...The Harlem Renaissance's Impact on American Literature The Harlem Renaissance also known as the "New Negro Movement," was a cultural movement that spanned in the 1920's to the mid 1930's. It was a time in history that displayed the unique culture of African American expression, through literature, art, music, and dance. This African American culture grew out of Harlem, New York and symbolized freedom from the oppression of slavery. It was described as the spiritual coming of age in which African Americans had a chance to express their creativity. The Harlem Renaissance is noted as being a literary movement were African Americans could celebrate their heritage and reveal the truth about their life and the first time their literature was taken seriously by critics and publishers. The birth of the Harlem Renaissance came out of Harlem, New York in the early 1920's, "it was a time for a cultural celebration. African Americans had endured centuries of slavery and the struggle for abolition." (U.S History, 2008) It is described as racial pride and an intense desire for equality. It represented a time by the end of the war in 1919 where African Americans was going to be much more aggressive than their prewar brothers. Harlem was considered the capital of the black world, because it attracted thousands of blacks from the South and the West indies. It provided economic and education for African American artist. In Harlem, people demanded respect from those who continued to keep racist...
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...Student: Hassan Mohammad Hilles. Instructor: Prof. Dr. Kawther Mahdi Course Title: Modern English and American Poetry Wystan Hugh Auden Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England, in 1907. He moved to Birmingham during childhood and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. As a young man he was influenced by the poetry of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost, as well as William Blake, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Old English verse. At Oxford his precocity as a poet was immediately apparent, and he formed lifelong friendships with two fellow writers, Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood. In 1928, his collection Poems was privately printed, but it wasn't until 1930, when another collection titled Poems (though its contents were different) was published, that Auden was established as the leading voice of a new generation. Auden first gained attention in 1930 when his short verse play called ''Paid on Both Sides'' was published in T. S. Eliot's periodical The Criterion. In the same year appeared Auden's Poems, his first commercially published book, in which he carefully avoided Yeatsian romantic self-expression – the poems were short, untitled, slightly cryptic, but free of philosophical abstraction. The collection had a powerful influence on Auden's peers, including Stephen Spender, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Louis MacNeice. Auden soon gained fame as a leftist intellectual. He showed interest in Marx and Freud and he wrote passionately on social problems, among...
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...terms. In fact, the word “abortion” is never even spoken. Yet Hemingway literally paints the picture of a divided landscape capturing the intense internal struggle raging in the heart of young Jig. Symbolically sitting at a train station between “two lines of rails in the sun,” (Hemingway) Jig must decide which direction she will head. Her decision will be final, and there will be no turning back. The train heading home will mean the birth of her child and a future of being a mother. “The express from Barcelona” (Hemingway) heading to Madrid will allow her to continue a carefree life and forget her unborn child ever existed. The dilemma is complicated, but her options are not. To abort or not to abort, there is no middle ground. They are tracks which will never cross. Her male companion, who we know only as “The American,” is pushing Jig to have the abortion, but for Hemingway this is not a political debate, it as deeply private human struggle. “Abortion” is never mentioned. It is only alluded to through the couple’s cryptic dialogue. The American assures Jig “It’s not really anything. It’s just to let the air in” (Hemingway). In the 1920’s and 1930’s, abortions were performed using vacuum aspiration in which a pump sucked out uterine contents and literally “let the air (back) into the mother. To the American, the entire matter is “awfully simple” (Hemingway). For Jig the choice is anything but straightforward. For whatever she chooses, there will be consequences...
