Race / Ethnicity: Compare and Contrast Essay

Although the topic of the sure ill-judged stories and poems drive dissimilar al-Qaidas and comprehension of what corresponding works that office arouse similar or different topics, will tell a somebody what racial background and ethnicities are represented in the short tier untaught L overs and the poem What Its equivalent to be a Black fille. Finding give away whether the lineaments are the same(p), if the setting is different between the two, if the theme t darkened show upright or did one have to see outside of the box to determine its meaning will lead to what limit the two have.If one literary work is a ballad or a play, if one is longer or shorter than the other one, if the tone is the same between the two works, if the language differs between the two works or if it is the same, and whether one works using metaphors, while the other uses similes, will contact a person clues as to what the short fable and the poem have as far as form, and style. The content of the short layer of Country Lovers and the poem What Its like to be a Black Girl have women who deal with unfairness for the reason of their race and has the main character or protagonist creation a vitriolic female.Racism brook be something that some people experience almost daily exactly like in the short composition Country Lovers . The short allegory called Country Lovers was written by Nadine Gordimer in 1975 (Clugston, 2010). This short paper is approximately a forbidden love between a three-year-old murky girl named Thebedi and a young white boy named Paulus Eysendyck which took place on a South African farm. The main characters Paulus and Thebedi were raised to stupefyher. The setting of the story takes place in mainly ternion areas, which would be the farm fireside where the boy lives, the river where they meet to hide their alliance, and the village where the girl lives.The settings in the story help my under assumeing of the theme because it gives me a di stinct awareness as to how the social classes play a part in the prohibition of love. The boy lives in a beautiful home that is described to be of a high social class. In the text the home is described as, The kitchen was it prompt thoroughfare, with servants, food supplies, begging cats and dogs, pots boiling over, washing macrocosm damped for ironing, and the big deep-freezer the missis had ordered from town, bearing a crocheted mate and a vase of plastic gladiola (Clugston, 2010).This quote from the text helps me imagine a sound-to-do home for the boy. Paulus Eysendyck was the tike of the farm owner and Thebedis dad worked for Mr. Eysendyck on his farm. Paulus (a white boy) and Thebedi (a black girl) played together and spent much of their youthful days with each(prenominal) other. As metre passed they began to grow up and the closeness between the two besides grew apart. They both knew that they could non be together openly. All the elan through this short story there are many iniquitous consequences.The first takes place when the narrator talks most Paulus going outdoor(a) to school This usefully happens at the same sentence when the author states most the age of twelve or thirteen so that by the clock early adolescence is reached, the black children are making along with the bodily changes greenness to all, an easy transition to adult forms of address, beginning to call their old playmates missis and baasie little master (Clugston, 2010).However, the attachment formed between them as children is ease there. Both Paulus and Thebedis parents never forbid them from seeing one other exclusively there was of all time this voiceless knowledge that they knew it was wrong because they always seemed to be hiding the fact that they did spend a lot of time with one a nonher. An example of this would be when Paulus came home from school and brought Thebedi a gift.She told her induce the missus had given them to her as a reward for some works s he had done-it was true she sometimes was called to help out in the farmhouse. She told the girls in the kraal that she had a sweetheart nobody knew about, tat away, away on another farm, and they giggled, and teased, and value her. There was a boy in the kraal called Njabulo who said he wished he could have brought her a belt and earrings. (Clugston, 2010).Theres loss of purity and forbidden love as described here when Paulus watches Thebedi wade in the water, The schoolgirls he went swimming with at dams or pools on neighboring farms wore bikinis provided the sight of their dazzling bellies and thighs in the sunlight had never made him tactile sensationing what he felt now when the girl came up the bank and sit down beside him, the drops of water beading off her dark legs the only points of light in the earthsmelling deep shade. (Clugston, 2010).They were not afraid of one another, they had cognise one another always he did with her what he had done that time in the stor eroom at the wedding, and this time it was so lovely, so lovely, he was surprised . . . and she was surprised by it, toohe could see in her dark face that was part of the shade, with her big dark eyes, shiny as soft water, watching him attentively as she had when they used to huddle over their teams of mud oxen, as she had when he told her about detention weekends at school. (Clugston, 2010). The racial discrimination sets in hard towards the end of this short story when Paulus Eysendyck arrived home from the veteran college for the holidays. This is where he finds out that the young black girl Thebedi had given blood to a baby. When he finds out about the baby he goes to Thebedis hut to see for himself. When he reaches the hut and sees the baby first hand He struggled for a moment with a expression of tears, anger, and selfpity. She could not put out her hand to him.He said, You seaportt been near the house with it? (Clugston, 2010). By his response when finding out that the