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Analysis of Literary Language - Coggle Diagram
Analysis of Literary Language
Resistance
"Theory as a Liberatory Practice"
Bell Hooks
In this essay, Hooks challenges theory and academic writing as an inaccessible framework that excludes many marginalized Americans.
Her central argument in this piece is that anyone can read and write theory, thereby both resisting the notion that theory is only for educated white men and advocating for underrepresented groups in academics
Feminism
"The Corpse Flower"
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
In this poem, Nezhukumatathil frames the Corpse Flower as a symbol for womens' autonomy.
"This flower does not want / to be named. Does not want to be owned. / When the flower heard the name, / it stretched to the closest person / and ate her---"
"The Husband Stitch'
Carmen Maria Machado
This is a feminist horror story in which Machado utilizes folklore to create a narrative centered around women's rights and autonomy. Based on a folklore story, the main character has a green ribbon tied around her neck which symbolizes her right to autonomy and privacy. In the end, her husband cannot respect that the ribbon belongs to her and only her, and he ends up killing her - illustrating how womens' rights are perpetually violated
"The Uses of Anger"
Audre Lorde
In this non-fiction piece, Lorde harnesses anger as a mode of resistance. As an African American woman author, she advocates for American minority justice and equality by defining anger as a powerful tool for social change.
"The Hunted, the Haunted, the Hungry, the Tame" -
What we Fed the Manticore
Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
From a sled-dog's point of view, Kolluri advocates for resistance to authority and individualism by showing how the narrator eventually can break from the pack and forge his own identiy
Culture
Diaspora
"Mango" -
Bite by Bite
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
In this Non-fiction work, Nezhukumatathil depicts the mango as a symbol of her split cultural identity: Her comparison of The Alphonso (Indian) Mango vs the Carabo (Filipino) Mango represents the cultural clash between her interracial American parents
"América"
Richard Blanco
In the poem "America," Blanco describes the experience of living within the Cuban-American cultural diaspora. He uses thanksgiving food to highlight his dual cultural identity, depicting a cross cultural thanksgiving meal with both traditional American foods and the Cuban foods that he has grown up eating with his family
"The First Real San Giving Day'"
Richard Blanco
Blending of Cuban and American Culture represented during thanksgiving day.
"Abuela served the pork next to the turkey... A Cuban side followed every American side being passed from hand to hand. 'that sure's a big chicken,' Tio Pepe chuckled as he carved into the bird and then the pork.
Religion
The Poet X
Elizabeth Acevedo
The Poet X
tells of the protagonist, Xiomara's struggle with religion. With an extremely strict home life, she struggles to understand faith while questioning the beliefs that her mother has forced on her
"Skywoman Falling" -
Braiding Sweetgrass"
Robin Wall Kimmerer
"Our stories say that of all the plants, wiingaashk, or sweetgrass, was the very first to grow on the earth, its fragrance a sweet memory of Skywoman’s hand. Accordingly, it is honored as one of the four sacred plants of my people ... and so sweetgrass is a powerful ceremonial plant cherished by many indigenous nations. It is also used to make beautiful baskets. Both medicine and a relative, its value is both material and spiritual"
"Yet do I Marvel"
Countee Cullen
Writing within the Harlem Renaissance, Cullen addresses themes of both religion and resistance by questioning why god created injustice and suffering, particularly that of the African American Artist
"Yet do I marvel at a curious thing: / to make a poet black, and bid him sing!"
Political Activism
"In a Strange Country"
Ralph Ellison
Through this short story, Ellison critiques American racial injustice by introducing the story of Mr Parker, an African American man overseas in Wales who experiences racial violence from fellow Americans despite having a common military enemy
War
"When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine"
Jhumpa Lahiri
In this short story, the character Mr. Pirzada lives In the United States, estranged from his family in Dacca (the main site of the Bangladesh Liberation War). With the violence in Dacca threatening the lives of civilians, Including Mr. Pirzada's family, Lahiri illustrates the experience of grieving a home and family that you have no contact with.
"Aubade with Burning City"
Ocean Vuong
In this poem, Vuong illustrates the Fall of Saigon in South Vietnam, 1975 by juxtaposing an intimate moment with wartime violence in the city.
With intense imagery, he depicts the devastating consequences of American military violence in Vietnam
"The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House"
Audre Lorde
In this powerful non-fiction work, Lorde engages in political activism by addressing how oppressive societal frameworks will never allow for political change.
"Those of us who have been forged in the crucible of difference -- those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older know that
survival
... is learning how to make common cause with those others identified as outside structures"
"On Being a Refugee, an American---and a Human Being" -
The Refugees
Viet Thanh Nguyen
"It shouldn't take... success to be welcomed. Even if refugees, undocumented immigrants, and legal immigrants are not all potential billionaires, that is no reason to exclude them. Even if their fate is to be the high school drop out and fast food cashier, so what? That makes them just about as human as the average American, and we are not about to deport the average American (are we?)"
Greif
"A Map of Lost Things"
Jamila Osman
In this essay, Osman traces and maps out her multiple layers of grief. Through the overarching metaphor of migratory salmon who call multiple places home, she ties in the theme of diaspora by grieving her loss of culture. Meanwhile, she grieves the death of her sister by mapping out her memory
"Beautiful Women"
Krys Lee
In this short story, the characters Mina and Ms. Lim navigate their grief for their deceased American husband / father while living in Seoul during the aftermath of the Korean War.
"Each night, she imagines what must be her man's toothless jaw trying to speak from under Vietnam's jungle... He was a good man, and she had imagined another life for them, another country."
"Jackfruit" -
Bite by Bite
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
"But I'm remembering now, I want to say to him, and never forgot, and I'm telling him again and again, and the whole world, that I will never forget my grandfather, or my first taste of jack fruit from the man... I now have his typewriter in a glass case in our home and take it out to type letters to my own beloveds. Another remembrance of my grandfather reaching out to me, before he ever saw my bespectacled face in person smiling up at him, cheeks full of jackfruit"
