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Naked By Joyce Carol Oates Analysis

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Sexual Racism in the American Societies The short story Naked by Joyce Carol Oates talks about anonymous female figure that lived a big shock because of the violent event she went through, that she was attacked by a group of children which includes boys and girls, the eldest child was 12 years old. The writer describes those children in the story that they were, “small pack of black children…” this quote from the story would give the reader a hint to think if this story is about racism in America between white and black people. Different short stories that Oates writes focuses specifically about everyday experiences people would face in their real lives that would give them the time to think what’s going around them in their societies. In addition, after the attack that the forty-six years old woman experienced set the next sequence of …show more content…

As a woman she’s always in the middle of the circle, a spotlight is pointed to her, that she is for 99% could do a sin but not be betrayed by anyone else. One of the most important examples in the story that shows her absolute idea that she is wrong, even though she is not, but that what’s will others think about her is saying, “This is what you deserve, a voice meanly consoled her, but she was too weakened, too much in pain, to respond.” This quote proves that this woman knew that she didn’t do anything wrong, but according to the formatting that her society created put her to live in, tells her that she is wrong for a reason or not. From Christine E. Atkins article “This What You Deserve”: Rape as Rite of Passage in Joyce Carol Oates’s “Naked” discussed the idea of what led women to be victimized by men so easily, according to the cultural rape scripts that deal with sexual violence as a normal action to women. The article states

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The author symbolized that growth in Elizabeth’s character with the striking image of a “shining steel knife with a polished cutting edge.” Before she had made the three day journey, with her daughter Sylvie, Elizabeth had been a woman with “paralytic fear” of her husband; she was unable to stand up to him when he treated her with disrespect, saying things such as, “Shut yer mouth, woman, and git my supper.” It was clear that the husband treated her with little dignity, as if she was of a lower class then him, merely because she was a woman and he was a man. Elizabeth realized, after reading the book, The Feminine Mystique, that she was not alone in questioning if that was the proper way for a husband to treat his wife. Returning from the trip, her daughter was able to sense the “new dogged strength “that Elizabeth had created in herself and saw her new “courage” first hand when her mother had asserted her worth as an individual by demanding respect from her husband, in the form of him calling her by her name.

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The context of the text was to support women’s rights by encouraging women to better themselves as wives by valuing intelligence and culture over beauty. The audience that this speech is targeted towards is women. She specifies women as the audience by tailoring her speech towards women and appealing to their emotions, situations, and circumstances. For example, she says, “I could not believe that God gad created so many homely women, and suffered all to lose their beauty in the very maturity of their powers, and yet made it our duty

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Racial tension has been a hot topic in our country for a long time. No matter what laws and regulations are passed, there will still always be racial tensions and cruel people. In the short story “Brownies” by ZZ Packer, a young group of black girls are at a scout camp with other young, white girls. After being called the N word by a the group of white girls, the young black girls believe they are being discriminated against. Throughout the story, Packer depicts the very real problem of racial discrimination in young kids, just as in older adults.

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In the book, there are significant racial tensions and racial divisions in society. Young Black women like Lauren, the primary character, must find their way in a society where they face prejudice and marginalization. In the story, racism is shown as a persistent menace in a society where one's character or aptitudes are more often evaluated than the color of one's skin. Unfortunately, this is a problem that persists in modern culture. The work emphasizes the consequences of institutionalized racism, which persists today.

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white world. (Ibid 33) Strangely enough, for Jan Mohamed’s (1995) argument to work he himself must ignore the misogyny in Wright’s text. He never directly discusses the women in Black Boy, save one passage on Richard’s sick mother and there he cites her illness as yet another reflection of Richard’s suffering. Richard’s first job while in the South involved witnessing a gruesome attack on a black female client of his boss and the boss’s son.

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This passage highlights Rosalind's internalized thinking that women

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Racist and sexist stereotypes are depicted in the short story, Kindred. Kindred, is about an interracial couple living in California during the 1970s. Dana and Kevin are happily married, when Dana suddenly time travels back to the antebellum south during the time of slavery. Dana is an educated black woman, in the 70s it is normal for a black woman to have higher roles in society, but it is not

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I find that this example highlights the fact that while women had far less political power in society during the nineteenth century, the least the law could do was to protect the sexual integrity of women; However, African American women suffered from racial, gender and class discrimination that makes it difficult for them to prosecute those that sexually assault them. Furthermore, anger of white men were usually taken out on the wives of freed African American men and usually in the form of sexual assaults and this made the situation for African American women

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In Joyce Carol Oate’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, the coming of age message is to avoid living in your childhood fantasies so much that you can’t face the realities of adulthood. Connie is a fifteen years old girl who wants to act mature but constantly living in her childhood fantasies. When it comes to her craving of acting like a grown up, she goes to the Big Boy restaurant with her friends but left them behind when a boy is asking her to go out for dinner. When she gets home, she dreams that ‘the boy’ she met last night whose ‘sweet, gentle’ and just like ‘in the movies and promised in songs’(52). Sweet and gentle are being expressed as imagery to describe the boy that Connie met the night before.

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A story can go many directions, as well as American History. Can a story be considered history? As noted by Joyce Carol Oates, author of Believing What We Read, and Vice Versa, “In any case, language by its nature tends to distort experience. With the best of intentions, in recalling the past we are already altering it- one might say violating-the original experience, even if it is just the previous night’s dream, which may have been wordless and was certainly improvised. ”(Oates)

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Arguments for The play is considered by as a feminist work as it illustrates the erroneous treatment of women. Ibsen believes that women had a right to

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Afro-American women writers present how racism permeates the innermost recesses of the mind and heart of the blacks and affects even the most intimate human relationships. While depicting the corrosive impact of racism from social as well as psychological perspectives, they highlight the human cost black people have to pay in terms of their personal relationships, particularly the one between mother and daughter. Women novelists’ treatment of motherhood brings out black mothers’ pressures and challenges for survival and also reveals their different strategies and mechanisms to deal with these challenges. Along with this, the challenges black mothers have to face in dealing with their adolescent daughters, who suffer due to racism and are heavily influenced by the dominant value system, are also underlined by these writers. They portray how a black mother teaches her daughter to negotiate the hostile, wider world, and prepares her to face the problems and challenges boldly and confidently.

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Furthermore, Feminist Criticism provides a better view of literature because it shows that women can be powerful. When Emilia finds out that her husband has been plotting an evil plan she says,” Tis proper I obey him, but not now”(Othello V.2.195). Emilia refuses to help her husband after she finds the cruel intentions he has despite the expectation of women always being submissive to their husbands. Women also have a voice and feelings, they are capable of defying their husbands commands when they know what he expects is simply wrong. In a literary article,The Role of Women in Othello: A Feminist Reading states that,” Society weighs heavily on the shoulders of women; they feel that they must support the men and defer to them, even if the actions of the men are questionable” (Literary Articles).

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With that said, I believe this character to not only be a part of the parable story speaking to the inability to “be good” in society (pg 682); but more specifically, a critique on women’s inability to remain good, and be respected in comparison to men.

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One of the most significant works of feminist literary criticism, Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One`s Own”, explores both historical and contemporary literature written by women. Spending a day in the British Library, the narrator is disappointed that there are not enough books written by or even about women. Motivated by this lack of women’s literature and data about their lives, she decides to use her imagination and come up with her own characters and stories. After creating a tragic, but extraordinary gifted figure of Shakespeare’s sister and reflecting on the works of crucial 19th century women authors, the narrator moves on to the books by her contemporaries. So far, women were deprived of their own literary history, but now this heritage is starting to appear.

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