...casualty of racism to become a young woman with self-dignity and identity that helps her to overcome prejudice. The context of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings focuses on the problems associated with racism that was prevalent in the southern states. Racist oppression is a common theme in the book that is portrayed by all the major characters; in fact, all the other themes in the book are closely related to racism, identity and segregation. In addition, the style and genre, and the structure of this literary work make significant contributions towards its thematic development, which focus on resistance to racism, the significance of the family, self-identity and definition and independence. Walker (95) argues that I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings is characterized by thematic unity, which is achieved using the structure adopted in the text that takes more of a thematic form rather than a chronological form. In addition, Angelou managed to emphasize on the universal ideas in her literary work irrespective of its periodic quality. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou used the major characters of the book to facilitate its thematic development identity, racism and literacy throughout the text. Basing on this assertion, this essay uses evidence from the book to affirm the role that the major characters played in the development of the major themes in the book. The first major theme in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is identity. In the course of the text, Maya is depicted as...
Words: 2539 - Pages: 11
...family history, identity, and mortality. Through his journey across the desolate landscape of southeastern Idaho, Schrand embarks on a quest to uncover the shadows of his family's past while grappling with his own sense of self. Schrand employs various rhetorical strategies—metaphor, imagery, and narrative structure—to engage readers and invite them to participate in his introspective exploration. This essay argues that Schrand’s use of the Bone Road as a metaphor, his vivid descriptive language, and his non-linear narrative techniques effectively draw readers into his exploration of family history and personal identity, reflecting broader themes of searching for meaning in a...
Words: 1459 - Pages: 6
...article was downloaded by: [Lahore University of Management Sciences] On: 02 May 2015, At: 09:58 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Anatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rana20 Understanding the influence of interpersonal relationships on identity and tourism travel Julia F. Hibbert a b a , Janet E. Dickinson & Susanna Curtin a a School of Tourism, Bournemouth University , Fern Barrow, Poole , BH12 5BB , United Kingdom b School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University , Kalmar , Sweden Published online: 25 Jan 2013. To cite this article: Julia F. Hibbert , Janet E. Dickinson & Susanna Curtin (2013) Understanding the influence of interpersonal relationships on identity and tourism travel, Anatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research, 24:1, 30-39, DOI: 10.1080/13032917.2012.762313 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2012.762313 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness...
Words: 6703 - Pages: 27
...Whenever a discussion on identity is introduced, the most-cited poem in Korea is “The Flower” by Chunsu Kim. He sings of being himself as becoming a colorful and fragrant flower. To be the flower that will rightly represent his identity, he needs someone to call his name. In this poem, identity is not seen as something that is solid and concrete but as something that is situated and constructed by others, a glimpse of poststructuralist view on identity. Recently, language learning has been seen as participation and negotiation of self (see Higgins, forthcoming; Kinginger, 2004; Lam, 2000; Morita, 2004; Ohara, 2001; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000; and Solé, 2007 among others). The trend is resonated in the growing interest in language learner identity and the studies in narratives. In this paper, a case of heritage language learner will be investigated upon the theoretical frame of poststructuralism. Narrative inquiry will be used to analyze how she negotiates her learner identity. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: First, by looking at the struggle a language learner makes to acquire her heritage language, I reclaim the centrality of identity in defining heritage language learners. Second, to widen the horizons of narrative studies to the cyber space as it provides an ample source of easily accessible data and it has become one of the commonplace media of daily communication. Heritage Language Learners and Identity To refer to the Heritage Language Learners (HLLs), various...
Words: 4079 - Pages: 17
...Title: Stories of Narratives: On Social Scientific Uses of Narrative in Multiple Disciplines Author: John Bryce Merrill Date: 02/09/2015 Name: Angela Uchechukwu Nwude A Critical Response Paper to Stories of Narratives: On Social Scientific Uses of Narrative in Multiple Disciplines In his article titled, Stories of Narratives: On Social Scientific Uses of Narratives in Multiple Disciplines, John Bryce Merrill, sought to explore how narrative is understood and used by scholars in multiple disciplines to address social scientific issues. To arrive at this objective, the he applied a systematic method of data collection using a grounded theory approach. The data constituted mainly of literature written by scholars of various discipline on the social scientific uses of narrative. An Inductive analysis of the data revealed substantial similarities in the way narrative is applied to social scientific issues across various disciplines, hence what narrative does and can do across disciplines. The writer examined these similarities, under three emergent themes, which shall form the fulcrum of this critical discourse. Narrative as a tool for the construction of self and social reality According to the writer, narrative play a privileged role in the process of self-construction. Individuals tend to construct stories and accounts of their lives through interactions, telling and other communicational skills called narrative. In telling these stories they create, restructure and represent...
