The Woman Warrior By Audre Lorde

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American literature serves as a means to examine society's values, ideas, hopes, fears, and dreams. What does it means to be an American? This is a question that many have tried to define. However, a single definition does not exist. Defining what it means to be American is more complex than it seems. The mere physical location on Earth is not the determining factor if one is an American. There is no unifying factor; everyone has versatile backgrounds, personalities, and traditions. In essence American literature, like America, is an abundance of voices, constantly changing to add its own rich challenged view of history, and identity. Through the writings of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, Audre Lorde’s Uses of Anger, and Sherman…show more content…
However, it focused on the liberation of white middle-class women ignoring all of the other women. Audre Lorde expressed the experiences women of color faced in a racist society, as well as the experiences of lesbians in a homophobic society. Lorde’s Uses of Anger urges women to use their anger as a political tool. The downside of anger is that many fear it. Anger is a strong emotion that is usually expressed in a violent manner. This misconception that anger always leads to violence and destruction degrades what it can accomplish. Rather than fear anger one should use it as a motivation to express one’s opinion. Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes … [it] must be used for clarity and mutual empowerment, not for evasion by guilt or for further separation. I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is any one of you. I speak here as a women of Color who is not bent upon destruction, but upon survival (pages…show more content…
A cultural anthropologist, Spencer Cox, fails to recognize that he cannot use what he has learned from textbooks upon people, interviews Etta Joseph, the most credible source. Spokane Indian Etta Joseph recounts her affair with John Wayne, leaving Cox to believe that this is just an oral tradition. Proving that Native Americans will continue to deal with fictional/romanticized views of their culture. For the Native Americans culture to survive they must fix/manipulate their ethnicity in order for it to survive under the dominant culture. If not their culture will disappear. Hence Etta refuses to talk about herself and her culture because “in order to survive, to thrive, I have to be white for fifty-seven minutes of every hour [the other three minutes] is when I get to be Indian” (page 194). To Etta, those are the only three minutes of solitude she has, if Cox or any other white person were to interfere then her identity would be taken away. Thus the struggle to keep one’s identity and freedom is another American
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