ipl-logo

History Lesson Natasha Trethewey

1043 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analysis of "History Lesson" by Natasha Trethewey

Natasha Trethewey's "History Lesson" explores and examines the connection of personal and collective histories, particularly the intergenerational pain created by the legacy of slavery and racism in the United States. “History Lesson" employs mood, symbolism, and imagery to connect the racial discrimination endured by colored people in the past to more current times, where equality is improved and embraced. Also, while reading Trethewey's poem, she used a nostalgic tone, and an emotional mood to remind readers of America's contaminated past while also encouraging them to hope for a better future. Immediately upon reading this poem I was feeling a sort of calm and innocent reaction in the first couple of lines. But I was also getting nostalgic …show more content…

We can only understand the visual imagery of the "wide strip of Mississippi beach," "bright bikini," and tactile imagery of "wet sand" if we know nothing about the author or the year the photograph was taken. The first half of the poem describes a picture of a four-year-old girl at the beach in vivid detail. The simplicity of this is overlooked at first but gains significance by the end of the poem. In the picture, she was a tiny child in a bright floral bikini "curling around wet sand" with her toes dug in the sand, possibly sketching or doodling "on the wide strip of Mississippi beach." The nostalgic tone here conveys that her past is full of delight, just like any other typical child who is happy, innocent, and living a quiet life. However, this sense of joy and calm is quickly disturbed at the poem's midpoint by the appearance of "minnows darting at her feet glinting like …show more content…

She contrasts two images to show how segregation between white people and people of color still exists. There are numerous protests ongoing in response to the events in the USA and other apparent racist incidents, making this poem pertinent to our current cultural circumstances. Additionally, millions of people use the trending hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media to express their belief that people of color face discrimination. However, the significance of this poem does not stem from the history lesson we are taught. The image of the poet having full access to the Mississippi beach in 1970 serves as a symbol of hope that things will improve and that the world will one day be a better

Show More
Related

Glory Be By Augusta Scattergood: Book Summary

639 Words | 3 Pages

In this book Glory is overwhelmed with how her town is handling people who are different than they are. She realizes that her favorite local pool is closing down so colored people can’t swim with the whites. Glory becomes an activist herself and writes a letter to the newspaper lining which makes her preacher father proud. Therefore, the theme of this book is to treat everyone equally, such as when Glory’s friend Frankie from Ohio drinks out of the “colored fountain”. Also, when Glory’s sisters boyfriend that he was arrested for sitting with a “colored friend” at the white table.

Read More

Viewing A Kkk Uniform At The Civil Rights Institute Summary

525 Words | 3 Pages

The title of her poem is ironic, Jones is visiting a civil rights museum but there is a KKK uniform there, set on display with its empty and dirty holes for eyes. One would think that while yes, the uniform is part of civil rights history, it would be one of the last things people would put on display at a civil rights museum.

Read More

Summary Of The Lesson By Toni Cade Bambara

1250 Words | 5 Pages

In Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson”, readers read through the perspective of a young black girl named Sylvia. She, along with her cousin and a few friends, are taken on educational field trips with an educated African American woman named Ms. Moore. Sylvia believes she just wants to prevent them from having any fun and finds Ms. Moore to be odd person because she makes it clear that she wants an involvement in their lives. It is an involvement that is seen as a total nuisance. Yet as their teacher, she tries to give them an education that is hard for them to achieve due to their families’ financial status and how the color of their skin affects their position in the world.

Read More

Analyzing The Painting 'Four Little Girls' By Bisa Butler

546 Words | 3 Pages

She makes use of colorful fabrics and used this art piece to indicate the correlation to the Civil Rights movement. 3 Although, the art painting was created in the year 2020, the events related to the art took place in 1963. During this time, the Civil Rights Movement was taking place, and the social climate in America was characterized by persistent racial injustice, racial discrimination, racial disparity, and racial inequality. Many African Americans faced racism in several ways concerning employment opportunities, housing, and education during that period.

Read More

James Weldon Johnson Rhetorical Devices

1271 Words | 6 Pages

In the poem, Johnson’s use of inclusive words like “we”, “our” and “us”, fused with anaphoras in each stanza, allow him to address black Americans in the north and south. Johnson uses phrases like “Let us”, “Let our”, and“We have come”, “Keep us”, and “Lest our” to unify black America and build community and culture shattered by American racism and prejudice. Without a strong foundation, how could black America improve from its “Bitter”, “Stony”, “dark”, “weary”, and “gloomy” past? Johnson’s inclusive word choice forces a shared experience among black Americans, making the issues at hand a national issue and not exclusively a southern one; hence Black Americans had to work together to reach “the white gleam” of “victory”. Johnson’s appeals to black America are further extended in his pleas for strengthening faith and progress for black Americans as well;

Read More

Head Off And Split Poem Analysis

563 Words | 3 Pages

The first section deals with hard headed African American women. Using prominent historical figures like Rosa Parks and Condoleezza Rice to help push the narrative along. The first poem in the section was “Red Velvet” in which she narrates the struggle of one one seamstress that became an important figurehead of a movement. She goes from there to poems about victims of hurricane Katrina in “Left” and finishing off the section with some choice words about George W. Bush in “Plunder” and one of the people under his command in the “Condoleezza Suite”. all the poems in this section

