ipl-logo

Themes In Diana Adesola Mafe's Knowing Your Place

1085 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Theme of identity in literature

For this project, our group decided to make a powerpoint to explore themes and connections to other novels, from the short story, Knowing Your Place, by Diana Adesola Mafe. The story presented several important motifs for in depth analysis. The two major themes we explored were identity and stereotype driven bias. Furthermore, we went on to connect the protagonist of the story to the protagonist of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian; both protagonists were visionaries who despite their different sights, encountered relatable obstacles.
Mafe’s personal struggle to grow content and comfortable with her self-identity was prevalent throughout the story. A handful of components set Mafe apart from others. She’s multiracial and multicultural. Additionally, …show more content…

In the incident on the university campus, she mentions that upon seeing the man that called her the racial slur, she immediately classified him as a ‘redneck’ or ‘hick’ in her head. Her perception of him was initially negative on sight, which she admits is a form of negative stereotyping. Yet, unfortunately her knee jerk judgement of the man turned out to be accurate. He proved he was a bigot when he uttered the n-word to her. This shows how stereotypes are often rooted in past experience to some degree. The man was likely a racist as a result of his social environment, which equates to past experiences of judgements based upon race. At the same time, the author immediately thought poorly of the man because of his clothing, which shows she likely has had issues with similar people at other points in her life. The difference between the author and the racist man was that although both judged the other without any knowledge of them, the author addressed her prejudices and treated the man as she would anyone else. On the other hand, this man let his racist stereotypes perpetuate and even acted on them. By recognizing her initial negative reaction to that man, the author presents that case that although avoiding prejudice entirely is impossible, there are two potential courses of action. The first would be to allow that prejudice to manifest, which leads to ongoing injustice and discrimination. The second option would be to think critically on one’s own biases and actively choose to disregard

Show More
Related
414 Words | 2 Pages

Stereotyping affects individuals where their view of another is narrow and judging of other cultures. Ned experienced this in training, so did Adichie when attending college. The consequences of stereotyping were spread onto Adichie when visiting Mexico. She at first thought of them as “people who exploit healthcare”. Ned when training met a person from Georgia and like others did to him, he thought of him as “weird” and with a funny way of talking.

Read More
220 Words | 1 Pages

In Dorothy Allison’s short story “Context” (1994), Allison illustrates that really knowing someone demands an in-depth understanding of the person’s background, especially socially and family wise. Allison utilizes flashback along with imagery to help demonstrate how she feels about being judged. The flashback and imagery are used in order to help the reader get more of a feel for the story and picture the events happening. Allison writes this short story aimed at just the general audience and people who are or who have been in the same situation.

Read More
779 Words | 4 Pages

“We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced,” said Herbert Spencer, a famous philosopher. Prejudice is frequent everywhere and difficult to stop. It is very difficult to destroy something in someone’s mind, and it will inevitably be expressed through various methods with different degrees of subtlety. Any expression of this can hurt. Subsequently, in Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, the main theme is that prejudice is everywhere, and can be of varying degrees.

Read More
492 Words | 2 Pages

Mark Twain once said, “The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.” Even as we as a globalized society have improved greatly, prejudice appears far too often and is expressed everywhere even in today’s world. During World War 2, prejudice was peaking in society. In Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatuski Houston and James D. Houston, the main theme is that silent prejudice hurts the most. Wakatsuki avoids portraying open racism and prejudice in the book in order to examine he subtle and often unspoken prejudices that occur everyday life, which are often the most hurtful.

Read More
1217 Words | 5 Pages

Instead of using prejudice or stereotypes, where negative thoughts and attitudes are created and shared, she extends it to the level of discrimination and racism. Although instead of calling it racism, she uses “eyeism”, as she is discriminating on the basis of eye color rather than skin color. She calls all white men “boy”, she interrupts them when they are talking and she talks to them like she is superior. She uses the racism, prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination black individuals have experienced for hundreds of years and turns it around on the white

Read More
1047 Words | 5 Pages

Analyzing Someone Else’s Experience In Brent Staples essay “Just Walk on By: Black Men in Public Space” and in Judith Cofer’s essay “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” both authors build an argument using their own experience with being stereotyped. These two essays are very effective in proving the author’s argument with real life situations as primary evidence. In Staples essay, he uses his experience as a black male being looked at as a “thug”, “mugger”, or “rapist” and his real life problems that he went through while being stereotyped. In Cofer’s essay, she tells her story of being a Latin American girl and her issues she faced being stereotyped while growing up.

