ESSAY CEMETERY

Themes ·        Black prejudice against blacks ·        White prejudice against blacks ·        Violence white against black ·        Lying to whites to avoid punishment ·        Altering behavior to whites to avoid punishment ·        Masking feelings and emotions to avoid punishment ·        Pretending to have no interest in learning ·        Whites against blacks exhibiting white behaviors ·        Blacks should not show knowledge or assertion Style and Devices ·        Reported speech that mimics black people's ·        Difference between the speech of blacks and whites People and Places ·        Arkansas ·        Mississippi ·        Richard ·        Richard's mother ·        Morrie ·        Pease ·        Jackson ·        Memphis Keywords ·        Jim Crow ·        Nigger ·        Prostitute ·        Maid ·        Hotel ·        Bell boy ·        Hall boy ·        Elevator Richard Wright

1 Young Richard's and the other black families lived behind the railroad tracks in Arkansas, their yards strewn with cinders. One day his gang got into a fight with white kids, who used broken bottles instead of cinders for the fight. Richard was injured, and instead of consoling him his mother admonishes him for fighting white boys and beats him until he is sick with fever. From that time on the lawns and trees become a symbol of white people, then a symbol of fear. They move to a different house in Mississippi, far from a black neighborhood. Richard gets his first job at an optical company. He is careful to be polite to the white men around him. When he carefully asks if they would teach him some of the trade like they had said they would, they become colder to Richard. Finally they bully him into leaving, accusing him of rudeness to them. 2 His second job is a porter at a clothing store. Richard's white boss and his son beat and rape a black woman for not

Themes ·        Living in an all-black town ·        Whites as tourists ·        Realization that she is colored ·        Fine with being black ·        Delight with white scrutiny ·        Black ancestors fought for equality and she reaps the fruit ·        Delight with whites' scrutiny of blacks ·        Blacks are at the center of American cultural attention ·        Relishing jazz music ·        Difference between black and white music appreciation ·        Identities: colored vs. no race ·        Nostalgia ·         Everyone is the same when it boils down to it Style and devices ·        Speaks in the first person for black people “The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said "On the line!" The Reconstruction said "Get set!" and the generation before said "Go!" I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep. Slavery is the price I paid f

Up to the age of thirteen Hurston lives in the exclusively Negro town Eatonville, Florida. The only whites she encounters are people passing through to Orlando. Hurston likes to sit on the front porch and greet them and converse with them. She dances and they give her money. Blacks "deplored any joyful tendencies" she has but love her nevertheless. At thirteen she is sent to school in Jacksonville. She is no longer Zora, but a little colored girl. However she does not find this tragic, unlike others who think being colored is a curse. She considers slavery to be in the past and feels that she is well on the way to becoming an American out of a potential slave. Blacks went from Africa to civilization at the cost of Slavery and it was worth it. Hurston does not feel intimidated by the status of Blacks in America. She is thrilled to know that due to her inferior status everything she does will be scrutinized particularly strongly, for better and worse. She thinks the wh

Themes ·        Slavery as corrupting the slave-owner “The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work. That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage” ·        Literacy makes slaves rebel “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.” ·        Epiphany “I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty--to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.” ·        Whipping “During the first six months, of that year, scarce a week passed without his whipping me. I was seldom free f