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Lori Latrice Martin and Jahaan Chandler explain that race played a significant
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Chapter 26
Lori Latrice Martin and Jahaan Chandler explain that race played a significant role in influencing the murder of Michael Brown Jr in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014. Martin and Chandler suggest that Brown’s death depicts the spoiled historical relationship between the Black community and the law. According to Martin and Chandler, the officer who killed Brown, Darren Wilson, was a trained professional whose duty was to serve and protect every citizen. However, Wilson’s statement revealed his animosity toward the Black community. Wilson described Brown as a “demon” of superhuman strength. Chandler and Martin explain that cases of police brutality and killings against the Black community are commonplace in America and across the world from military personnel and law enforcers, an indication of the pre-existing stereotypes, fictitious narratives, and myths against the Black community that is passed from between generations. The death of Michael Brown reveals that the set of laws in the country applies differently between the Blacks and the Whites.
Martin and Chandler also fault the judicial system for failing to indict Darren Wilson due to his white origin. Many Americans and scholars hoped that the family of Brown would get justice when the officer would be arraigned in court. The article further criticizes the officer’s action for shooting Brown who was jaywalking and doubted that a confrontation between Brown and the officer would lead to the officer’s cruel murder of the young boy, whose lifeless body lay on the road for four and a half hours as a warning to onlookers. The article questions the role of the prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, in promoting oppression against the Blacks. McCulloch justified Mr. Brown’s death and blamed social media users, the mainstream media, and witnesses for blowing the issue out of proportion, a suggestion that he only represented the interest of Wilson and did not consider Brown’s family. Mr. McCulloch further gave evidence to the jury without discussing and explaining it to them. The article finishes off by suggesting that brutality against the Black has been rampant, as seen with the killing of Emmet Till, the beating of Rodney King among other controversial cases, and calls for policy reforms to protect the rights of Blacks living in the country.
Compare and contrast ‘The Storm’ and ‘The Story of an Hour’
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Compare and contrast ‘The Storm’ and ‘The Story of an Hour’
‘The Storm’ and ‘The Story of an Hour’ are both short stories written by Kate Chopin. ‘The Storm’ is the story of a family made up of Calixta, the wife and the main protagonist, her husband Bobinot and their four year old son Bibi. The main characters in ‘The Story of an Hour’ are Brently and Louise Millard who have been married for a long time and Louise’s sister Josephine as well as Richards who is a friend of the family (Seyersted). In comparing and contrasting the two stories, the main areas to examine include themes, setting and characterization.
The plot in ‘The Storm’ revolves around Calixta who is a married woman mainly tasked with taking care of her husband and son. Her husband and son went out and left her alone at home. While they are gone, a storm brews and Calixta is all alone at home. She goes out to get her husband and son’s ‘Sunday clothes’. A man known as Alcee comes to seek shelter from the storm at Calixta’s house. At first he was hesitant to come in but as the storm picked up he came in.
Alcee and Calixta once had feelings for each other before they were married and had even shared passionate kisses. However after they got married to their respective spouses, they had never been alone together (Stein 53). In the midst of the storm they rekindle they passion perhaps due to their close proximity and the fact that they are all alone. They are both heedless of the fact that their lovemaking could hurt and affect their families negatively.
Meanwhile Bobinot and Bibi are out at the store and are probably worried because Calixta has been left alone at home. Bobinot even buys a can of shrimp because it is his wife’s favorite. When the storm passes, Bobinot is anxious to get home but enters through the backdoor because he is afraid of how his wife will react to their muddied clothes. Calixta however receives them joyfully and the family sits down to a dinner filled with laughter. Father and son are unaware of the Calixta’s betrayal.
The second short story is ‘The Story of an Hour’. It is similarly set up in a family with Louise and Brently who are married to each other. Louise has long been considered to be a delicate woman with a weak heart (Hicks). Richards learns that there had been an accident and that Brently was among those killed. Josephine is reluctant to let her sister know the fate of her husband. Louise cries in an armchair and goes to her room to cry.