t wo of them had created a life during their prohibited connection shows how he knew that such(prenominal) thing was not judgeed in his society. As the story goes on Paulus returned to the hut where Thebedi and the infant child lived and it states She thought she heard small grunts from the hut, the word form of infant grunt that indicates a full stomach, a deep sleep. after(prenominal) a time, long or short she did not know, he came out and walked away with plodding stride (his yields gait) out of sight, towards his fathers house (Clugston, 2010). As you read on you get the identification that Paulus killed the infant child that day when he returned to Thebedis hut. The baby was not fed during the night and although she kept telling Njabulo it was sleeping, he saw for himself in the morning that it was dead. He comforted her with words and caresses. She did not war cry but simply sat, staring at the door (Clugston, 2010).Reading this part of the story tells me that Paulus was ve ry afraid that the community would find out about the relationship between the two and he tries to cover it up as if nix ever happened between the two of them of which shows you how difficult life must have been back then with the racial discriminations. At the very end of this story the guard had dug up the baby and brought charges against Paulus for murder. Thebedi up on the stand said She cried hysterically in the witness box, saying yes, yes (the gilt halo earrings swung in her ears), she saw the accused pouring liquid into the babys mouth.She said he had threatened to shoot her if she told anyone (Clugston, 2010). Over a twelvemonth had gone by when Thebedi returned to the hail house but this time she told the court that she said she had not seen what the white man did in the house (Clugston, 2010). Nadine Gordimer penetrates the ordinary life that guards a person from our own evaluation. As an aspect this insight, the generator also pierces the dissimulations of clandest ine operatives, those ordinary-looking folk in ones cockroach whose real lives are based on active opposition to the police state.What are exposed are not their secrets, but their humanity. Because of her testimony The verdict on the accused was not guilty(Clugston, 2010). The poem What Its bid to Be a Black Girl (For Those of You Who Arent) (Clugston, 2010), which was written by Patricia metalworker in 1991. An explanation in its purest form of What its like to be a Black Girl (for those of you who arent) by Patricia Smith, is just that, an explanation. From the first three syllables First of all, the author gives a sense of a story being told.She uses jagged sentence structure and strong forceful language to also show the commentator the seriousness of her topic. Smiths poem gives the hearing an insiders view into a young black girls transition into black woman-hood at a time where both being a black girl and a black woman was not as welcomed. Puberty is usually defined by the biological changes a young girls body undertakes around the age of 9 up until about 14. Its being 9 years old and feeling like youre not finished, writes Smith, like your edges are wild, like theres something, everything, wrong. (Smith, 4) These thoughts run through the minds of puberty stricken young girl. The poem, Whats it like to be a Black Girl, is a look into the mind of a black girl in a society that is fueled with racial discrimination and discrimination, both of race and gender. This person is transitioning from a young black girl into young black women and trying to accept the changes that are taking place within her body. She has been taught to be ashamed of who she is, what she looks like, and where she comes from. She wants her features to look like those who are accepted in society.Nadine Gordimer was born in 1923, She has lived in South Africa since birth and, except for a year spent in university, has devoted all her adult life to writingcompleting 13 novels and 10 short story collections, works that have been published in 40 languages. Her strong opposition to apartheid, the socioeconomic system that oppressed the majority black population in South Africa (19491994), is a dominant theme in her writing, with her later works reflecting challenges accompanying the changing attitudes in the res publica toward racial relationships.She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991 (Clugston, 2010). Patricia Smith who was born in 1955, was an African American poet and performance artist, has won the National Poetry beam four times. The hardships that these women suffer during their life can be suffered by anyone but growing up in a discriminatory atmosphere creates a more dramatic story or outcome. The great thing about reading is that it brings you to another place, time and feeling. At times a story can make you smile with the character, and other times make you cry with him.Even with some stories and poems the literature may even allow t he reader to identify with the characters. In conclusion, reality can often be a lot like a piece of literature, in that a person may be going through the exact same thing, or something similar, and be feeling the same way. It is effortless to view the tough and unspoken racism demonstrated in Nadine Gordimers Country Lovers as well as how the girl feels in Patricia Smiths What Its worry to Be a Black Girl (For Those of You Who Arent).In both readings you get a sense of the hardships that both the characters had faced because of racism the things that people may do or allow happening because it is so hard. References Clugston, R. W. (2010). Country Lovers, Nadine Gordimer. In travel into literature (chapter 3) Retrieved from https//content. ashford. edu/books/AUENG125. 10. 2/sections/h3. 2. Clugston, R. W. (2010). Poems for Reflection. In Journey into literature (chapter 12 section 2). Retrieved from https//content. ashford. edu/books/AUENG125. 10. 2/sections/sec12. 2.