The Firstborn by Jack Davis

This book is made up of two cycles of poems, each confronting the same subject: the characterization of a black man in white America. In this book, I plan to focus mainly on the first cycle and touch briefly on the second. The first cycle includes four different sections. In section one of cycle one, Eady writes about Susan Smith and Charles Stuart, two murderers who blamed their crimes on nonexistent black attackers. The first poem is called “How I Got Born” (Eady 5), in this poem the fictional young African American man is conjured up. In the upper right-hand corner of the page, Eady writes a note that explains who and what the speaker is: “The speaker is the young black man Susan Smith claimed kidnapped her children” (Eady 5). In the first few lines of the poem he says, “Susan Smith willed me alive/ At the moment/ Her babies sank into the lake” (l. 1-40). So right away he gives us a pretty straightforward explanation for what this poem is about and what this section will be about. In the next few poems, the narrator discusses his “existence” and reason for being created. Eady uses a lot of metaphors, similes and imagery in his poems, and he does a phenomenal job with imagery.

The poem “Mothers and Daughters” is written by Pat Mora. Pat Mora is a contemporary award winning writer, who writes for children, youngsters and adults. She was born in El Paso, TX in the year 1942. She attains a title of a Hispanic writer; however, the most of her poems are in English. In her literary work, one can observe the different aspects of the immigrants’ lives such as language issues, family relationships, immigrants’ experiences and cultural differences (1187).

More specifically, this is embodied throughout the poem as “We want hope, not racialism, Brotherhood, not ostracism. Black advance, not white ascendance: Make us equals, not dependent” (St. 1, lines 1-4). An alternative example which reveals purpose throughout the poem consist of “Opportunity that places, White and black on equal basis” (St. 3, lines 20-21). As a result, Noonuccal powerfully portrayed throughout these two aspects of her poem, that Indigenous Australians were permanently marginalised during this historical period within Australian

In Meredith Small’s article Our Babies, Ourselves she focuses on people’s social and psychological development through examining the different cultural aspects of raising a child. During this process she compares the American perspective of treating babies, to those of the Gusii and the Dutch. Throughout her examination many points are made that I believe can give the reader’s a valuable understanding of the impact of different means of parenthood on a child’s future development.

The bitter tone of the poem alongside the raw emotions of resentment and fury convey the effect of discrimination on the poet, Oodgeroo Noonuccal. The use of personal pronouns ‘This I live down’, ‘…my skin is brown’ emphasise that the poet is speaking about her personal experiences, this creates empathy for Noonuccal. The use of colloquial language in words such as ‘moron’ and ‘clod’, to illustrate the pure stupidity of hypocritical, racist white Australians. They preach words of love and acceptance, yet practice discrimination and segregation. Oodgeroo juxtaposes the emotion she feels when she experiences racism, to when she sees a child being discriminated against.

“Knitting” by Amy Olson-Binder and “Abortion” by Anne Sexton are two poems about the idea of loosing baby. The two narrators present the character of both of poems through the mother’s point of view, which making the poems seem more of authentic experience. The symbolism of the Knitting poem emerges into the title of its – “Knitting” and the abortion poem emerges into “a crayoned cat, its green hair”. In these poems, Amy and Anne use the simple symbolism but the images are strong. They provide the readers the depth of emotion, a deep sadness and sense of loss.

Katherine O'Connor (known as K.O.) adores her five-year-old twin nieces; and strongly objects to her sister's plans to dispense with Christmas. Zelda is following the theories of child psychologist Wynn Jeffries, author of The Free Child and, as it happens, K.O.'s neighbor. K.O. is particularly horrified by his edict to "bury Santa under the sleigh," and she's out to prove that Wynn and his ideas are full of snow. He's not going to ruin her nieces' Christmas! Too bad the guy's so darned attractive!

