THEME 1: Conformity/Inhibition of Societal Norms
(described in the 1st paragraph of each of the works)
Throughout the works we've explored in the course, each work delves into how society and its perception has consequences, whether emotionally, mentally, or physically on an individual.

Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

Theme 1: Pauline through her desire for living a life of materialistic wealth, which is closely associated with that of a white family, conforms to the societal standard of an “ideal servant” (Morrison 127). She enjoys taking care of her white family in comparison to her own children or husband. Although this is her way of escaping her reality, she perpetuates a cycle in which African-Americans continue to enable a cycle of white superiority in societal norms and perception.

Theme 2: Shame, especially internal shame is exemplified through Pecola’s character. In the scene where she goes to the candy store she notices the old man’s stare at her and describes it as a “vacuum.” She states how “it has an edge; somewhere in the bottom lid is the distaste. She has seen in lurking in the eyes of all white people. So. The distaste must be for her, her blackness” (49). The shame and unease she inflicts within herself is due to her image of being black. At a young age she is taught to understand the inherent discomfort she should feel simply because of her color. This theme is exemplified through many characters in the novel.

Silvan Tomkins, an excerpt from Shame and Its Sisters

Theme 1: “Although it is always possible for the contempt of the other to
arouse shame rather than self-contempt, yet it should be noted that
this is inherently difficult. This is because the contempt of the other
constitutes a total rejection...Insofar as one responds to the
contempt of the other with shame, one has not entirely accepted
the disgust of the other...It is not difficult for one who is treated with
contempt to respond with anger, or with counter-contempt to the
other, or with self-contempt” (Tomkins, 158).The conflicts that one faces, especially regarding race or ethnicity can affect their internal perception of themselves and also how they are affected. Tomkins delves into the emotional consequences of self-contempt or shame that can be driven by societal norms or expectations.

Theme 2: “Shame is felt as an inner torment, a sickness of the soul”(137) Tomkins describes through what shame directly affects an individual on. He coins it as a “sickness” and affects a person’s self work. He describes it as a person “feeling himself naked, defeated, alienated, [and]lacking in dignity or worth”(138). This progression ultimately affects one’s identity.

Maxine Hong Kinston, The Woman Warrior

Theme 1: Kingston tells of how when “we Chinese girls listened to the adults talk-story, we learned that we failed if we grew up to be but wives or slaves” (Kingston 19). This expectation of fulfilling the role of a domesticated female in a Chinese family inhibits many women from reaching their true identity as an individual. By conforming to these standards, the expectations and lack of progression persists. Kingston delves into this throughout the novel where she illuminates the adversities for Asian American females.

Theme 2: Kingston also throughout the novel talks about the inflicted shame that the Asian women in a family has to face. She describes how phrases like “Feeding girls is feeding cowbirds” and “When you raise girls, you’re raising children for strangers” (Kingston 46) are tossed around lightly. Raising women are perceived as tasks and many times they are felt like they need to be ashamed for wanting to build an identity or pursue something besides what is expected of them.

Sigmund Freud, “Mourning and Melancholia”
“Profoundly painful dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of the capacity to love, inhibition of all activity” (Freud 244) Through this quote, both themes can be explored.

Theme 1: Freud through his essay talks about melancholia and how the
expectations of assimilation and reaching progression can cause one to lose a self of
identity. This describes the struggles that many times immigrants face, especially when
trying to adapt to the American culture.

Theme 2: Freud also explores the emotional effects in perpetuating shame or thoughts of
self-contempt due to the melancholia one faces due to their race. When this shame is felt, he describes how they lose the “capacity to love” and can have a “cessation of interest in the outside world.

David Eng and Shinhee Han, “A Dialogue on Racial Melancholia” excerpt

Theme 1: The “process of assimilation [is described as] suspended, conflicted, and unresolved” (Eng, Han 671). Throughout this piece, the process of assimilation and its effects are described. Assimilation is expected in the American culture because of the societal norms that perpetuate the notion that conformity to American values is important. Eng and Han delve into how this conformity can have detrimental effects on the mental being on immigrants, especially among the Asian community.

