Dear Mrs. Fitzhugh (creative form)

The following is an imagined letter written by Hilda to Mrs. Fitzhugh. This letter performs the relationship that binds Hilda to Mrs. Fitzhugh, and the way in which Hilda must speak in a way that pleases Mrs. Fitzhugh if Hilda wants the checks to continue rolling in which finance Sassafrass’s education. In Hilda’s letters to…

SFA Project Check in #1

As of now, what is your central question? (Your central question is the question that each of your takes will take up and to which your project as a whole will respond.) How do we see a physical presence influence an attitude or tone in the novels we’ve read, specifically Leaving Atlanta? Does physical presence…

Aspects of Gullah Culture for the Characters Paths to Self-Acceptance

Over the course of Ntozake Shange’s novel, Sassafrass, Cypress, & Indigo, the main characters continuously break away from the demands and traditions of the patriarchal social system. The three sisters, Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo are determined to find their own journey of expression and creativity, despite their mother’s (Effania) attempts to remind them that it…

SN Final Project Proposal

In my 7th grade Reading Language Arts class, I will be teaching Brown Girl Dreaming this year. In the memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, Black author Jacqueline Woodson details her experience growing up in two places: South Carolina and New York and coming of age in the peak of the Civil Rights movement. Woodson’s memoir is…

Sherban – Final Proposal (T3 Option B)

TOPIC FOCUS (Central Objective) I want to explore the theme of blackness and erotic sexuality, and the power dynamics of sexual performance in Black literature. This idea interests me because I like the psychoanalytic lens and I’ve recently enjoyed reading The Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han. I’d like to think about the erotic within…

Individual Identity and Cultural Context

Final Project: “Individual Identity in a Cultural Context” I am obsessed with context. When watching television or consuming Beyonce in her various forms, my questions send me beyond the work to patterns of thought, influences, and deeper meaning. I want to know the personnel and how those persons’ experiences also contributed to the work. I…

“Too Much of the South in Her”: The tension between Indigo’s physical placement in the South and her spiritual connection with the universe

When readers pick up Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo, we are immediately confronted with claim that she has “too much of the South in her.” Even on this back cover, however, there is a tension between what that means in terms of physical location and spiritual connection. The book summarizes “Indigo, the youngest, is still a…

Artistic + Political Statements from Archie Shepp and Josephine Baker

In the scene with Sassafrass and Mitch in their L.A. apartment, Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, which at times can become fantastic or unreal, grounds itself in historical figures. Sassafrass makes “macrame hangings” of “Malcolm…Fidel, Garvey, Archie Shepp, and Coltrane” and wants to share but is forced to hide the “sequin-and-feather hanging shaped like a…