Words: 731 - Pages: 3
...The Gender Politics of Narrative Modes I want to challenge two linked assumptions that most historians and critics of the English novel share. The first is that the burgeoning of capitalism and the ascension of the middle classes were mainly responsible for the development of the novel. The second is that realism represents the novel's dominant tradition. [note 1] I want to propose instead that, as surely as it marked a response to developing class relations, the novel came into being as a response to the sex-gender system that emerged in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [note 2] My thesis is that from its inception, the novel has been structured not by one but by two mutually defining traditions: the fantastic and the realistic. [note 3] The constitutive coexistence of these two impulses within a single, evolving form is in no sense accidental: their dynamic interaction was precisely the means by which the novel, from the eighteenth century on, sought to manage the strains and contradictions that the sex-gender system imposed on individual subjectivities. For this reason, to recover the centrality of sex and gender as the novel's defining concern is also to recover the dynamism of its bimodal complexity. Conversely, to explore the interplay of realist and fantastic narratives within the novelistic tradition is to explore the indeterminacy of subjectivities engaged in the task of imposing and rebelling against the constraining order of gender difference. ...
Words: 5434 - Pages: 22
...Through narrative therapy a counselor can help clients gain access to preferred story lines about their lives and identities taking the place of previous negative and self-defeating narratives that destroy the self. Presented in this paper, is an overview of the Narrative therapy and the Social Construction Model and several facets of this approach including poststrucuralism, deconstructionism, self-narratives, cultural narratives, therapeutic conversations, ceremonies, letters and leagues. A personal integration of faith in this family counseling approach is presented and discussed also in this paper. NARUMI AMADOR’S FAMILY CONSELING APPROACH Introduction Narrative therapy is found under the Social Construction Model. Using the Narrative approach, the therapist will not be the central figure in the therapeutic process, instead he will be influential to the client, helping him/her internalize and create new stories within themselves to draw new and healthier assumptions about who they are. This process enables clients to distract from focusing on the negative narratives which defined their past, redefining their lives into future positive stories. Narrative therapists define the problem as the problem instead of defining the client as the problem. The therapy process begins redefining the problem, externalizing it and getting it out in the open. The narrative therapist uses the questioning technique and creates alternative narratives to connect...
Words: 3218 - Pages: 13
...society and forced to look on as a detached third party without the ability to merge as an integrated and accepted participant. While the outsider identity may be thrust upon the individual, the individual himself/herself may hinder his/her assimilation and therefore be the cause of his/her own isolation. In both Margaret Atwood’s poem collection Journals of Susanna Moodie and Maria Campbell’s narrative poem, “Jacob,” protagonists Susanna Moodie and Jacob struggle as outsiders in their respective Canadian environments. Both protagonists are outsiders as Moodie is an outsider to the wildlife environment of the Bush and Jacob is an outsider to his Indigenous community; however, Moodie’s outsider status is a result of her personal fear of the unfamiliar, while external societal forces create Jacob’s outsider identity. Both outsider identities, while differing in causation, illustrate the negative impact Western ideology has on the new settler and Indigenous populations as the former’s preconditioned Western beliefs turn Canada’s natural environment into an adversary and the latter is pressed to abandon its unique cultural traditions. Through strategic word choice, both Susanna Moodie and Jacob are established as outsiders in their respective natural and social environments; however Moodie’s personal barriers cause her outsider identity, while Jacob’s outsider status is forced upon him by societal factors, providing a commentary on the destructive impact of Western ideologies. Atwood...
Words: 2126 - Pages: 9
...though self-report measures of prejudicial views have declined rapidly, researchers have found pro-white and anti-black biases still happens below the conscious level. Such findings raise the questions of whether humans inherently have racial bias and whether these automatic biological processes can be counteracted through social intervention. The purpose of this paper is to propose mechanisms of racial bias and demonstrate their operation in relation to personal identity at the biological, psychological, and social level. An individual’s perception of himself and others depends on the personal, relational, and the collective phenomenon of identity. An understanding of how identity operates as a mechanism of racial bias at the psychological...
Words: 1445 - Pages: 6
...STUDIES IN PROFESSIONAL LIFE AND WORK Mike Hayler University of Brighton, UK Autoethnography, Self-Narrative and Teacher Education examines the professional life and work of teacher educators. In adopting an autoethnographic and life-history approach, Mike Hayler develops a theoretically informed discussion of how the professional identity of teacher educators is both formed and represented by narratives of experience. The book draws upon analytic autoethnography and life-history methods to explore the ways in which teacher educators construct and develop their conceptions and practice by engaging with memory through narrative, in order to negotiate some of the ambivalences and uncertainties of their work. The author’s own story of learning, embedded within the text, was shared with other teacher-educators, who following interviews wrote self-narratives around themes which emerged from discussion. The focus for analysis develops from how professional identity and pedagogy are influenced by changing perceptions and self-narratives of life and work experiences, and how this may influence professional culture, content and practice in this area. Autoethnography, Self-Narrative and Teacher Education Autoethnography, Self-Narrative and Teacher Education STUDIES IN PROFESSIONAL LIFE AND WORK The book includes an evaluation of how using this approach has allowed the author to investigate both the subject and method of the research with implications for ...
