Langston Hughes Narration Answers "Salvation"

Letter to the Later Generation

Dear Khadija Allen,
I am surprised to hear from you. Your generation now days have it made. The technology such as the computer, cell phones, and the emails keep you people updated a lot. I would have never thought that you would have written me a letter, but I am thrilled you did. You people have high fashion, luxury cars, and other costly items that only my social security can get me so much of.
You ask me to describe how life was for me in the early 20th century. I say much different than it is now. Let us just say people. Especially women, have a lot more freedom than they did during my time. Women were not allowed to vote or hold legit job. We were treated like slaves and we had jobs like to care of our children, hold risky jobs such as police officers and even being a nurse to the soldiers in the wars. While men were getting most of the attention, we were just being put aside.
Transportation for us was just opening to expand. New fixtures such as bridges and automobiles were all put into effect. The automobile vastly increased the mobility of people in the Western countries in the early to mid-century and in many other places by the end of the century. City design throughout most of the West became focused on transport via car. New inventions began to make a move on us and everything made life much easier. When Henry Ford invented the Ford Model T, everyone just had to get there hands on one of them. The Model T set 1908 as the historic year that the automobile came into popular usage. People were saying that it is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car that "put America on wheels”. Early on, it was this marvelous, extravagant bridge created right after my mother’s birthday. It was the famous Brooklyn Bridge. It was made for people who wanted to get to Manhattan from Brooklyn or vice versa, a lot quicker and easier. Later the Wright Brothers made a superb invention that can get you from place to place in mid air. It is what’s known as the airplane. The brothers made their first successful flight in 1903. Everyone was proud and wanted to try for him or herself.
There is a lot more that I wish I can tell you but then you would not learn some of these events on your own in school or even reading a book. I am so glad to hear from you and I hope you write to me soon.
Sincerely,
Marilyn Doogood

Paragraph Comparison

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/us/04middlebury.html?ref=us

1. 680 Words
2. 33 sentences
3. Longest sentence contains 47 words
4. Shortest sentence contains 2 words
5. Average sentence length is 21 words
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The Souls of Black Folk - Chapter 3 Analysis

In Chapter one, Du Bois conveys in his message that he is a very proud African-American and considers that fact that whites do not accept the achievements of blacks. Their achievements are not appreciated and valued by society. Du Bois gives the readers a general idea about what his life was like and how he does not respond to ignorance of the white society. He believed that the Emancipation was the best way to end slavery and a new way for blacks to overcome the issues of society. Having an education was a struggle. If blacks were thought, they were not given a textbook. They had to learn on their own. In order for Washington to have completed his dream and goal of showing the Northerners that black people were not as bad as a large majority of the Northerners made them out to be, he had to gain the Northerners respect. Washington soon then began working on getting himself an education. With this education, Mr. Booker T. Washington would be able to show all those discriminating Northerners just how sophisticated, proper, educated, and well brought up that black people could be. Washington had the requirements to gain respect and honor from the white people’s society.

Washington had to be the voice of the people and help blacks get their foot in the door. “I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through.” (Chapter 3) Symbolism was expressed in this quote, that white Americans are blinding the black PEOPLE from seeing the greatness of America.

The Souls of Black Folk - Chapter 1 Analysis

Society makes a huge impact on people in our world. Some of the people respects others and the rest are discriminate towards people who are surrounded by them. No one will understand how a black person experienced there life, but to walk in there shoes. In the Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois should readers his viewpoint about life in these times. He explained how his life was at that time. He also explained what blacks had to go through to get to so much. He spoke about the times before slavery, during slavery, and after (which is the present). He explained to readers what being “Black” meant in a society that viewed blacks as a contempt. In chapter 1, Du Bois gave a brief episode of himself and what he recalls during these times.

