Comparing Lila's Black-And-White Illustrations

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Otherness explains as the quality or fact of being different. Lila moving to Alabama in the 1960’s brought a whole new mindset on her views about being different and being portrayed as the other race. Through reading Ginny’s books and trying to find the answer to her questions, Weaver shows you the broadening and the diminishing reason of her illustrations throughout her book. Weaver’s black-and-white illustrations emphasize Lila’s perspective of Alabama and the issue of segregation in the 1960’s; this shows Lila’s movement between the two cultures of Argentina and Alabama. The theme of “separate but equal” became an interchangeable phrase. Throughout her book, Weaver gives many illustration and metaphor choices such as, Lila in Alabama as a student, a young child trying to find answers and a girl who doesn’t feel “otherness” should separate you from society. Lila’s status of her family being educated and having broadened horizons did not really leave her family and her to have…show more content…
One illustration shows you that there are two white babies and two black babies in their nursery. Lila states “I saw that these separations began in the hospital nursery” “and I ran straight to the graveyard” (Weaver70-71). Few white southerners did not tolerate more than one interpretation of what it’s meant to inhabit the color white. Lila gives two examples, one white milk carton and absolute black ink.” According to the one drop rule, no one who has the slightest trace of African ancestry can claim to be white” (Weaver 89). Southerners thought “no matter how high a proportion of white ancestry you may have, just one drop of blackness cancels it out; purity of race is paramount” (Weaver 89). No matter how different we seem to appear on the outside and regardless what our status is in life, we all end up in the same place where we are not separate but we are equal as one; in the

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