority group of people whose income level has surpassed the poverty line. Inside the state of Ohio lies the poorest white American which describes themselves as hillbillies as they reside in the eastern Kentucky. In his personal analysis of culture in crisis of hillbillies, J.D. Vance tries to explain, in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, what goes on in the lives of people as the economy goes south in a culture that is culturally deceptive, family deceptive, and in a community, whose doctrine of loyalty is heavily guarded. Like every poor Scot-Irish hillbilly in his community, Vance came from being poor, like the rest of his kind, to be a successful Law graduate from Yale Law school. As result of this transition and being the only child in his family to graduate from a highly respected intuition in the country, Vance thought out to analyze the ostensible reason of why many people are poor in his community.

William Faulkner wrote, "A Rose for Emily." In the gothic, short story he contrasted the lives of the people of a small Southern town during the late 1800's, and he compared their ability and inability to change with the time. The old or "Antebellum South" was represented by the characters Miss Emily, Colonel Sartoris, the Board of Aldermen, and the Negro servant. The new or "Modern South" was expressed through the words of the unnamed narrator, the new Board of Aldermen, Homer Barron, and the townspeople. In the shocking story, "A Rose for Emily," Faulkner used symbolism and a unique narrative perspective to describe Miss Emily's inner struggles to accept time and change

Southerners are known to be proud of their traditional beliefs. To Kill A Mockingbird allows its readers to question and consider those beliefs. Maycomb represents a typical old southern town. Not many people move into Maycomb and not many people who live there journey beyond its boundaries. As a result, the opinions held by many of the citizens of Maycomb are left to grow and foster in the same families for many generations. The circumstances in Maycomb are less than ideal for generating change and more prone to sustaining traditionally accepted codes. Two codes embedded within southern social beliefs are class and race.

In “Liberating Christ: Sargeant’s Metamorphosis in Langston Hughes’s “On the Road,” Carolyn P. Walker talks about what she feels the story “On the Road” is about. She does make some interesting points, but I feel like some of them are not correct. Walker’s main points support the opinion that the story is based on racism and also claims that it is a “Reenactment of the Biblical story [Samson and Delilah]” (749). While racism may be touched upon in the story, I feel that the main point of this story is to show the influence of money in Christian society.

Lena Grove, Gail Hightower, and Joe Christmas are all main characters in the classic novel written by William Faulkner, Light in August. These characters all share a recurring trait and that is that they all function and live their lives better when they are in isolation. They all have something about them that has made the society they live in, renounce them as outliers in the scale of human decency. Lena Grove is only a young teenager and yet she has found herself pregnant and alone. She spends the entire novel searching for her husband but when she finally finds him he runs off again to avoid responsibility and she goes on her search again. Even though she is chasing after Lucas Burch, her child’s father, she really does not need him for

Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, is a realistic story that deeply discusses issues involved with the 1930’s that still resonate today. The struggles of life are evident within the believable characters of Maycomb County which is a microcosm, reflective of universal issues. Along with the authentic characters, setting and style also helps to convey Lee’s controversial notions of racial and gender prejudice, and persecution of the innocent, discussing many other ideas within.

“To Kill a Mockingbird”, written by Harper Lee and “Mississippi Burning” directed Alan Parker can be compared and contrasted with each other. Both texts share many themes especially the theme of prejudice where one group of people had bigoted views against another. It is shown in the form of racism throughout the two stories where whites discriminate the blacks. In the town of Maycomb and Mississippi, there is bias, discrimination and injustice between the blacks and whites. Both Harper Lee and Alan Parker explore this theme of prejudice through what their characters stand for, the events that took place during both text and the context behind both stories.