Literature Core (1080-01 S2022)
In “Oh she gotta head fulla hair” by Ntozake Shange, the protagonist Allegra uses her hair for a sense of comfort by escaping to an alternate reality. The author depicts Allegra’s action of brushing her hair to cause objects such as a brick house and fancy soap to come out of her head. These objects…
In Ntozake Shange’s “oh she gotta head fulla hair”, Allegra’s hair is her protection. Allegra’s hair allows her to live in a world full of her dreams by growing objects from her hair. This allows Allegra to live in a world of her desires, which she brushes in order to uphold. Shange illustrates this connection…
Morgan Parker’s “Let Me Handle My Business, Damn” is meant to be read like a song or a rap, not like a book or research paper. In the poem, there is almost no punctuation save one colon. Because of this, readers get to choose when to take their breaths and which words to emphasize. If…
In “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, the speaker emphasizes the importance of the collective “We” with the employment of enjambment throughout the poem. With each sentence ending with the beginning of a new one starting with the word “We,” readers are forced to pause before and after each “We.” Given the racial context in…
A specific element in the text that I think is important is the use of nicknames. The text presents this content by using the narrator’s nickname, “Snot”, when her actions are changed by others, and the narrator’s first name, “Laurel”, when her actions stay true to her original intention. The Brownie troop was getting ready…
In “Brownies” by ZZ Packer, the author writes, “‘Dammit!’ she said. ‘We’ve got to get them alone’… no one entertained the thought that they might fight back.”(13). Throughout the story, Packer frequently italicizes a single word in a sentence, often a sentence spoken by one of the children in the Brownies troop. This quote from…
Identify: “We can’t let them get away with calling us n*****s. I say we teach them a lesson (pg 8).” This is near the beginning of the story when Arnetta claims that one of the troopers in the 909 troop, full of white girls, called Daphne the N-word. Contextualize: Throughout the story, Arnetta’s voice is…
Identify- “‘Go on Laurel,’ Daphne said… ‘What happened next?’” These are some of the only words that are spoken by Daphne throughout the entirety of ZZ Packer’s short story “Brownies.” In the first paragraph of page 29, Daphne encourages her fellow girl scout, Laurel, to continue telling her story about her father and herself at…
The short story “White Rat,” written by Gayl Jones in 1977, details the complex relationship of a very fair skinned African-American man, who we know as “White Rat,” and his wife, Maggie. The couple has a son together, “little Henry,” and we know that he has a clubbed foot, which is the root of much…
The play “Color Struck” by Zora Neale Hurston was originally published in 1926. Taking place in the South, the story revolves around a cake-walk dance competition, with the winner receiving a large cake as their prize. The main characters are John, a light-brown skinned man, Emmaline or Emma, a dark-skinned black woman, and Effie, a…