In her room, she looks out of her window to see the trees and flowers blooming. This is a sign of rebirth and she finds herself thinking that she was now free of her husband’s influence. Her lack of grief on her husband’s death is quite startling. Downstairs, her husband suddenly returns home completely unaware of what had happened. Josephine and Richards are reluctant to let Louise see him as she will be shocked (Hicks). Their fears come to pass as Louise comes out and on seeing her husband she drips dead. The doctors declare that she died of happiness in an ironic twist of fate.
Both of these stories have a common theme of irony. In ‘The Story of the Hour’, Louise‘s reaction to the news that her husband died can be considered ironic. She goes to her room but while her sister thinks she is crying, she is actually contemplating the freedom that the death has brought her. She does not think of other things that might be expected such as grief, or the fact that she will be left alone.
The irony in the ‘The Storm’ is when Bobinot and his son come back home, the family sits down to a happy meal. This is despite the fact that Calixta has cheated on her husband with whom she was acquainted before her marriage. The happiness after the fact is ironic since the events that happened before would have brought a lot of sadness to Bobinot and Bibi and probably destroyed their family.
A second comparison between the two stories is that the main characters are caught in marriages in which one partner is dominant over the other. In ‘The Storm’, Calixta is obviously dominant over her husband. This is evident when Bobinot is wary of his wife’s reaction when he and his son come home with soiled clothes. He tries to clean it off and they are both relieved when Calixta welcomes them home joyfully.
Louise Mallard in ‘The Story of an Hour’ was obviously oppressed and stifled in her marriage to Brently. Due to this fact, she celebrated her husband’s death instead of grieving as others expected her to be doing. In her mind, she imagines the freedom that she will have in the remaining years of life that she will be alone (Hicks). Her death when she sees her husband could have been due to the fact that she was both shocked and disappointed because she had already become excited at the prospect of being free.
Both of the stories also have the same domestic setting with the women being the main characters. Calixta and Louise are women who are shown to yearn for freedom in different ways. Louise is happy about her husband’s death while Calixta is happy to teach on her husband with Alcee. Both women appear to be confined to their households primarily being home makers.
There is also some apparent contrast in the two stories. The main characters in the stories, Louise and Calixta have very different personalities. Luoise appears to be more submissive and probably would never stand up to herself. For this reason she celebrates her husband’s death by contemplating her freedom. Calixta is much more daring. She slept with Alcee in her won house while her husband was out of the house. She also is the dominant partner in her marriage as her husband appears wary of her relationship.
The two stories have several similarities as well as differences. Women are the central characters in the story and bring out the main themes in the story. The settings also show the vulnerabilities and submission that is a part of marriages that make the partners yearn for different forms of freedoms. The major theme is marriage and the different challenges that happen within it especially in the Victorian era where women’s job was mainly to be homemakers.
Works Cited
Hicks, Jennifer. “An overview of “The Story of an Hour”.” Short Stories for Students, Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center,
http://0link.galegroup.com.libcat.sanjac.edu/apps/doc/H1420007762/LitRC?u=txshracd2544&sid=LitRC&xid=fe7373aa. Accessed 28 Feb. 2019.
Seyersted, Per. “An excerpt from Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography.” World LiteratCriticism, Supplement 1-2: A Selection of Major Authors from Gale’s Literary Criticism Series, edited by Polly Vedder, vol. 1, Gale, 1997.Literature Resource Center http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1420012147/LitRC?u=txshracd2544&sid=LitRC&xid=39ac27a4. Accessed 28 Feb. 2019. Originally published in Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography, by Per Seyersted, Louisiana State University Press, 1969.
Stein, Allen. “The Kaleidoscope of Truth: A New Look at Chopin’s ‘The Storm.’.” Short Story Criticism, edited by Jelena Krstovic, vol. 110, Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1420082718/LitRC?u=txshracd2544&sid=LitRC&xid=a66af61c. Accessed 28 Feb. 2019. Originally published in American Literary Realism, 1870-1910, vol. 36, no. 1, Fall 2003, pp. 51-64.
Literary Criticism “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath.
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Literary Criticism: “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath.
