Although his approach changes, this time seems to have stuck out the most to me. The importance of a name, is like the importance of big moments through your life. A name is what makes you yourself, how people remember you and what makes you special and unique. 4. “In America anything is possible. Do as you wish.”
Maya Angelou published her novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in the late 1960s to shed light on her personal experiences as a girl growing up in the segregated South. She writes unfiltered depictions of rape and sexual abuse, along with topics such as racism and teenage pregnancy. Her novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings became censored in America in 2002 due to these topics. Regardless of this novel being censored, it holds significant value in the lessons it teaches.
One of this week’s readings focused on Ch. 5, “Caged Birds,” in Professor Lytle Hernandez’s book City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965, and this chapter was particularly interesting because it further explained the development of immigration control in the United States. As a continuation from the last chapter, there was a huge emphasis in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Geary Act of 1892. This essentially prohibited Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States, as well as eventually requiring these people to comply with regulations. “Caged Birds” encapsulates the events afterwards, as the book heads well into the early-1900’s. The disenfranchisement of immigrants develops towards further exclusivity because “[by] 1917, Congress had banned all Asian immigration to the Unites States and also categorically prohibited all prostitutes, convicts, anarchists, epileptics, ‘lunatics,’ ‘
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet” (Romeo & Juliet 2.2 43-44). Shakespeare wrote these words to indicate that the value of a name is placed there only by the people who use it and no matter the name, it does not change the object. Roses are sweet in smell no matter the name and Mt. Denali is going to be the largest mountain in North America whether the name is Denali or McKinley.
From then on, I had no other name." 51). The. A person's name is one of the most important things to a person. It is the one thing you would assume
Although one’s name might seem menial in the grand scheme of things, it is a crucial part of one’s identity. By choosing to take her first husband’s last name, she was choosing to be her own person, without the obvious connection to her family that followed her wherever she went. Choosing which name she wanted to go by gave her the power to define her relationships, both with her parents and her second husband. By separating herself from the Cibber name, she was allowing herself to make her career, as well as her identity, her own, without the overbearing influence of her
For example, in the Good Country People, the name of major characters: Mrs. Hopewell, Mrs. Freeman and Hulga, symbolize their personalities and served perfectly for the theme of the story. The name of “Hopewell” seems to refer to her positivistic outlook on life and her willingness to always hope for best, but it actually signifies a hopelessness to deal with the imperfections of the society and her relationship with her daughter, as her favorite sayings, “Nothing is perfect. ”(272) And the Mrs. Freeman’s name adds even more irony to the stories, as she is free from any type of incorrectness because she will “never be brought to admit herself wrong on any point”(271), and despite the fact that she is a slave and a woman, her actual freedom is extremely limited. Also the switch of names—from Joy to Hulga— for Mrs. Hopewell’s daughter, it changes the tone of the story.
“Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name?
Advertised as the land of the free and a beacon of hope and opportunity, America is a nation where a single ideal has drawn masses of immigrants who conquer difficulties. When one ideal has shaped the history of an entire nation, one must ponder the meaning of the American Dream. The American Dream manifests itself in Christopher McCandless’s journey to the West as chronicled by Jon Krakauer’s book, Into the Wild. It weaves itself into the fabric of every American story, such as that of Maya Angelou’s memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Moreover, it finds itself voiced by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”.
At the end of My Name she feels that her name doesn't fit her, “I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me” she states implying that her name misleads her identity. Esperanza’s tone to how she thinks about her name is misleading to her
Parents often give their kids names that means something to them, or names that are familiar. Kids often get named after their grandparents, their great grandparent and so on. My own name for example, is one of my great grandmother’s middle names. Our names might also come from places that our family has been living for generations, or our names might mean something special. In the news article “Native American Heritage Month” we meet a woman that has a very special name herself, and has given just as special names for her children.
“Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on my feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name?
Roger Dooley starts by talking about the importance of names. He quotes Dale Carnegie, who says,” Remember that a man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language” (Dooley 39). This quote in other words reminds us that hearing your own name can be a
People throughout their lives are constantly discovering who they are and who they want to grow into. The same statement accurately describes Maya Johnson, a strong woman who wrote about her life in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. As a little girl, her mother’s ex-boyfriend raped and she had to rediscover herself whilst navigating through the grim veil of trauma - a process that burdened her for many years. Throughout her life, she encountered many different people, some good, others bad, but they each helped her eventually discover her identity. ‘Identity’ is how people define themselves as a human being, and, therefore, nobody else can dictate it.
As of late names in the work environment have turned into a contention. Raven Simone, a commentator on the 'The View', stated that on the off chance that somebody had an Afrocentric or odd name that she would not contract them taking into account their name. As the discussion came up in the round table dialog, she expressed how somebody with the name 'Watermandraya', would be somebody that she would not contract. She will more than likely apologize for it; be that as it may, there has been reaction from it. There may be a supposition that if a person has an ethnic name they may be seen similar to a particular ethnicity or some may relate them with a specific religion.
