Resistance in Black Poetry and Children’s Literature
Audre Lorde — “Power” (1978)
Context
Power: Written in 1978 after the death of a 10-year-old Black boy, Clifford Glover, in New York (1973). This poem appears near the Black Arts period, when African Americans transformed voice into forms of poetry and art to capture resistance. The movement redefined Black as beautiful and powerful, turning language into rebellion and rejecting white literary norms.
Poem
The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children.
Read MoreLiterary Analysis of Trauma and Identity in Alexie and Okada
Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues (1995)
Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues (1995) intertwines history, myth, and music to address the lasting consequences of colonization for Native American communities. Through characters such as Thomas Builds-the-Fire, Victor, and Junior, Alexie reveals how the legacies of genocide, forced assimilation, and cultural erasure continue to shape identity and survival on the Spokane Reservation.
A chosen fragment from the novel illuminates Alexie’s complex thematic
Read MoreComparing Modernist Masters: Hemingway, Faulkner, Eliot, Fitzgerald
Hemingway’s Simple Style
Hemingway’s writing style is famously simple, but its simplicity is deliberate and deeply meaningful. Often described through his own “iceberg theory,” he believed that a writer should present only the surface of a story while allowing the deeper meaning to remain unspoken. His short sentences, plain vocabulary, and minimal descriptions create an effect of clarity and directness. Yet beneath that clarity lies emotional tension, psychological complexity, and moral ambiguity.
Postcolonial Identity and Resistance in Global Literature
Caste and Forbidden Love in The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy’s novel, The God of Small Things, takes place in post-independence India, mainly in the state of Kerala. It illustrates how ancient social systems like caste continued to shape people’s lives long after 1947. While independence promised equality, caste discrimination did not disappear. Velutha is a Dalit (from the Paravan caste)—formerly called “Untouchable”—and therefore remains socially excluded and constantly at risk.
His
Read MoreDefying Victorian Gender Norms: Estella and Catherine
Victorian Gender Norms and the Angel in the House
In Victorian times, women were expected to be gentle, obedient, and devoted to their families—the ideal of the “angel in the house.” Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights both feature female characters who break away from these expectations. Estella and Catherine Earnshaw challenge traditional female roles through their behavior and choices, but both are punished for these actions. This essay will show
Read MoreBefore acquiring a dog
Hope in the Dark – Rebecca Solnit:
Capitalism is an ongoing disaster – like a child constantly making messes and a parent cleaning them up (xvii)
Activists often speak as though the solutions we need have not yet been launched or invented, as though we are starting from scratch, when often the real goal is to amplify the power and reach of existing alternatives; What we dream of is already present in the world; The great anecdote is memory, remembering what has changed – like code name verity; The
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