The Quest for American Identity

In the era of multiculturalism, it is very hard to define the real American identity. Every person in the United States may have been called American yet differences in races still matter. Since the birth of this nation, it has long sought for an identity. Who are the Americans Is it the white people who speak English Are Blacks, Hispanics and Indians considered Americans These are the questions that so long hunted for an answer yet were only resolved at the dawn of the twenty first century after harsh riots and civil rights movement. It may be correct that all citizens sing the Star Spangled Banner, pledge allegiance to the Constitution yet not everyone has been granted equal rights. Sometimes equity and equality need to be fought for. These may be are the reasons why representatives of these oppressed cultures have written literature to express their sentiments.
    Ralph Ellison may argue that his novel, The Invisible Man, had universal characters, wherein anyone who suffers the same oppression could relate himself to the protagonist however, the case that it has been written by an African-American could lead to the conclusion that the novel articulated the sentiments of the Black people. The novel has been about the narrators quest for freedom, identity and selfhood.  Though the narrator has accomplished his goals in the end of the novel, the identity that he has taken on is that of an invisible man. Invisibility is a major theme of the novel. In fact, there are three types of invisibility that has been discussed. The first is partial invisibility that people would not see a person fully yet only limited to what the people ought to see. The second is invisibility by denial, people would see you as another person and the last is full invisibility, which is resignation from the community. Thus, the novel stressed the worse consequences of prejudice due to race difference. Though the novel has been nihilistic and individualistic, the novel has inspired freedom movements and has produced leaders like Malcolm X.
    Nevertheless, Philip Roths impasse in Defender of the Faith is of no less different from the predicament of Ellison. It is not of grave importance if Grossbart has been serious or not about his grievances. His machinations and mischief were not enough to hide the pressing quest for attention by the Jews in the army. Even Sgt. Marx has been persuaded by Grossbart to give special consideration to the Jews. Yet in the end Marx has turned the table and was able to exercise fairness for all, which earned him the title defender of the faith.
    Though N. Scott Momaday was not writing accurate history in his book The Way to Rainy Mountain, however, it has well described the conception and the growth of the Kiowa people, their journeys and their stories. Momaday wanted to look at his heritage at as many angles as he could. He wanted to show the world that his ancestry had civilizations and did not belong to what some early white men called as noble savage.
    Thus, all of these novels are stories about seeking identity. The similarities are marginalized and oppressed people in the society have written all of these stories. Their goal is to seek a space in the American culture where their identity would be accommodated. The demand may be as small as Momadays request for respect and recognition for his people to freedom from harassment and equity and equality. However in these modern times, we have now realized and understood the doctrines of our founding fathers. The American identity is an ever-expanding context wherein the future people would have a hard time identifying which is American.
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Woman as Breadwinners (On Gender issue)