Read More
2386 Words | 10 Pages

Literary Analysis Essay William Howard The short story that I chose for my literary analysis essay is “Brownies” By ZZ Packer. This fictional short story had a powerful meaning because it focused on how racial stereotyping can cause a lot of problems even among young girls who were attending a Girl Scouts camp. “Brownies” also showed how stereotyping can actually be harmful and can sometimes lead to hurtful consequences for the person who is the victim of it and for the person is guilty of stereotyping someone. I decided to do my analysis of this short story using the historical context element because of the long history of problems between the Black and White races in this country according to our history books, including

Read More
780 Words | 4 Pages

Sometimes in life, people will have to deal with other people that are judgmental and listen to stereo types when they know nothing about the person. In the short story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, there are some examples of stereotyping. This story is about a woman who has a good friend of hers and he is blind. The blind man, whose wife had just recently died and was traveling to go visit his family, was stopping at the women’s house overnight. The blind man and the narrator’s wife knew each other.

Read More
618 Words | 3 Pages

In the story “ On the Subway” the reader can identify that the narrator, the lady, is racist by noticing that the story uses allusion. For example, the lady says, “ I must profit from his darkness, the way he absorbs the murderous beams of the nation’s heart.” This is a refers to slavery which shows the reader that the lady is antiblack. Imagery is widely used in the story to show the reader the differences between the black boy and the white lady; in addition, it also shows how observant the white lady is on the black guy because she thinks she is going to get robbed or possibly killed. The lady describes the boy’s “black sneakers laced with white in a complex pattern like a set of intentional scars.”

Read More
1069 Words | 5 Pages

In this essay, he demonstrates to the reader using his own experiences, how stereotypes based on sex and skin color can change the mind of one person and how it can influence many other people. Staples fears about how his appearance and his color make people think of him as a harmful person. a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket- he also mentions that he possesses an indulgent

Read More
110 Words | 1 Pages

In his essay entitled Black Men and Public Space (1987), Brent Staples talks about how people will have a common misconception on the black community by thinking that they are all mugger ,rapist or thugs. Staples supports his claim by telling the reader events/ stories that occured to him and talks about how people will assume that he is a danger to society when in reality he isnt. The authors purpose is to inform the reader that his experiences of being stereotyped is to show the reader his point of view when it comes to these types of situations. Staples writes in a formal tone for an intelligent or free minded person.

Read More
880 Words | 4 Pages

It is exactly that mindset, she argues, that creates so many boundaries and limits for minorities. She believes that unconscious bias, or explicit prejudice, leads to a detrimental lack of diversity in the workforce. (Abdel-Magied, 1:37) The unconscious bias that we all have, she says, is harmful to society because there are people who are just as qualified to be in certain positions, but are sometimes held back merely because of race, religion, disability, class, or

Read More
579 Words | 3 Pages

These stereotypes almost always lead to quick judgments of people, which can make people weary of others. The protagonist in this story is a stereotypical member of upper-class society. He lives in a nice neighborhood,

Read More
841 Words | 4 Pages

To understand prejudice more holistically the two personality-based theories and three cultural based theories will be examined to gain a stronger understanding in why prejudice is still prevalent in society. The Frustration-Aggression Theory, attributed to psychologist John Dollard, concept is also known at “Displacement Theory”, “Scapegoat Theory”, and “Kick The Dog Syndrome” (Morra, 2018). This theory states that there are six major beliefs that cause prejudice. Those beliefs are needs, frustration, aggression, displacement, weak victims, and rationalization (Morra, 2018). First, all humans have needs which are either biologically or socially stimulated.

Read More
1194 Words | 5 Pages

Morrison presents African Americans as conforming to the principles of society and utilizes Helene’s behavior towards Nel to exemplify it. Helene constantly reminds Nel to “pull her nose” so she could “grow up” with a “[nicer] nose” (55) and uses a “hot comb” (55) each week to have “smooth hair” (55). The act of altering Nel’s appearance displays Helene’s belief of Nel’s physicality to not be up to par with society’s standards, therefore discriminating against her African American heritage. The characteristics that Helene chooses to change make Nel unique to her African American heritage; therefore, by altering Nel’s image to that more of the white race, Morrison exemplifies the way discrimination influences African Americans to assimilate into the racist American society. Illustrated by the self-degradation of African Americans, Morrison displays the submissiveness and stupidity of racism.

Read More

More about Themes In Diana Adesola Mafe's Knowing Your Place

Related Topics

Open Document