Read More

How Does Jesmyn Ward Use Figurative Language

1238 Words | 5 Pages

The author reflects on what happened in the long history of racism as she returns to the South she utters her feelings about things relating to what occurred during the civil war as they go into detail of what it must have been like within her surroundings. The speaker uses imagery to convey the theme of slavery by things Trethewey states “left sacks and fields of cotton”( ). The narrator used strong figurative language such as metaphors indicating slavery using negative connotations, as this is illustrated in the quote, the author writes “marking and vanquished land I returned to a field of the cotton hallowed ground” (15). As their legacy and memories are exclaimed as they talk about how the south was a consistent reminder of slavery given that this is the location in which everything occurred. Based on the connotative meaning of the words used in the text such as “old field ”imagining a war” it expresses how living In the South will always stick with them as their memories have a wired connection attached, as Mississippi will always be a constant reminder for

Read More

The Road From Sema Analysis

85 Words | 1 Pages

Have you ever thought about how African Americans achieved ability to register and vote for their rights? That is explained by Selma, which was a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. After the historic demonstrations there were multiple poems about what occurred. A few examples of poems written about Selma include “The Road From Selma” written by June Brindel and “Selma 1965” written by Gloria Larry House. It is interesting to see the same event written by two different people, it led to better

Read More

Summary Of On The Subway By Sharon Olds

537 Words | 3 Pages

These wounds were no accident; these events were not done by mistake. These white laces that look like a set of deadly scars symbolize the slavery, discrimination, and segregation blacks have suffered through. These black sneakers represent all the events that divide blacks and whites. This simile builds the tremendous contrast found in the poem by reminding the audience of all the events that make blacks and whites two separate entities. Further in the poem the contrast is developed further through the use of intense imagery.

Read More

Flannery O Connor's Use Of Setting Analysis

724 Words | 3 Pages

The story takes place at the height of the Civil Rights Movement in America, when desegregation is finally achieved. Flannery O’Connor’s use of setting augments the mood and deepens the context of the story. However, O’Connor’s method is subtle, often relying on connotation and implication to drive her point across. The story achieves its depressing mood mostly through the use of light and darkness in the setting.

Read More

Analysis Of Coming Of Age In Mississippi By Anne Moody

702 Words | 3 Pages

As a young woman of color growing up in Mississippi in the forties, Anne Moody grows up in a world where each day is riddled with uncertainties. From an early age she is exposed to uncouth acts of violence and discrimination that later fuel her quest for equal rights for African Americans nationwide as she becomes a powerful voice for in the civil rights movement. In her memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi, Moody retreats back into the experiences of youth and by doing so pushes forward a powerful portrayal of what it was like to grow up in the south as a black woman. At the corner stone of her memoir lies the idea that growing up a colored girl in Mississippi everything is a struggle.

Read More

Grutter V. Bollinger

679 Words | 3 Pages

“She wanted her son to go there as well, but because of affirmative action or minority something...her son wasn’t accepted” (Rankine 13). This quote is interesting to me because it reminds of the case Grutter v. Bollinger, where a white female applicant to the University of Michigan Law School sued the school for violating her Fourteenth Amendment because they denied her admission. She lost in the end, but the ideology that minorities are more easily accepted into schools than whites is still thought and said by some white Americans today. The importance this quote serves to the poem is that the quote is another example of a microaggression that the author wants the reader to understand happens. “She says she grabbed the stranger’s arm and

Read More

History Lesson Poem Analysis

792 Words | 4 Pages

Poetry Analysis Once the poem “History Lesson” was written numerous poetry foundations celebrated it for many reasons. “History Lesson” not only makes an impact on literature today it has also impacted people also. This poem inspires people and moves them to the point to where they can find a personal connection to the poem itself and to the writer. Not only does it hold emotional value for those who were victimized and those whose family were victimized by the laws of segregation, but the poem is also celebrated for its complexity. The poem uses many techniques to appeal to the reader.

Read More

The Mistreatment Of African Americans In Harlem, By Langston Hughes

161 Words | 1 Pages

The poem illustrates the mistreatment of African Americans in the South and the oppression and violence that they faced. “Honey-lipped syphilitic-that is the South. And I, who am black, would

Read More

Analysis Of Life For My Child Is Simple By Gwendolyn Brooks

554 Words | 3 Pages

Before the Black Lives Matter movement and before Black History Month became a prideful celebration time, black writers of the 1900s who experienced the age of rampant hate towards their people reflected on what it meant to be black. Some saw the transition between themselves and their children- happy that their own would not be filled with the same apprehension that they grew up being taught. Others noted and criticized their own people for wanting to assimilate or become something other than themselves. In the two poems, writer Gwendolyn Brooks reflects on these different experiences.

Read More

More about History Lesson Natasha Trethewey

Related Topics

Open Document