Literature Core (1080-01 S2022)
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…
In the short story “Sweetness” by Toni Morrison, the tenth paragraph within the text examines Sweetness’s perspective of the last two times she saw her daughter, Lula Ann. Throughout this paragraph, we can see that the expression of blackness is hampered and oppressed not by what exists on the inside or where someone originates, but…
Throughout Heads of The Colored People, written by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, police officers assume that fighting between two black characters is gang-related. A fist fight between two avid anime fans turned deadly after two racially motivated cops used excessive force in their arrest attempt. While some relate the fight to a scene in the famous anime…
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…