Sojourner Truth: What Is Being An Outsider?

912 Words4 Pages
Emily Hamon Professor Fuller English 1101 7 December 2015 Being an Outsider Every person is unique in his or her own way. People come from all heritages, ethnicities, religions, places, and countries across the Earth. People tend to belong to groups composed of those alike them, and that normally results in there being a “we” and a “they”. “We” would, of course, be the group one associates his or herself with, and “they” would be everyone else that is not like “we”. Synonymously, there is an “inside” and an “outside”. “We” cast those that are not like us to the “outside”. An outsider is the following: a person who does not belong to or is not accepted as part of a particular group or organization. While we all may be different in numerous…show more content…
She fought for the abolition of slavery and for women’s rights. In 1851, she gave a speech titled “Ain’t I a Woman?” at the Women’s Convention in the city of Akron, Ohio (Truth 649). Truth fought for equality between whites and ex-slaves; she also fought for equality between man and woman. In her speech, Truth compares herself to white men on an equal level by asking rhetorical questions. For example, Truth said, “I could work as much and eat as much as a man -- when I could get it -- and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman” (Truth 649). She also points out that since she indeed is a woman, she should be treated like other women, white women in particular. Truth exemplified that through saying the following: “that man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman” (Truth 649). Truth is just as much a deserving human being as any other, therefore, “...women and “Negroes” deserve the same kinds of rights as white men; white men need to give a small portion of their rights to the rest of the population toward the goal of equality for all” (Siebler). She should be viewed as an equal from any pair of…show more content…
The story told through the drawings in Persepolis is Satrapi’s childhood in Iran during a time of repressive government. Kim Wilde is the title of the book’s seventeenth section. In this section, Marji, the main character of the novel, stays home in Iran while her parents visit Turkey. She asks her parents to bring her back a few things from Turkey, one of those things being a poster of British singer Kim Wilde. Everything her parents brought back was smuggled into the country. A major significance of this section is that “if one looks beyond the veil, one sees that Marji is like any other teenager in the West” (Naghibi). This similarity is shown through the following: “... when Marji pins up the poster of Kim Wilde her parents have smuggled for her from Turkey, we get another parallel-contrast effect. Marji, in imitation of Wilde, assumes the same posture as the pop hero in her poster. Again, this link, or moment of “sameness” (of the sort reviewers have found so compelling) is also marked by difference, not only because Marji’s hair is dark while Wilde’s is blonde, and her top is white while Wilde’s is dark, but because her imitation of Wilde’s posture is in mirror image. In other words, by mirroring Wilde, she shows how she is the same but different, a mirror image being identical yet opposite” (Naghibi). While Marji may not be from the West, or may not be living the same life as other teenagers, she is

    More about Sojourner Truth: What Is Being An Outsider?

      Open Document