Humanities & Classics 1003
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Revolutions Forum
Humanities & Classics 1003 |
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Much of the material we have covered this quarter has reflected writer's and artists attempts to change attitudes about racial and gender equality.
The first real works to come about because of racial inequality were those of black writer's. Black writing in the earlier part of the century shows black people on a quest for thier identity in America. Poems such as Langston Hughe's "Theme for English B" and Brooks' "We Real Cool" reflect how black people saw themselves during this time. "Theme for English B" has the idea that black and white people often do not see themselves as part of the same country, "You are white-/yet a part of me, as I am part of you./That's American./Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me./Nor often do I want to be a part of you."
In Richard Wright's "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow," he looks at the way black people were not viewed as equals in the work place. In this piece, a young boy learns how the white people were in control in the work place.
From this type of literature comes more writing that stops lamenting on the state of black life and rather tries to establish the equality of black people. An example of this is the writing Martin Luther King, Jr. did during his time in jail at the Birmingham Jail. In this letter, King stresses that the immoral laws that restrict black people must not be followed, as following the laws will not lead to changing them. He ends his letter with a statement more optimistic than much of the writing of black people, "Let us hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty." An exerpt from Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" speaks of how white people sometimes refused to "see" black people. By writing about this he draws attention to it, perhaps in the hope that white people will see this in themselves and stop doing it.
Anothe struggle for racial equality in this country has been that of the Native American people. The movie Thunderheart shows how the American Government has abused its power in taking the rights, the land, and the culture of the Native American people. This movie, and Ward Churchhill's "Goons, G-men, and AIm," reflect the attitude of Native American people as being oppressed and treated unequally by American society.
During the same time as African-American and Native American people try to esteblish their equality, women in America have been doing the same thing. Virgina Woolfe's idea of Shakespeare's Sister, revealed in "A Room of One's Own," show how men have viewed women lacking creative and intellectual talents. Adrienne Rich's poem, "Translations," reveals how this attitude has not been only American, but world-wide. "You show me the poems or some woman/my age, or younger/translated from your language/ Certain words occur: enemy, oven, sorrow/enought to let me know she's a woman of my time" Gail Godwin's short story, "A Sorrowful Woman" shows how woman have attempted to break free from the role of wife and mother and to pass on some responsiblity to men. In this story, a woman tires of her daily chores and becomes a recluse in her room, leaving the duties of the house and child raising to her husband, eventually refusing to even let him have hired help. The movie "The French's Lieutenant's Woman," while not showing modern American feminism, gives a look at early feminism in the Victorian Era in England. In this movie, Sarah, the so called French Lieutenant's Woman, breaks free of the mold of a typical Victorian Age Woman. She allows herself a bit of sexual freedom, and attempts and finds more social and creative freedom than other women of her time.
These literature works and movies all have one thing in common. They reveal changing attitudes about the quest for equality among all people. While this is no where near the only movement reflected in literature, it is among one of the most written about in this century. The attempts to write about it have essentially one goal: to change it, to allow everybody to see how equality among all people is one of goals we should work towards the most. The words of the African-American writer James Baldwin very effectively show how this type of writing can affect people. "You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensible in the world. In some way, your aspirations and concern for a single man in fact do begin to change the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks or people look at reality, then you can change it." Much of the literature written has been to change the way people see the world. More specifically, it has been written to bring us closer to racial and gender equality, as is shown in the examples above.