He don't want a wife, he want a dog.

In “The Color Purple,” three women play prominent roles. Celie is the main character, a woman who allows men to control her, especially Albert, her husband. Sofia is one of Celie’s friends, wife to Harpo, a boy Celie raised. Sofia is strong and doesn’t allow Harpo to abuse her. Shug was once Albert’s mistress. Life Sofia, Shug is strong, but she has a cruel side, something that Celie and Sofia do not possess.

Celie, Sofia, and Shug exhibit varying levels of strength. Sofia is both physically and mentally strong. She was raised in a family of men that pursued her, so she had to learn at an early age how to fight. When her husband Harpo attempts to beat her, she roars back and leaves him with bruises and black eyes. At one point, Harpo goes on an eating binge in an attempt to grow as strong as Sofia, but she continually overpowers him. Eventually, she leaves Harpo and takes their children with them, proving that Sofia does not need to have a man to support her or make her happy. Celia and Sofia are friends, but Celie is envious of Sofia’s spirit. Celie looks anemic in comparison to Sofia, and she knows this. Celie is weak and submissive, taking Albert’s beatings and raising his children from a previous marriage without complaint. As a young girl, her father raped her, and this altered her psyche so that she now allows men to rule her. Celie never gets angry with Albert or argues with him. If he commands it, she follows it. When Albert brings Shug to their house for Celie to look after, Celie accepts her role as caregiver to her husband’s old mistress. She tends to her and bathes her, and when Shug and Albert start sleeping together, Celie pretends not to mind.

When Shug appears in “The Color Purple,” she presents a blend of Sofia and vinegar. Like Sofia, she is good-looking and displays some toughness, but she is also harsh and brutal. When Albert first takes her home, she does not greet Celie. Instead, she snorts at her and declares her ugly. Another time, Albert takes her hand while she lays in bed, and she yells at him for bothering her. As Sofia is with men, so is Shug. Shug won’t stand for a man commanding her. Shug sings at Harpo’s nightclub even though Albert forbids her. Shug, however, has a looser sense of morals than Sofia and Celie. She sleeps around and sings jazz songs. She had three children by Albert but doesn’t raise them. People think she’s ill because she has a “nasty woman” disease. Eventually, Shug softens some, and she and Celie become friends. Or perhaps something more.

He Waits for Them to Wheel Out Dinner

J. Sutter is a reporter from New York who is sent to West Virginia to cover a festival. The festival is celebrating the issue of a John Henry commemorative stamp. John Henry was a famous railroad worker who died trying to prove that man is as strong as machine. J., however, does not care about John Henry. Or the festival. He simply wants to write his article and return to New York as soon as possible. He finds West Virginia and the festival all very quaint and entirely below him. He expresses more interest in roast beef than in the topic at hand. J. plans on simply excreting an essay and maybe inserting a quote into the mass. No research into John Henry or the planning behind the festival necessary. The plot thickens when it is revealed that J. is the only black man attending the festival. There is a black woman present but J. does not know her. J. feels uneasy about his status but tries to seem nonchalant about it by drinking and laughing with other reporters. When a woman at the event smiles at him too frequently, he assumes it is “some kind of overcompensation for slavery.”

The environment at the festival is one of pettiness. People in attendance worry very much about sitting at the right table and being with the right people. “Guests staked claims for their parties, planting flags of purses and jackets, saving seats, savoring or ruing their place in the pecking order.” One man begins to remove his coat but puts it back on when he sees that all of his friends still have theirs on. Alphonse, a stamp collector, is beside himself with anxiety and self-consciousness. He has come into West Virginia just for the festival and knows no one. He frets about dinner and who will sit with him. After he discovers a mothball in his pocket, he worries that everyone can smell it. He tries to start a conversation with Pamela, the only black woman at the dinner, and inadvertently insults her when he tries to relate to her. Most of those in attendance, like J., do not seem to care about John Henry or his stamp. Others just seem to care about their appearance and rank.

Like a Rainbow after the Rain

At the end of “A Raisin in the Sun,” Walter decides that the family will move into the house in Clybourne Park, despite Mr. Lindner’s offer. I think that this is a good decision. Taking the money offered by the Clybourne Park Improvement Association would have degraded the Younger family. It would have been like saying, “Yassss-suh! Great White Father, just gi’ ussen de money, fo’ God’s sake, and we’s ain’t gwine come out deh and dirty up yo’ white folks neighborhood,” as Walter comes to realize. Walter at first wants to accept the money but realizes that the check will cost him his humanity. If Walter had gone along with Mr. Lindner’s offer, Walter would have been agreeing that black families don’t belong in certain communities. This was not an easy decision to make, however. The Clybourne Park Improvement Association offered to pay the Youngers more money than they spent on the house to move out. The Youngers needed the money, but, in the end, Walter decides that the family needs their humanity and their dreams more than any slip of paper. Because of this decision, the Younger family will move into their house and, I think, find happiness there. They might struggle a bit to pay the house payments each month, but I think the happiness to be uncovered in this new set will make their toil worthwhile.

