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Coming of age narratives do not necessarily depict complete struggles, or complete journeys to maturity. Some narratives of coming of age depict a protagonist that reaches maturity only through a great struggle. Other comings of age stories depict a central character that strives to create a new and different form of identity but fails miserably in the process. The best forms of such stories, however, take the reader by surprise. "Where are you going, Where have you been?" By Joyce Carol Oates begins as a comedy, but ends as a tragedy. "The Man Who was Almost a Man," by Richard Wright begins in a tragic vein, but ends as a funny tale of triumph.
Joyce Carol Oates' young, female protagonist Connie is an apparently sassy young woman, beautiful and brimming with life and confidence in her budding sexuality. In contrast to her older sister, Connie is expressive and animated. She seems full of promise and defiance. However, her sexuality is really put forward and prominent before she is mature enough to use it in an intelligent fashion. Really, Connie is quite innocent, and her dreams about boys at night are vague. She is victimized by Arnold Friend because her assumed, projected identity of an adult young woman with concrete and physical sexual desires is not the real...
Like Connie, he is forced to become someone before his time of maturity that he is not -- namely a hired laborer. He attempts to put on the persona of an older male, toting a gun, to free himself of the oppression of society and the stigmatization of becoming a Black man when he grows up. But unlike Connie, Wright's young oppressed adolescent finds a different way of creating his adult identity. After losing his wages because of a misfired gun, the young man experiences a revelation and skips town on a train, finding freedom from the narrow constraints of identity, of brutality or servility, imposed upon him by the society around him.
In contrast to both these tales, the language of John Gardner's "Redemption" is not that of questioning identity, but that of religion. Rather than putting the seminal act that changes everything at the end of the tale, and beginning the tale with a titular question, at the beginning we learn the young man has killed his brother by accident -- the story…
Internal Struggle for Identity and Equality in African-American Literature The story of the African-American journey through America's history is one of heartbreaking desperation and victimization, but also one of amazing inspiration and victory. Any story of the journey that fails to include these seemingly diametric components of the African-American journey is incomplete. However, African-American culture reflects both the progress of the African-American community, its external struggle to achieve equality, and
Pocahontas Through the Ages Robert Tilton's book, Pocahontas: The Evolution of a Narrative, is ultimately a story about a story. Tilton's study does not largely concern itself with the real life individual whom we have come to know as Pocahontas, nor the primary texts from the early seventeenth-century that documented the facts of her life as they originally occurred. In addition, Tilton does not engage in pointed discussion about the principle
Ethnography, case study, narrative, phenomenology, grounded theory Ethnography The qualitative research format of the ethnography began in the discipline of anthropology. Ethnography "is a long-term investigation of a group (often a culture) that is based on immersion and, optimally, participation in that group" (Ethnography, 2013, Colorado State University Writing Guides.). The researcher embraces his or her outsider perspective and contrasts his or her own responses to participating in group rituals and
Dark Age and the Archaic Age Having watched the lectures for the prior learning unit on video, I was prepared to enjoy the video lecture presentation for this learning unit. I previously found the presentation of lectures in the video format to be very convenient because I could observe at my own pace, rewind if I missed part of the lecture, have flexibility about when I was viewing the lecture, and
Coming of age is challenging in the best of times; under unfathomably oppressive circumstances like the Holocaust, coming of age has the potential to erase a childhood entirely. Hana's Suitcase: A True Story pieces together the life of a girl who never was able to realize her hopes and dreams. A victim of the Holocaust, Hana became encapsulated in her material belongings, left behind for others to interpret and comprehend.
On the contrary, if I had been able to be a clergyman or an art dealer, then perhaps I should not have been fit for drawing and painting, and I should neither have resigned nor accepted my dismissal as such. I cannot stop drawing because I really have a draughtsman's fist, and I ask you, have I ever doubted or hesitated or wavered since the day I began to