AADS/ENGL 3328.01
Shange utilizes dancing as another form of ritual for communing and remembering the ancestors. The expression of “love,” “adoration, ” and the “union of spirits” are attributed to dancing. There is no form or requirements, but the act of dancing is its own ritual for remembering the past, for embracing the present, and creating a…
Love is difficult: Rarely does it come in the form similar to a fairy tale where everything just makes sense. Quite often, it takes patience, struggle, and work for love to blossom into the radiant, beautiful energy that overtakes the soul with warmth. The difficulty with love comes not from what to do following the fall,…
Shange incorporates Indigo’s personal reflections, entries, and written moments throughout the story so that the reader can see the world through this young woman’s eyes. Indigo is very in touch with her emotions and she uses magical realism and imagination to translate these feelings into the small snippets of poetry, jotted numbers, and experiences. These…
Reflection on Content Describe a few of the connections you see between your different entries? As you reflect on your entries, do you notice any patterns? Do you find any tensions between your thoughts in one entry and your ideas in another? Are their contradictions in how you’re thinking in one entry and how you’re…
You may email me your responses directly as a Word document, but I encourage you to post your project check-ins to the class site.* Doing so facilitates the feedback loop and also allows you to get a sense of how other groups are tackling similar or related issues. What Describe the event, performance, text, resource,…
In Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, Shange establishes a close connection between the moon and the concepts of both mystical womanhood and Blackness. These moon-related concepts converge in Indigo’s character. The repeated image of “a moon falling from her mouth” helps designate Indigo as a member of a special group of Black women who know “[their]…
Shange uses repetition throughout her narration of Indigo in a way that exudes reflection of the reader. Shange consistently takes the reader on the journey through Indigo’s mind and ends each sequence with “the South in her”. She allows the reader to picture themselves in Indigo’s world, learning from her imagination. When presented with, “the…