Dum Vivimus, Vivamus.

According to DuBois, the Negro Problem confuses the soul and confounds the mind. The Negro Problem forces an African-American to choose between the two parts of his personality, the American self and the African self. A man’s American self wants to stay in the South, the land of his birth and family and all that he’s ever known, while the African side yearns for the North, a place where a form of freedom can be found. One cannot divide the soul in such a manner, and so the Negro Problem leads to “a painful self-consciousness, an almost morbid sense of personality, and a moral hesitancy which is fatal to self-confidence.” One becomes split and separate, the blood of two races quarreling for dominance as they barrel through veins and arteries.

The Negro Problem has an entirely negative effect on the soul. It leads to a divide within the psyche, a parting of the American and the African. To refrain from “standing dumb and motionless before the whirlwind,” one must find a way to soothe this fault. This process of bridging is what can ruin a man. Most cannot do it. It takes strength of character to realize the existence of two personas, and it takes extreme amounts of mental fortitude to blend the personas into a true version of one’s self. It can break a person to acknowledge that they have not always been honest with themselves, that two halves exist. One’s self-confidence can take a hit from this and fail to recover. The Negro Problem “can produce a peculiar wrenching of the soul, a peculiar sense of doubt and bewilderment.”

Ethics and Influences

Ethics, I think, are morals put into action. I try to live my life adhering to a moral code created in part by my upbringing but mostly forged by what I inherently know to be right. I do my homework religiously, treat others with kindness and courtesy, and don’t participate in activities that I know to be harmful to others or myself. I have a tragic number of flaws but try to make up for them by doing good deeds and attempting to be a good person. I think humans, apart from sociopaths, are born with a moral code and simply know what’s right and what’s wrong. You just know homicide is wrong. Your friends and your family shape your stances on the slightly less defined ethical dilemmas. Your religion, for instance, might shape the way you view controversial topics like gay marriage or abortion. You are not born with an opinion on either matter. Your surroundings dictate such beliefs. Racism and sexism are also things that must be taught. In matters such as these and others, my friends and family have had a profound influence. My mother is an atheist and a feminist, and she unintentionally shaped me into a feminist atheist throughout the years, so now I sound a lot like her when certain topics are brought up. My mother intentionally taught me that I must help others, even if it’s at a cost to myself, so I try to make her proud by doing so. My friends are all very good people who naturally refuse to dabble in nefarious doings and so influence me to do the same. They are fairly open-minded as well, and through listening to their opinions and beliefs, my eyes have been opened to new worlds of thinking.

Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are

In Washington’s “Up from Slavery,” Washington seems to be declaring that African-Americans should stay in the South. He never speaks against the North, but he praises the South, stating, “When it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world.” He admits the South has problems, but with time, Booker declares, “Our beloved South [will become] a new heaven and a new earth.”
Throughout “Up from Slavery,” Washington seems to be very optimistic about race relations, one of the South’s main problems. He states several times that if whites and African-Americans work together, the South will develop into a region of great peace and prosperity. He urges whites to “cast down your bucket where you are,” and “you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen,” meaning that African-Americans will prove themselves to be sterling partners. He also encourages African-Americans to assist their white brothers. “We shall constitute once-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third its intelligence and progress,” Washington states, and the difference between these two means is either working together with whites or refusing cooperation.
Washington seems to be declaring to both races that despite its problems, the South is a place to stay in because an “interlacing [of] our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life” will occur “in a way that shall make the interests of both races one” if the two races work together.

Loathe Largesse

Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “The Lovers of the Poor” describes a group of ladies from the Ladies’ Betterment League who, one day, go down to the slums to aid its inhabitants. These ladies live in comfortable homes with “hostess gowns and sunburst clocks,” and so they find the slums quite shocking. “It’s all so bad! And entirely too much for them.” Throughout their day spent helping the poor, the ladies are aware that they could have been the ones who need aid. They could have been born into these circumstances. They could have been the poor. No matter how far you place yourself from poverty, when you’re amidst its throes, it feels as if anytime you could fall into it. The ladies are so relieved that they do not have to deal with “old smoke, heavy diapers, and, they’re told, something called chitterlings” every day, but they are also horrified that they could have been or could be. "Loathe largesse" is the feeling you get when you volunteer your time to help the poor. You are doing a good thing by helping the poor, which is the “largesse” part, but the whole time you’re helping them clean their house or take care of their children, you hate them for what they remind you. You could have been the poor. In the future, you could be the poor. You are only a few rungs above them on the ladder of wealth. What should happen if you lose your footing? This is the “loathe” in loathe largesse. The ladies of the Ladies’ Betterment League are performing an act of largesse when they visit the slums and help those who live there, but during their whole outing, they loathe the poor for reminding them of what they could be. When the ladies finally leave the slums, they “allow their lovely skirts to graze no wall,” so they won’t take any dirt with them and “resume all the clues of what they were” before they came to the slums, “trying to avoid inhaling the laden air.”