This work was completed on 12th October 1962. It is an emotive, 16-stanza poem that narrates and expresses the poet’s internal anguish. It is believed that the persona is also the poet due to the close similarities between the situations depicted in the symbols-rich poem and the real-life case of Sylvia Path. This literary analysis will examine the piece of work from a formalistic and a feministic point of view.
The poem begins with the sound “oo” ending each but one line of the first stanza. The poet immediately sets the tone for the rest of the poem. “You do not do, you do not do” (Plath, line 1) the repetition in the first line is perhaps for emphasis on the finality of the persona’s decision to divorce herself of the person referred to as the black shoe. Her experiences with the person have caused her great misery and limited her expression. The person is later observed to be the father who the persona is forced to eliminate from her consciousness. She defines him as a man of great consequence, with an idealistic mindset from the line she calls him “Marble-heavy, a bag full of God” (Plath, line 8). The poet continually gives us details regarding her father and why she has felt the need to cut him off from her life even though he died previously.
In the third stanza, she attempts to describe how far “daddy” had extended his sphere of influence: “And a head in the freakish Atlantic” (Plath, line 11). I take this metaphor that her daddy is a symbol of the male gender and the role it has played in her suffering. The last line is “Ach du” (Plath, line 15), translated as "Oh you," which may be interpreted as a hint of regret that she used to pray the men in her life. She begins the fourth stanza by giving us the hidden origins of her daddy: A polish town that has been subjected to many war experiences, including by her father. She also describes how her inability to speak in German to her father has added to the resentment she has of him. In life, her father also lost his individuality to her: She expressly states that she associated her father with every other German. Plath slowly develops a strong case for the reader to understand why she feels she can no longer associate with certain men.
In stanza seven, the persona uses a holocaust metaphor for two purposes: To show her extreme suffering at the hands of a male figure in her life, the Germans, and to initiate a claim that continues to support that she is a Jew. The collective metaphor here, I feel, is excessive as the persona’s tribulations are so far pale in comparison to the systematic persecution of the Jewish people. The eighth stanza continues in this vein with the poet who I now feel is also the persona, laying stronger claim to be a Jew. She states that she is a descendant of a gypsy (the first reference to the persona being female), and she is a tarot card occultist "And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack" (Plath, line 39). The opening line is probably her alluding to the fact that she is not a purebred Aryan, as she or others may have believed.
Stanza nine uses obvious metaphors to describe her fear of her father or male oppressors, and their use of violence and war. For instance, they are own a panzer and the Luftwaffe (the dreaded German air force of the Second World War). She also describes his (or their) facial features that they venerated. She then describes the symbols of their war campaigns: the swastika. She is attributing the destruction caused by the Germans in the war to men: A fact that cannot be entirely true. There is a line, "Every woman adores a Fascist" (Plath, line 48) that requires much attention. I feel she could be stating that women are so dominated by men they are forced like them. It would be consistent with the use of capital "F."
Perhaps she recognizes that her father was infallible just like any other human being: She admits she still has his picture before going off on the man who smote her heart but is worse than her father. She explains this much better in stanza twelve when she confesses her intent to commit suicide at the age of twenty to be reunited with her father. However, she decides to get attached to a man who reminded her of her father as much as possible. Her marriage opens a can of worms for her, and she feels her internal turmoil is coming to ahead. She feels so disconnected that she is addressing her father for support after she has vilified him. I feel that this part makes the poem poignant especially the line "So daddy, I’m finally through" (Plath, line 69 )
Fittingly, the next stanza starts with her stating she has “killed” of the other man in her life who is an imitation of her father by "killing" her father. He has been a parasite on her life for a long time. Here, she uses the word blood to represent her life. She then ends her dialogue with her father and ends her association with him ultimately. She ends the poem by finally acknowledging that her life choices have probably arisen as a result of the memories of her father who she might have adored, and now that he is figuratively dead to her, she can feel a sense of triumph.
In conclusion, the poem is a marvelous piece. The poet chronicles her battles with depression in a nuanced and obvious way. At the same time, it provides means to vent her frustrations with the men in her life who have caused her strife.
Works Cited
Plath, Sylvia. Daddy. na, 1962.