Tag: Education

Examine racial and ethnic inequalities in **two** distinct time periods (as covered in the various chapters in Ronald H. Bayor’s book Race and Ethnicity in America: A Concise History (2003) by focusing on the experiences of **two** different ethnic or racial populations.

American history is replete with many types and instances of racial inequality endured by various ethnic and racial groups. From the colonial era to the contemporary era, African Americans, some European immigrants, Latinos/as, Asian Americans, and Native Americans have experienced different forms racial exclusion, violence, economic and land dispossession, among other forms of ethnic and racial injustice. Write an essay which offers a comparative-historical analysis of racial and ethnic inequality in the United States. Your task is to examine racial and ethnic inequalities in **two** distinct time periods (as covered in the various chapters in Ronald H. Bayor’s book Race and Ethnicity in America: A Concise History (2003) by focusing on the experiences of **two** different ethnic or racial populations.

How do characters or individuals express resistance to oppression, and how does this assertion of autonomy or repudiation of perceived tyranny become characterized as heroic?

~How do these works of literature illustrate conflicting attitudes about the essence of human nature and how it is shaped by or resistant to cultural expectations? For example, in Huckleberry Finn, is it ultimately good and pure, trusting and generous, as modeled by Mary Jane Wilks, or is it morally depraved and consumed with advancing self-interest at the expense of others, as modeled by pap or the king and the duke? How does the cynicism expressed by the narrator of “The Black Cat” differ, if it does at all, from that of the disillusioned bachelor J. Alfred Prufrock or the disenchanted social climber Dexter Green?

~One of the features that makes American literature distinctive is the spirit of defiance that emerges from the political legacy of revolution and agitation for independence. Trace the way in which this attitude emerges in these texts. How do characters or individuals express resistance to oppression, and how does this assertion of autonomy or repudiation of perceived tyranny become characterized as heroic?

~How is the human capacity for deception treated by the various authors? Is the practice of misleading others unilaterally condemned as a despicable vice, or is it selectively lauded as an instance of the ends justifying the means? Compare and contrast particular instances (for instance, Sam [from Uncle Tom’s Cabin], Huck Finn, Alcée Laballière and Calixta, Grace Ansley and Alida Slade) in order to analyze the various cultural responses to deliberate misrepresentation of the truth.

~How have marginalized/minoritized populations within America asserted their rights through literature and argued for equal treatment under the law? Other than the slave narratives and Native American texts, you might consider a comparative analysis of a text from the second unit with Murray’s “On the Equality of the Sexes.”

~How do different works of literature address and challenge presumptive suppositions about identity, particularly with respect to a normative American self? How do characters come to understand social expectations of what being American entails, and then conform to or repudiate such standards? Here, you might think of Dexter Green’s carefully cultivated persona, Mr. Ryder’s decision to honor his inner Sam Taylor, Miranda’s endeavor to refashion herself into the perfect mistress for Dev Mitra, or the way in which Twyla and Roberta conceal their institutionalized pasts, but find that the shared experiences haunt their psyches.