I thought it was made very clear that Twyla was African American. However, I now can point to specific passages that support my initial reading of the story. Throughout the history of the United States, racism and segregation played a huge role in how our society functioned. Despite the Civil Rights Movement, white privilege still exists. In another scene, Twyla finds Roberta protesting school integration. I viewed these comments as Twyla hoping for racial equality through integration, while Roberta rejects the busing due to racism.
It was not until I discussed this short story with my classmates that I realized that the race of these two characters was never mentioned. At this point, I felt an intense sense of shame and embarrassment. I pride myself in trying to be aware of my biases. However, I made a lot of assumptions by applying my own context to this story. The author of the literary critique also made generalizations, but she came up with different results.
Elizabeth Abel, who is a white feminist writer, viewed Twyla as white because she focused on the social situations in which the characters find themselves. Abel also mentions that most white readers read Twyla as white, while most black readers read Twyla as black Abel Twyla looks at the good food that Roberta receives and the luxuries of her adulthood and feels inferior despite the fact that American social structures privilege those with white skin.
In order to analyze the scene about racial integration, Abel wrote to Toni Morrison who explained that Roberta may not want her upper-class children to go to school with working-class children. Overall, Abel focuses her argument on how the two characters react to social situations.
Analyzing the way the characters make decisions and address their circumstances helped her determine their races. In her interpretation, Twyla supports integration, but does not understand the deep underworking of racism in American society. Roberta is adventurous in her life choices but still holds conservative views about integration in schools. Fragd thus reads Roberta as racist and selfish. Abel parallels the competition between these two female characters with the tensions that arise between white and black feminist writers.
Instead of pointing to guilt, Abel uses her literary analysis to open up a conversation about how our racial biases affect every text we encounter. I found this analysis interesting because instead of being rooted in shame, Abel focused on a new learning opportunity. Instead of trying to define race, we need to view race through a new lens. When reading any literary work, it is impossible to avoid our unconscious assumptions, biases, and backgrounds.
Therefore, as a critic, I need to be careful when reading race onto characters. Characters that exist in books are not real, so they do not exactly fit the mold of having human qualities. Going forward, I need to be aware of applying stereotypes towards characters that are figuratively black or white. As a reader, my past experiences influenced my interpretations and perverted my ideas of the characters.
This dominance can be the institution of racism or even sexism. By inserting my own experiences into this story, I unknowingly reinforced negative structures such as discrimination. When reading this story, as well as throughout my life, I have tried to work against making generalizations and have attempted to challenge racial discrimination. However, by specifically reading Twyla as black, I ended up strengthening the stereotypes that I work so hard to avoid.
Usually, when individuals think of feminists, they immediately think of white feminists but what about the colored feminists. Colored women have to endure racial based problems more than white women.
Colored women have to endure white supremacy oppressing them. Racism against blacks was inescapable in America in , especially in an all white school in Virginia. Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley tells the story of two girls who dared to socialize despite cultural pressure forbidding it, and….
There is another character Maggie, who is disabled, but she seems to be a go-between. Throughout the story, there are questions about the race of each character. One girl is black and one girl is white. The race of Maggie is undetermined. She is portrayed as a girl from a lower-middle class family from who desires to assimilate whiteness in order to gain recognition and respect and not be judged by her skin color.
Both women are not content with being black or white and in the end Clare die unsatisfied and Irene, although rid of Clare now, has not won anything. Therefore, Larsen has both characters suffer due to their negligence of others around them while they strived to find who they are. In using passing, Larsen delves into the deeper issues in America, the strive for racial conventions and identity. The fluidity and ambiguity with which both women are able to pass into the white world calls upon the inherent ideas of race.
Larsen shows how race is a social construct because despite the fact that white people have ways of distinguishing the blacks from others through different traits, they are easily fooled by two women who pass into their world. Essays Essays FlashCards. Browse Essays. Sign in. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. Show More. Related Documents Brien's Book: The Trouble Between Us White woman thought that black women were careless because they started following the black panthers.
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