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...consciousness” discloses the divisions in American society and allows for a full understanding of those separations. The term "double consciousness" originated from an 1897 Atlantic Monthly article of Du Bois's titled Strivings of the Negro People. It was later republished and slightly revised under the title Of Our Spiritual Strivings in his assortment of essays, The Souls of Black Folk. This was a concept established by the American sociologist to describe the sensed contradiction between social values and day-to-day struggle confronted by blacks in the United States. Being a black as well as an American raised conflicts amongst American social ideals, which blacks shared. Nevertheless, DuBois saw blacks as secluded from the visible American life. The problem of African Americans double consciousness can be resolved. But, in order to permit Blacks to be fully American with equal rights and benefits as any other American, and yet still be African, and uphold the cultural traditions, there needs to be a separation from the thinking that there is a "bio-genetically or naturally determined character of the personality (DuBois).” Double consciousness is actually significant in today’s modern society. “While majority of people would like to debate that we live in a post-racial civilization, there are still many differences based upon race that make it challenging for black Americans to resolve their identity crisis as blacks and as Americans (Nuamah).” The media sells us images of...
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...The Perfect Female Body: Long before beauty pageants, Barbie dolls, and extra-ordinarily beautiful girls, came about the idea of the female body. Whether you are a believer of creationalism, scientology, or evolutionism, somehow we all came about with the perception of the “perfect” female. Women have always been seen, and portrayed as a sex symbol, and usually the disobedient one. Dating back to B.C and the story of Adam and Eve, Eve was the naked one who bit into the fruit that god told her was forbidden. Why couldn’t it have been Adam that caused such scandal, and was the cause for destruction, and crime in the world, and not Eve? From the believed beginning of time, to present day, women have really only progressed a small amount up the social ladder. Today, women are looked down upon, if they are slightly more over weight then what is considered “normal,” if they are “underweight”, “darker skin color”, too “pale”, “flat chested”, big boned, “thick,” or because of their ethnicities and backgrounds. So what exactly defines the “perfect female?” Is it the girls featured on “Girls Gone Wild” in Cancun, or the half naked models posing for Victoria’s Secret? Or is it the perfectly put together “Miss America” pageant queens? Or is it the Hollywood actresses with billion dollar dresses, and priceless jewelry? Or the well toned, well defined professional team cheerleaders, and dancers we watch? WE, speaking for us “average” women, who often tend to idolize, and carry pieces...
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...Depressed Society By: Rebecca Moore In the Great Depression of the 1930’s, there was a strong social and economical struggle that inhibited both men’s wishes and fantasies. The very idea of finding a paying career with high social status, was quite impossible to achieve and challenges the masculinity inside men, including Walter Mitty. Thurber’s short story;The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is of a man whose ultimate escape from a boring and miserable reality by making his own, depicts the hunger of excitement and success, as well as escapism that many others wanted in the Great Depression. Mitty’s desires to become more than who he is, and to be the centre of attention in his own fantasies, are the result of external and internal factors, that belittles and emasculates him. His patronizing wife, superior men, his self image, and his rather systematic life, causes him to isolate himself and escape the 1930’s time warp. Walter Mitty; there is little known about him except that fact that he is a chronic dreamer and has controlling wife whom he is submissive to. Goonetilleke’s article The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Overview expresses Thurber’s point of view on how women have won the battle of the sexes through Mrs.Mitty who stifles Walter’s masculine role in their relationships. She patronizes him about seeing a psychiatrist, putting on his gloves, getting overshoes, all the while reminding him that “you’re not a young man any longer” (Thurber P.2). This makes Walter feel like he is...
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...Bands (30’s-40s) o Benny Goodman- Chicago; “King of Jazz” • “Stompin’ at the Savoy”- 1934 • named after the Savoy Ballroom in New York • AABA form- American Form • Short solos • Smooth- no climax • Doesn't destroy the mood consistency of the piece • User friendly→ pop music • Well- strucutred • “Sing, Sing, Sing”- 1937 • most famous piece by benny goodmand and porbably the entire swing era • most recognizable part of the song is Gene Krupa’s drumming, which exists as a motif throughout the song o gene krupa very specific drumming style- jungle style→ pounding sound • band comes in screaming • very stylize- accurate- used for movie • not entirely written- drum and solos improvisation • drums center of it all o everything else is centered around that • IMPORTANT NAMES: • Benny Goodman (clarinet) • Teddy Wilson (piano) • Hampton Hawes (vibraphone) • Gene Krupa (drums) • Harry James (trumpet) o Duke Ellington- “America’s Greatest Composer” • IMPORTANT NAMES: • Duke Ellington (piano) • Jimmy Blanton (bass) • Sonny Greer (drums) • Paul Gonsalves (tenor saxophone) • Cootie Williams (trumpet) • Johnny Hodges (alto saxophone) • “Take the A Train” 1941 • jazz standard by Billy Strayhorn • “It don’t mean a thing if it aint got that swing- 1932 • “Black, Brown, and Beige Pt. 1- Work Song”- 1943 • slow in the beginning • bass’ corse tone- suggestive of an unrelieved tension→ this tension in sound and rhythm then produces the image of struggle • the reason...
