Coming Of Age In Mississippi Analysis

Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody tells the sympatric story of how Essie Mae and her family overcome the obstacles that they are forced to deal with and problems that come with trying to break through racism. The first four chapters of this story tell us about Essie’s mother, who happens to be a young parent and her struggle to provide for her children, and how when Essie grows older she is forced to take on the role of being a mother to her siblings as well as to her actual mother. Despite these hardships however her strong work ethic and enjoyment of learning give her the strength to help her get through it all day after day. And as she still manages to maintain above average grades in school despite everything she has been through and stress of taking care of her family. While her sibling is too young to understand

She feels like she is needed when she earns her own money because she’s not only supporting herself, but more importantly her family. A huge theme in this story is how Essie herself tries to understand people’s perspective on colored people, she’s confused as to why white people are able to have much more lavish lives, homes, possessions, and what exactly makes them “better than that of the negroes”. She tries on her own to find a reason as to why this is the case, but only finds that white people during her time are above people of color. Certain situations throughout the story seem to resonate with these horrible idea, when she’s playing with the neighbors who are white, the incident that occurred at the movie theater, and when she discovers that her uncles brothers are actually white. And situations like those previously listed only seem to cause Essie to question this even more. When asking her mother on topic her response is to change the subject or to become angry when she tries to press for her questions to have an