Mirza Jahic
Professor Deck
EWRT 1B:62z
10-19-2003
Respect
From Within
She was too pretty, too good for the
city of Mayville but the oppression of African-Americans during this period
forbade her to take control of her life and realize the dreams she had. She had
two options in her cruel and desperate life. In a nutshell, one option was to
polish silver for no money or turn to prostitution for somewhat a decent buck
but at the cost of losing respect and dignity.
The poem starts off describing an
innocent, young and beautiful girl with the sky being the limit. Unfortunately,
as the poem progresses, one learns that because she is colored, her beauty and
her youth will only get her that far. There are restrictions thrown upon her.
The poem is describing a waste of natural gift. Basically what I mean by this
is that all of the gifts that she was given upon birth are restricted by the
white man. She is working for a white woman for little pay and if the church
refuses to mention your name, you know that you have officially screwed up.
Two particular choices of words were
rejection of the church folk and acceptance of the white men (summarized into
one) and then the start of the third paragraph where Hughes mentions the
streets and their knowledge about a different Ruby Brown. What we have here is
a switch that went from complete innocence and ignorance to complete guilt
and/or shame. The turning point would
definitely be at the end of paragraph two, where two very important questions
were asked, but unfortunately left unanswered. This goes to show me that he did
not want them answered because maybe of shame, embarrassment or some kind of
preparation or smooth transition into what he was going to say next.
We have to keep in mind that these
occurrences happened during the peak of the Harlem Resistance and that Hughes
was highly motivated by it if not only it. I think that this was sort of a
Hughes artistic literal propaganda that he was trying to portray to aid the
black community.
She is rejected by everybody except
for the white men, which as kindly put in the poem are “Habitués of the high
shuttered houses” in the bottoms. She gets more money now but where is the
happiness and self-respect? She was looking for answers in all the wrong
places. She was a confused young woman with no pride and Hughes is trying to
show this and say, do not let the white man take over, be proud of who you are,
no matter where you are, because it does not rain everyday and happiness will
be achieved sooner or later.
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