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... America in the mid 1950’s and 1960’s was undergoing a profound social metamorphosis. Events such as, in 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, with the Supreme Court ruling public school segregation illegal, which many believe sparked the civil rights era, in 1956 Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, “precipitating the Montgomery bus boycott, led by Martin Luther King Jr.” (To Kill a Mockingbird: Civil Rights Era, 2012), in 1957 federal troops were sent to Little rock Arkansas to protect nine African American students who were going white high school, per the court ordered desegregation of school, were challenging and for some forcing the way in which Americans lived, their beliefs and their treatment of African Americans that had been indoctrinated into their consciousness from the time they were born and many did not understand why this treatment was inappropriate, prejudice and unconstitutional. For some these changes were viewed as not an intrusion or criticism of their way of life but as a positive, needed social awakening but for others it only provoked a fierce need to protect their prejudicial point of view resulting violence and inhuman acts of injustice toward African Americans. During this period a young woman by the name of Harper Lee began writing a story about a young girl in a quiet southern town going up in the south 1930’s with plot encompassing social...
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...Woop! Zoop! Sloop! Bud, Not Buddy is a book about a young, African American boy who has to survive in the 1930's during the Great Depression. Woop! Zoop! Sloop! Is a quote Bud used in the book. Christopher Paul Curtis is the author of this wonderful novel. Bud has been through a lot in his life, but in the depression, that’s a normal thing. Bud, Not Buddy would be a different story if they had modern technology because they would have cell phones, electricity, and they wouldn't have even needed Hoovervilles. To begin with, if Bud would have had electricity it would have been a big help. In Chapter 3, Bud needed to have heat and light in the shed. If he would have had this, his night in the shed could have been much better. He wouldn't have been so frightened by the fish heads, and he would have seen the bee hive. Bud may not have even had to stay in the shed because the Amoses wouldn't have made him be in it with a swarm of angry bees. Electricity would have made everything easier and more convenient....
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...Consumerism in the 1950’s The Great Depression in the 1930’s brought the unemployment rate to a staggering 17.9% (Witkowski , 1998). Consumers were forced to ration their spending habits to only include bare necessitates for the home. Aside from the addition of indoor “…flush toilets and electric lighting and appliances” families were not concerned with updating their material lifestyle (Witkowski , 1998). In 1940, 33% of Americans could not afford the luxury of running water and 48% had no refrigerator (Witkowski , 1998). Soldiers returning home after WWII were greeted by a vastly changing market for the American consumer. The war had caused inflation back home. In 1945, “the economy created 17 million new jobs” (Witkowski , 1998). The increase in incomes changed the dynamic of how American families viewed consumerism. Rationing of goods reformed into increased spending habits on recreational goods. Advertising dominated the market encouraging consumers to “keep up with the Jones’s”; a coined phrase that promoted consumers to spend money on material goods and update household appliances in order to maintain their desired social status. After the Depression ended wages more than doubled in 1950 compared to 1935, making consumers eager to spend (The Boom Years, 2012 p 274). Americans wanted to live “the good life” which meant having the latest household appliances like washing machines and refrigerators, a cookie-cutter house in the suburbs, a driveway for the family...