Words: 18203 - Pages: 73
...the views represented in the synthesis essay may not necessarily represent my personal opinions (I won’t write this disclaimer on the AP test). To live a meaningful life is awfully vague, for it can mean a life of happiness, of financial superiority, and of success. But the reason behind why the definition remains vague is clear: we become too obsessed with external factors and often forget ourselves--our character and our individuality. Thus, the prospect of a meaningful life continues to run away from us as we grow jealous of others who have more resources than we. To live a truly meaningful life that embraces both controllable and uncontrollable factors, we must resist trying to please others by avoiding the tendency...
Words: 1852 - Pages: 8
...Why it matters? It's a mystery of literature involving a man of words. Words which caused uproar back in 1789. The British readers were captivated by his personal experience of being enslaved at age 11, kidnapped from Nigeria, and brought into slavery of a New World in a terror-filled ship. Equiano's tale is viewed as an authoritative description of the villainous Middle Passage, one of the very first narratives from a slave, a story that gave the hatchling abolitionist movement a buzzing moral influence; except it may not be exact. Therein lays the mystery: Because if the gentleman who penned "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African" was not born in Africa, but rather born into slavery in South Carolina -- as Vincent Carretta suggests -- then who was he? Where did he learn to speak fluent Igbo? And how did he obtain such agonizing details about life aboard an 18th-century slave vessel? The air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains. . . . The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable. (Equiano, 1789) In that lies the controversy: Carretta's findings, detailed in his biography of Equiano, have ignited a blaze...
Words: 1148 - Pages: 5
...Family Counseling Approach: Narrative Lisa R. Murray Liberty University Online Abstract Narrative therapy is a therapeutic approach that is used alone or in conjunction with other methods of therapy. This particular method of therapy is used in family therapy to help clients focus on gaining access to preferred story lines in reference to their lives and identities the family dynamics that may affect them. The preferred story line will replace the place of the previous negative and self-defeating narratives about themselves. Helping clients within a family counseling to begin to become the author of their own story is important in many cases to overcoming multigenerational affects. Narrative therapy aids in this process. This comprehensive evaluation of narrative therapy within the structure of family therapy and the integration of faith will be constructed in the following pages. Keywords: self-defeating, Narrative therapy, multigenerational, therapeutic Introduction Narrative therapy is considered apart of the Social Construction Model. This particular type of therapy, the counselor or therapist is not a dominant entity or focal point of the process. Instead the therapist is seen as an influential individual to the client. The counselor will aid the client with the process of internalization and the creation of new stories or narratives within themselves that help them to draw new assumptions about themselves. This is done through the process of the client...
Words: 3758 - Pages: 16
...A mother leaves her daughter a map, but no legend to later unlock its true meaning. A relevant figure in this instance is Danielle Geller, a renowned writer of personal essays and memoirs who wrote “Heirloom.” Geller focuses on the idea that artifacts, especially heirlooms, can hold the weight of family traditions, memories, and even one's identity. In “Heirloom,” she explores how these objects represent connections to the past, even when those connections are filled with loss, pain, and complications. Geller’s essay analyzes how these heirlooms assist her in understanding and coming to terms with her own identity as she sorts through the remnants of her mother’s life following her passing. Pathos is evident throughout the essay as Geller deeply explores her emotional connection to her mother’s belongings and the memories they evoke. Geller sets the stage by describing a specific scenario in which she goes through her mother’s possessions, especially the family photos. Those images act as pathways between Geller and her mother’s past, helping her gain a better understanding of it. There are Already Vue moments where she can piece together a puzzle. Geller also mentions her resignation, knowing she would never be able to meet her mother’s parents—her grandparents—who have all unfortunately passed away. They are now merely pictures of family members whose names she will never know; a chronicle with no storyline. This emphasizes that heirlooms have the ability to inspire a connection...
Words: 614 - Pages: 3
...Personal Theory Exploration Sarah Haeck Bowling Green State University Growing Awareness “Knowledge is power.” -Sir Francis Bacon Knowledge is indeed powerful. It allows one to see things in more comprehensive ways. Knowledge doesn’t let one settle. It molds and evolves within someone. Knowledge pushes one to betterment. It can come from outside sources but always is processed and implemented within. As a counselor, knowledge is vital to the wellness and development of the client. Knowing who we are, where we come from, what influences us, and what makes us who we are, these are just some of the questions that help us discover ourselves. I have spent a great deal of time and effort understanding who I am and what goes into that. As well as how the situations and people around me have made impressions on my life. Then beginning to dealing with the issues that have come up because of these things. At the end of the day, I believe a few things to be true: relationships mold our existence, our spiritual lives affect us, and a holistic view and self-awareness are keys to growth. As I have traced the steps of several theories, one sticks out as primary to who I am – Existential-Humanistic Theory. Taking the essence of this theory and combining it with aspects of Developmental Counseling Theory and Family Therapy, I hope to have a comprehensive fit to my personality as a budding counselor. Adaptable and Practical Being highly spiritual makes Existential-Humanistic...
Words: 2374 - Pages: 10