Theme 2: “We propose a concept of melancholia as a depathologized structure of everyday group experience for Asian Americans” (Eng, Han 667). Melancholia inflicts a sense of depression but also longingness internally within an individual. This can be resulted to the shame that immigrants may feel about their original identity and by feeling the necessity to conform to a different society’s values, their melancholia is heightened.

Gloria Anzaldua, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”

“Chicanos and other people of color suffer economically for not acculturing. This voluntary (yet forced) alienation makes for psychological conflict, a kind of dual identity-we don’t identify with the Anglo-American cultural values and we don’t totally idenitfy with the Mexican cultural values. We are a synergy of two cultures with various degrees of Mexicanness or Angloness. I have so internalized the borderland conflict that sometimes I feel like one cancels out the other and we are zero, nothing, no one” (Anzaldua 85)

Theme 1: This quote exemplifies how societal standards may cause Chicanos to face alienation and feel unwelcome. This is due to their perceived lack of conformity to the standards set by society, and in this case, the American society. However, in trying to conform to these standards, Chicanos may lose their sense of identity, which Anzaldua describes as feeling “conflicted” and feeling like the Chicanos are “zero.”

Theme 2: Through the quote, there is also an element that describes the feeling that Chicanos feel when they feel like they do not belong. This sense of lack of belongingness can inflict a sense of shame for feeling like an outsider in two different communities. The “zeroness” described is an internal reflection of not being able to identify with one community or the other.

Sara Ahmed, “The Affective Politics of Fear”

Theme 1: “Fear establishes distance between bodies” (65). In examining the consequences of fear for the immigrant after 9/11, Ahmed talks about the inability of acceptance among the American community due to the escalation of xenophobia. This serves as a detrimental consequence for many individuals like Changez in the Reluctant Fundamentalist who are unable to assimilate or associate themselves as belonging to the American society.

Theme 2: Internal shame and lack of acceptance is also illuminated through Ahmed’s description of the politics of fear. She establishes the fear that many faced and the correlation it had to the 9/11 attacks of terrorism. (Ahmed 74-76) This caused many individuals to be victims of racial profiling and resulted in a feeling an internal conflict and ultimately self doubt as a result of being doubted, questioned, and not really accepted.

Anna Deveare Smith, Twilight, Los Angeles

Theme 1: The play by Smith portrays the reasons and emotions of a diverse set of individuals regarding the reasoning for the LA riots. However, the LA riots' inability to resonate with the white community due to the inherent societal prejudices against minority groups inhibited them from attaining the progression and acknowledgement of injustice from the American public.

Theme 2: The shame that can be associated with the riots is how the tactics of violence and destruction of the local businesses affected the communities within the ghetto of LA. Even though the rioters were attempting to make a statement. They ended up creating more within the community for which many may feel internal shame or could be shamed by the counterparts of society.

Bell hooks, “Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination”

Theme 1: “Their inability to conceive the terror, like that of Sethe’s, is a response to the legacy of white domination and the contemporary expressions of white supremacy is an indication of how little this culture really understands the profound psychological impact of white racist domination” (Hooks 177). Hooks delves into how the perpetuated white supremacy in society has affected the perception of black identity. There is an expectation for African Americans to conform to standards of innate white inferiority in society, but in abiding to this, African Americans can lose their sense of identity or feel a sense of conflict.

Theme 2: “Black stereotypes of whites emerges as a trickle-down process of white stereotypes of blackness” (Hooks 170). White stereotypes of blackness can mentally have an effect on self-image and maybe even perpetuate self-contempt or shame. This is explored through the other works we have discussed over the course of this semester.

James Baldwin, “Notes of a Native Son”
“The white world is too powerful, too complacent, too ready with gratuitous humiliation, and above all, too ignorant and too innocent for that” (113)

Theme 1: Baldwin describes the expectations of conformity that a white society has perpetuated. In doing so, for African Americans, are inhibited from feeling a sense of acceptance. They undergo a conflict in their identity and where they feel like they can belong.

Theme 2: The “humiliation” that Baldwin describes in this quote illuminates the struggles that racism causes within African American individuals internally. They are forced to feel shame or self-contempt for being who they are, and the inability for a white society to acknowledge that, can prevent substantial progression.