Brown Girl Dreaming

By -
     Although I didn't think I would, I really enjoyed reading Brown Girl Dreaming.  One of the most important parts of the novel is that the story isn't one that is particularly gripping, as it's just Woodson's memoir, but where the novel succeeds is in the execution.  By de-emphasizing story elements, the style of the novel shines through, with the poetic language making each unique chapter/vignette compelling and interesting in a different way.  Each of the characters are developed so subtly that you find yourself understanding them with just a handful of scattered lines, and feeling a pit in your stomach whenever Jacqueline receives bad news.
     One of the poems that I decided to examine for its portrayal of Woodson's experience as an African American is "say it loud" on page 304.  As a younger child, Woodson doesn't understand why her mother tells her to "Get down before you break your neck" when she decides to sing along with the Black Panthers.  She also is aware of how caught she is between two worlds, deciding that "Everyone knows where they belong here. / It's not Greenville / but it's not diamond sidewalks either."  From this, it seems that she is saying that living as an African American catches one between two worlds, one of old comforts in the South, where segregation is still alive in law if not peoples' minds, or the North, where it is much more dangerous and less glamorous, but with hopes of change on the way.
     The other poem I identified was "what everybody knows now" on page 237.  This poem also shows the African American experience through Woodson's grandmother, and her struggle with conforming to segregation even after it has been abolished.  Her reason for doing so is that it's "Easier to stay where you belong."  This shows the attitude that has been ingrained in African Americans over history, that any act of disobedience or change is harmful and will result in pain and misery.  By doing so, a complacency is built in African Americans.  Luckily, through her writing and ingenuity, it appears that as long as she keeps dreaming, there is hope for Woodson.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Speak and the Symbolism of Nature

By Anonymous -
   Laurie Halse Anderson's,  Speak , dives into the murky, muddy waters of adolescent rape culture. When the book was published in 1999, rape was not a comfortable topic to discuss with adults, let alone teenagers. Anderson writes about Melinda Sordino and her freshman high school experience which is turning out to be rather negative. Soriano stands as a thriving young role model for struggling teenage girls all over the world. Although she isn't an outstanding student or have plenty of friends to juggle, through Melinda, other young women can see that it's completely normal and okay to struggle in high school not only academically, but socially and emotionally. One of my favorite parts of the novel isn't a super obvious quality. Throughout the novel, Melinda's attitude changes and grows with the coming of spring and through nature and art, she learns to move past her troubling end of summer experience and once again find the importance of her voice.    Melinda st
Read more