The novel coming of age in Mississippi is the autobiography of Anne Moody. It covers her life growing up in Mississippi focusing on her childhood and development as a young lady. Her childhood includes intense racism extreme violence strong passions and the birth of the civil rights movement. This story is written in a blunt straight forward insightful fashion. She is objective through the lens that she blames both the Caucasian and African American southerners for the problems of the south. She emphases’ the generation gap by showing the different mindsets. Her criticism of martin Luther’s “I have a dream speech” as well as her constant blame she attributes to the older black southerners after the horrible fire are perfect examples of Ann’s political views. But in the end we as the reader are able to see the difference that one person can make to the civil rights movement without becoming famous speacks volumes to the individual stories of every member of the civil rights movement.
Coming of age in Mississippi is an excellent novel because of its original point of view on the civil rights movement. It starts out with the horrible take of emit till. A fourteen year old boy who was brutally murdered by racists white men for the smallest of reasons, whistling at a white woman. As Ann Moody explains this horrible tale which illustrates the depth that the African American class is seen in the eyes of the Mississippi elite we are able to see the absolute lack of ramifications that are experienced by the perpetrators. this story has been told before but what makes this book unique is that it shows these events through the eyes of a African American youth living in the area. In my opinion I feel that this is necessary because not only does it speak to the events but also shows us the mindset of African American youth in the area at the time.
This book does not only show the youth’s state of mind but the state of mind of the older generation as well. Ann’s mother disagrees with almost every idea that moody has and continuously attempts to shield her from the heinous truth that is around her. This is stereotypical materialism due to her need to protect her children from both the racists criminals.
I think you describe a little too much about the book in the intro paragraph. It almost reads like a summary of the book. Maybe just cut out some of that and get more to the point quicker. Also, I didn't really see a clear argument there. Is it that she was a civil rights leader? It just sounds descriptive.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the next few paragraphs just sound like a review of the book rather than an analysis of a theme. You're almost grading the book, calling it important, etc. You should focus more on the topic.
But you have great description, you did that really well, just cut it down a little.
You definitely have a solid understanding of the book, but now you need to take the next step is to pick a theme to follow and to analyze more closely. You have only examined what the story is about so far.
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