Du bois uses amazing detail in this chapter to explain what he recalls. He remembers the times when he was a young boy and what happen when he realizes life. He remembers when he was told to buy greeting cards for the boys and girls in his class for ten cents. “The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card… with a glance.” (Du Bois) He uses extreme detail in this quote to explain how the girl refused her card. She refused to take the card “peremptorily.” Logically if readers think about it, the color of the girl was never mentioned. He later describes, “It dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from others.” He realized that race played a big role into the life of Du Bois. His feeling towards the situation makes the tone of depression, but at the same time, he is realizing that racism is a major role in society during this time.

He also uses detail when he describes the sky. “The sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination…” (Du Bois) He remembers the sky or day and how it was when he was competing against his schoolmates. This is detail used to describe how he viewed each day.

W.E.B. Du Bois had to face many challenges with the people of his time and racism was key to every struggle he endured.

The Atlanta Exposition Address Response

Black people are always told they will never prosper in life during the 1800s. They are never respected by anyone but their own race. In The Atlanta Exposition Address, Washington addresses the white audience about how blacks should be treated and what they only want out of it. The Northern and Southern white leaders supported booker T. Washington. His “Atlanta Compromise” speech was the most important and influential of modern speeches concerning the American Negro in United States history.

First hand, Washington recognizes who his audience is. He notices that he is speaking to a predominately-white audience. Because of this, he is very careful with what words (diction) he uses. “I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment of masses of my race when I say to that in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of the magnificent Exposition.” He uses Negro instead of blacks; he refers to the white men as Presidents and Directors instead of Mr. Washington has been waiting on an opportunity such as this, to him it can be considered an honor. He is speaking for those of the African American race, the voice of the people. He often expressed that black people are patient and they do what their master or owner tell them what to do.

The Yellow Wallpaper Response

Little things in life can drive a person nut, bonkers, and just simply crazy. The Yellow Wallpaper was a story about an unknown narrator and her husband, John, who lived in this colonial mansion, which was used, stated by John, as a place to help her by recuperate from her sickness. Later, she finds something very peculiar in the house or the room she reside in. john, being the type of person he was, did not pay her any attention when she seem to complain or make note of something she did not like. She suffers from a disorder that has symptoms of fatigue and depression. He did not allow her to do anything because she was ill. In fact, she believed work would have sped up her recovery. (Gilman) She later focuses on the house and talk about how beautiful it is and what surrounded it. She becomes very obsessed with the fact that the peculiar wallpaper has a meaning and in the story, she reveals what the wallpaper means and why it has significance.
Gilman expresses her feelings toward her husband. Readers would see him as showing tough love and others would view as arrogant and selfish. “John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.” She explains her husband as being selfish and likes to put down people who feels bad in someway or another. He feels that nothing seems to be wrong with her, but the fact that she could just be crazy. “If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression -- a slight hysterical tendency.” They laugh at the fact something could be actually wrong with her but being the doctor he is, he is not buying one minute of it. “He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. “ Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear," said he, "and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time." He blames her for the reason they live in the house to begin with. It is like giving someone a gift that they always wanted and now they complain about it in return.
Throughout the story, the wallpaper seems to have a symbolic form about it. It is mention through the story as irritating and has outrageous angles. The wallpaper, she discovers, has a deep meaning under the surface. She states that the deeper meaning of the wallpaper grows clearer each day. (Gilman) The confusing pattern, which resembles her chaotic mind, appears as an image of a woman “stooping down and creeping around).” (Gilman) Every story seems to have a symbolic symbol. Later in the story the sunlight and the moonlight become a factor of symbolism. This begins to clear up the meaning of the wallpaper. “By moonlight -- the moon shines in all night when there is a moon -- I wouldn't know it was the same paper.” (Gilman) The moonlight gives the wallpaper a whole lot of meaning verses the sunlight. “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.” (Gilman)The moonlight gives the woman on the paper some meaning to the paper on the exterior as plain. “By daylight, she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour.” (Gilman) The sunlight turns the woman into a quiet mode and makes the wallpaper so fancy that she begins to observe it with no sleep.
In conclusion, the narrator begins pulling off the wallpaper and she frees the woman from the dreadfulness she endured. Along with that, the narrator seems to cure her own self. Being drove completely insane and no one believes you is like crying wolf.