If being a social creature is that integral to cognitive, social and emotional development, how would a person whose environment is devoid of any human social stimuli act, speak or behave? A 1970 French film, The Wild Child, delves into this extremity and depicts a savage boy’s trials and tribulations of becoming a cognitively functioning social being through the patient efforts of a physician, named Dr. Gene Itard. The boy lived his first eleven or twelve years in the vast wilderness of a forest with little to no human interaction and after a nearby villager spots the boy in the forest, local law enforcement apprehend the child and bring him into custody. He is sequentially discovered and examined by Dr. Gene Itard, who realizes the boy is either deaf or dumb. At this point of the movie the viewer is bound to question how the boy was able to survive for such a duration on his own. We can conclude, however, that however much or however little cognition the boy had attained through the span of his short life, was enough to survive his misfortune, which can be attributed to the flexible nature of cognition to adapt. This ability to adapt is one of the 7 features of cognition. Throughout the rest of the movie, Dr. Itard painstakingly tries to teach the boy, who he names Victor, to identify and use different vocal sounds to articulate his wants and needs (i.e. food, water, ride on wheelbarrow). Victor gradually starts showing signs of intelligence through this method of vocal

Native Son by Richard Wright is a book that tackles the complex implications that not really threaten society, but mold society to how it is in present day. It attacks different sensitive topics that were critical to how you were viewed regarding race, class, and even political beliefs. It presents society as how it is and attempts to give reason to why things are as they are. Richard Wright by no means attempts to justify the attacks of the rich against the poor, the poor against the rich, the whites against the blacks, the blacks against the whites, the left-sided believers against the right-sided believers, or the right-sided believers against the left-sided believers upon the political spectrum. Moreover, he attempts to give a many

Around the world, there are an overwhelming 143 million+ orphans children either in orphanages, foster care or roaming the streets. “When you lose your parents as a child, you are indoctrinated into a club, you are taken into life's severest confidence. You are undeceived.” which is say by Hilary Thayer Hamann whom is Anthropology of an American girl(Hamann). As the orphans in this society just like a wallflower. Orphans has a huge percentage in the total population in the world.

Can you quote one or more critical assessments of the formal qualities of the assigned poem?

The 1930s in the United States was an era in which racism and prejudice towards the African-American was a common thing because of the Jim Crow Laws which allowed a segregation between black and white communities. Having lived under the Jim Crow social structure in the South and later in the North, the controversial author Richard Wright experienced the dehumanizing influence of racist representations permeate though sensationalist media. In his novel Native Son, Wright introduces us to Bigger Thomas, a petty thief who was hired as a chauffeur for a wealthy white family who accidentally suffocates and decapitates the young heiress of the family the same night he was hired. Through the Bigger Thomas, Richard wright attempts to give a face to the misrepresentations and show how the racist institutions nurtured a culture in which African-Americans were repressed in every aspect of their lives in the 1930s.

How can a society both create and deny a monster? In 1989, Doris Lessing published The Fifth Child, a book about a couple who take on way more than they can handle with debt, a large family and an ideal life that they think will make them happy; but in the end, destroys everything. Traditionally, we think of monsters as having evil intent to harm or ugly appearances, but the older we get, the less obvious monsters become. Through her story, Lessing make us reflect deeply on how monsters function in the society we create. We think we know what monsters are until we are asked to see how we contribute to their suffering. In many ways, the social institutions and the societal ideals around perfection that we support help contribute to the creation and victimization of would-be monsters.

The poem divides into two parts. The first two stanzas dealing with nature and the last two concentrate on the poet who commences his process of self-reflection. The poem here plots a movement away from the real to the theoretical. In the third stanza the mention of the word ‘fear’ and the poet’s portrayal of himself as a ‘pile of selves’ add on to a more thoughtful mood. The poem is ended in such a way causing us to feel as though there is more to be said which disturbs us.

The Fifth Child is the masterpiece of Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing. Lessing herself described it as a horror story, but we can also put it into the genre of social –psychological novels. She declared: '' I hated writing it. It was sweating blood. I was very glad when it was done. It was an upsetting thing to write - obviously, it goes very deep into me somewhere.'' It is a brilliant novel which deals not just with the social aspect of family life in England at the end of 19th century but with human psyches in general.