#1BestBlogFrog

Richard Wright’s “Down by the Riverside” and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun are two stories with two wildly different outcomes. They had different messages on how African Americans could achieve equality. “Down by the Riverside” had a very grotesque and sad ending that leaves the reader wondering why Mann even bothered to try so hard to survive and save his family when surviving just seemed impossible. By contrast, A Raisin in the Sun ended by showing through the main characters that fighting for a better life in an oppressive system was worth it in the end. Additionally, these two texts both use different art and literary forms to convey their beliefs in their story through literature. The most salient difference of these two stories is that Richard Wright’s story demonstrated Wright’s belief America’s white dominated system would always oppress the Blacks, while Lorraine Hunsberry’s story demonstrated the benefit for African Americans to work within the system to gain equa...

  How African American Literature Shows Its Influence from Vernacular Tradition  Vernacular tradition was a way of passing down information from generation to generation and recording history for slaves who were denied the right to read. Vernacular tradition proved useful to slaves in many ways, from remembering their past in Africa to somehow understanding with surprising accuracy contemporary issues, such as information about the Civil War. When African Americans were granted the right to read, the influence of vernacular tradition appeared in their literature. Specifically, the references to vernacular tradition in Harriet Jacobs’ and Booker T. Washington’s story reflects the influence vernacular tradition had on African American Literature.  Harriet Jacobs’ choice of speech in different dialogues shows that “vernacular speech” in African American literature portrayed the socioeconomic classes of different American classes. Throughout most of her story, Harriet Jacobs ...

     William Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying ” is a unique and compelling book for modernist enthusiasts that tells a story of a family of a father, Anse Bundren, and five children who lost the mother of the household, Addie Bundren. Unlike most books readers are familiar with today, “As I Lay Dying” follows a modernist structure, meaning it rejects traditional literary structure and focuses more on the main character’s stream of consciousness and experience. Because the modernist movement in literature differs greatly from traditional forms of literature, readers might struggle to understand the book’s theme or message, the meaning of simple dialogue, and whether modernist literatures have a theme at all is debatable. This leads to the question: Does “As I Lay Dying ” have any elements of a traditional narrative? More specifically, does it follow Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey? After reading halfway through the book, the history and nature of post World War I modernism...

          The film Mulan entails an interesting story that takes place in medieval China during a Hunnic invasion, about a young woman named Mulan who takes her father’s place in the military when he is drafted. The movie starts off with her failing to live the legacy her ancestors wanted her to live and ends with her saving China and finding herself and peace afterward. The film Mulan is a perfect example of a Heroine’s Journey because it shows how the female protagonist goes through an awakening journey to find herself and satisfaction. In this blog, I will argue what the last three phases of Maureen Murdock’s version of the Hero’s Journey are. The last parts where Mulan fights the evil Hunnic general to the part when she reunites with her family, specifically her father, exemplify the last steps of Maureen Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey.           The scene where Mulan tells Li Shang that Shan Yu breached into the city shows how the film...

  Nella Larsen’s Quicksand – A Slightly Different Outline of Crane’s Heroine’s Journey Nella Larson’s Quicksand is a story about a biracial woman named Helga Crane who struggles to find a place of belonging in early 20th century America. Her Black father was absent for most of her life and her mother early in Helga’s life. Crane is forced to live with her mom’s side of the family, specifically her uncle, who sees her as an economic opportunity rather than his niece. The others ostracize Crane. By the beginning of this book, the reader can easily see Crane’s narrative as a perfect match for Shmidt’s Heroine’s Journey. This blog will only view the first few parts of Crane’s journey due to limited space. In this blog, I will argue for an alternative Heroine’s Journey narrative than mentioned in class. The outline of Crane’s heroine’s journey is as follows: the “Illusion of the Perfect World” starting before the book’s introduction and “The Betrayal or Realisation” at the beginning. ...