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...economic problems and why they succeeded or failed. 5. Write an essay about the impact of television on the history of the United States over the past fifty years in which you describe in detail at least one historical event of national importance from each decade of the 1950s - 1990s that was affected by TV. Civil Right: The WWII can be recognized at the origin of the period when United States started it political and economical dominant compare to other nations. WWII reshaped Americans’ understanding of themselves as a people. The struggle against Nazi tyranny and its theory of a master race discredited ethnic and racial inequality. Originally promoted by religious and ethnic minorities in the 1920s and the Popular Front in the 1930s, a pluralist vision of American society now became part of official rhetoric. What set the United States apart from its wartime foes, the government insisted, was not only dedication to the ideals of the Four Freedoms but also the principle that Americans of...
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...Fitzgerald’s Bio When they met again, two days later, it was Gatsby who was breathless, who was, somehow, betrayed. Her porch was bright with the bought luxury of star-shine; the wicker of the settee squeaked fashionably as she turned toward him and he kissed her curious and lovely mouth. She had caught a cold, and it made her voice huskier and more charming than ever, and Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.--Ch. 8 Fitzgerald's own tempestuous relationship with his wife Zelda would be reflected in his many short stories and novels, first serialised in such literary journals as Scribner'sand the Saturday Evening Post. Their lives are a classic study of the American Dream in all its highs, lows, excesses, and joys. Highly lauded as a writer, Fitzgerald was often mired in debt because of his and Zelda's lavish lifestyle, living beyond their means.The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald's characters Daisy and Tom Buchanan, Myrtle, Jay Gatsby, and Nick Carraway epitomise the Jazz Age but is has also remained timeless in its examination of man's obsessions with and need for money, power, knowledge, and hope. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (named after Francis Scott Key, author of the United States' national anthem "The Star Spangled Banner") was born into an upper-middle class family on 24 September 1896 in St...
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...To Americans in the 1930s, the Great Depression was a devastating blow to their previously carefree lifestyle. This time of trials and struggles was brought on by several events. After World War I, farmers struggled as prices dropped from sky-high from feeding an army to an all time low when their services were no longer needed. They tried to produce more, lowering prices, and ultimately selling themselves out of business. The steady decline of industry also contributed to the Great Depression. Cars and buses were created, putting thousands of railroad workers out of work, the same going for coal mining and factories as new sources of power were discovered. Fewer homes being built also led to an increased unemployment rate. Consumer...
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...Andrzej Faron Patricia Lambert DATE \@ "MMMM d, y" November 20, 2015 History 106 The Great Depression The Great Depression was a world wide economic depression that occurred amid the 1930s. The timing of the Great Depression was different throughout other countries,yet in many nations it began in 1929 and endured until the late 1930s. It was the longest, most profound, and one of the worst economic depression of the twentieth century. Overall GDP fell by 15% from 1929 to 1932. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is usually seen as an illustration of how far the world's economy can decay. The depression started in the United States, after a fall in stock costs that started around September 4, 1929, and got to be overall news with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929 . The Great Depression had bad impacts in nations both rich and poor. Individual pay, taxes, benefits and costs dropped, while foreign exchange dove by more than 50%. Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 25% and in few nations ascended as high as 33%. Urban areas all around the globe were hit hard, particularly those subject to heavy industry. Development was for all intents and purposes stopped in numerous nations. Urban groups and country zones struggled as yield costs fell by around 60%. As jobs became hard to find, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and logging suffered the most. The start of The Great Depression. Historians more often than not say that...
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...Introduction The year is 1930, during the Great Depression. Some of the main reasons why the Depression is so very important, is because without this, we might not have had the incentive to work so hard to make things better afterward. The society of America is amazing, the people that put forth the time and the effort to make a nation thrive, ought to be remembered proudly and courageously. The Great Depression was a time of sadness for our nation, a pedestal, that stood in our way of greatness. Great Depression Causes It started out as people were being run out of jobs, forced to feed their families off of the streets, with only the kindest hearts. This was labeled the Stock Market Crash, which would prove to be a tremendous factor...
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