Richard Wright and Toni Morrison are considerable influences within the African American canon, authoring works that reflect the expansion of the human condition to the conditions of the oppressed. Both authors highlight, within their narratives,...

Traumatic events leave an unforgettable imprint on people. Often, it is the way in which people handle trauma that determines how they will move on with their lives. Bharati Mukherjee’s “The Management of Grief” discusses the bombing of a plane...

James Baldwin and Richard Wright focus most of their works on the suffering of blacks in opposition to the overwhelming and repressive nature of racism that contorts the very existence of black bodies, specifically men. Wright and Baldwin assert...

As we grow up, our parents teach us life lessons to prepare us for adulthood. Depending on how we choose to approach these lessons, we may or may not understand how to attain a mature way of acting. In the story, “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” by...

The birds are silent and amidst this gasoline-fueled destruction, alongside “the charred stump of a sapling” (6) and the “tiny veins of burnt leaves” (6), a man has died for the simply crime of living. His townspeople have declared themselves...