Woman as breadwinners is an issue that demands justification amidst the various notions on the female gender that include their role in the family, whether their domain should be the home or they should also work to earn money. Historically however, it has been found out that women had been so productive and had played a great contribution to the progress of her family in particular as they do extremely hard work both in their house and in the farm. Nevertheless, their contributions were often unnoticed or are less valued in terms of wages as compared to men, because of a serious restriction, which operates against the recognition of the womens contribution in societies, which are bound by ancient traditions and beliefs.
While the purpose for assigning women in the home was to make her family ideal, the economic downturns during the past decades necessitated the family for income augmentation forcing women to find work in order to meet the pressing economic demand of the family. Thus, the question on women as breadwinners arises.
The question however about the working women should rather be seen in the context of rights and needs rather than in the context of consequences. Carnoy (2002) stated that many of the working women finds fulfillment in their jobs than in keeping the home. Citing the statements of some working women working on the computer assembly lines, Carnoy puts it At least here, we have a social life said one. I have friends, conversation, other adults another commented (p. 105). Apparently this scenario reflects that beyond the economic need of the family, the social aspects of womens life were grossly neglected.  However, the scenario at the computer assembly lines which Carnoy pointed out depicts an even bigger economic picture. Women working in a traditionally male territory, women earning money, skilled women were some of the ideas that could be drawn from the scenario. Carnoy argued that since the 1920s the smaller family gradually led married women to returning to the workforce. Canoy cited that the development of modern technology such as refrigerators, stoves, washing machines, and home tools that revolutionize homework made it interesting for men to come home and do things around the house.
Given this economic trend, there is no doubt that women can greatly contribute to the economic needs of the family. Indeed in many countries around the world, there are many women who are the sole breadwinner in the family
The concept of women breadwinners though, was not new at all. In fact if one would care to check on women contribution to the welfare of the family in particular and the society in general, one can find that women had greatly contributed to the economic needs of the family in general in terms of dollars and foods, to the household activities.
Roland Robertson and Kathleen E. White calls todays society as the new society which requires the transformation of womens condition. According to them, at the root of this transformation, which has taken place at accelerated pace since the 1960s, are two interrelated phenomena the massive entry of women into the labor market in most advanced economies and the social movements based on the defense of identity that nurtured the development of the womens movement and of feminism in general (76)
Evidently, the transformation of women from a domestic person whose abode is the home, she is now part of the economic workforce which greatly contributes to the need of the family. With their great contribution on the family welfare in terms of dollars and foods, there is nothing more to prove on the capability as breadwinner.
The question that should be asked then is what is the real issue on women as bread winners This is a very important question because despite of the women contribution on the society in general women were seen as inferior. One factor is the fact that during the past centuries, men have dominated society in its entire realm relegating women to the subordinate task of rearing the children and providing the need of the husband, particularly during the colonial times. Women were confined in her home having no educational or economic opportunity in the society other than to marry at a young age, and to take care of her family. Her life revolved only around the context of the family leaving her no place in the society as her full time job was home making, such as cooking meals, make clothing, attending to sick family member, aside from taking care of their animals, making household goods to use or sell and a lot more difficult jobs.
In reality, it was not because women were perceived to be weaker or intellectually inferior, or that men outsmart women that they were confined in the home and their efforts marginalized, but because of the popular mens notion of machismo. Men tend to dominate women simply because they want to protect their ego being men and often they expressed it terms of abuses and violence on women. Women are discriminated against by labels, that is, a gender issue which restrict them to a reproductive role, and reject access to resources, which could enhance their social and economic contribution to the society.
Nevertheless, over the years, this gender based discrimination has been gradually blotted out and women are now beginning to assert their contribution in the household needs. According to an internet article entitled Nearly Half of the U.S. Workforce Are Women recent study indicates that close to fifty percent of U.S. workforce is comprised by women and they are the primary breadwinners or co-bread winners in nearly two-thirds of American families (City TownInfo.com Staff). Citing the Shiver Report entitled A womans Nation Changes Everything the article cited 65.3 percent of women and 61.2 percent of men strongly agreed they are comfortable with women earning more than in a household (City TownInfostaff).
The article pointed out that while the changing role of women were a direct consequence of the economic downturn at the expense of nearly seventy-five percent of about seven million workforce who have lost their jobs in the recession, it also augmented the familys economic needs. Therefore, woman as breadwinners not only depicting the entry of women in to the work place, it also herald a new era for women in the new society. Women who were transformed from a domestic or home body, to more productive and socially active individuals whose contribution great transformed the economic and financial needs of the household activity.
Since this transformation on the condition of women was largely caused by the economic downturns, it cannot be denied that there are some consequences that had to be addressed. Philip Cowan stressed that woman as bread winner have an impact on children. Cowan recognized that there is a need of the family that must be met. Thus Cowan stresses that when the economic condition of the family necessitates mothers to be a bread winner its impact on the family should be discussed as it will depend on what their husbands will do inside. This however is very much possible because aside from the fact that more and more men agrees that women should also work, the home technologies which made house hold chores easier and exciting, encourages husbands to come early and do what women used to do in the past.
 In connection to the above, there is overwhelming evidence that it was the gender issue that had prevented women from becoming bread winner in their own way rather the socio-cultural notion on the role of women in the family as the impact of the absence of the mother can be resolved by quality discussion about the roles of the husband and wife. It is high time that the society acknowledges women as breadwinners in view of the economic realities currently confronting the society. Women should not be deprived of their right to be employed nor be subjected at once to the gender discriminations that had long oppressed them through unequal wages, limited employment opportunities, or disproportionate opportunity for promotion and improvement. It is now high time that women contribution to the society in the twentieth century particularly in the third world countries that could be seen in the production and processing of agricultural products.
Indeed, the role that women played and the contribution they made in the development of the society in the twentieth century proved that women potentiality is equal with men in many aspects. Today, women have gone far from being less educated, homemaker, and being confined to her domestic chores. Women today are more intelligent, more skilled, highly educated more committed in the work, resourceful, strong, and reliable and intelligent all boils down to a description that todays women is fit to contribute further in the fast technologically transforming global economy. Womans participation and contribution can no longer be ignored, as she can be an F16 pilot, a head of state, a lawyer, or anything she wished to be. Any discrimination on the womens rights or to what can women do is practically impractical and denying her the opportunity to contribute in her own way toward the development of the society. Women today are no longer what has been perceived of her as seductress or vulnerable who are in need of protection, although as a sort of being man, men care and protect women. What is meant here is that women can now exist in this world even without the protection and provision of men. Gender issue then should no longer be used as an excuse for men to once again establish their dominance on women. Women should be acknowledge as part of the economic workforce and their entry into that traditionally male dominated economic area should be seen as an emerging economic trend.
Jessica Hanan pointed out in her book that today women entry into the workforce has become the most social trend of the last fifty years and that more and more American men are agreeing on the entry of women into the workforce (25). Hanan cited the 1997 issue of National Forum magazine which states that over 80 percent of Americans agree that two incomes are needed to financially support the family (25). The main issue therefore that should be considered regarding women as breadwinner is the economic significance of their contribution on the household. It cannot be ignore anymore the impact of the current economic downturn on every family and the family economic situation is calling women to become co-breadwinners.
The gender based male dominance on women therefore which are often expressed through spousal abuse and domestic violence should be seen as an obstacle not only to womens progress but more importantly, to the familys economic welfare and development. Thus, the society particularly the business community should leave enough room for women employment and for their social, emotional, and intellectual development.
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The Quest for American Identity


In the era of multiculturalism, it is very hard to define the real American identity. Every person in the United States may have been called American yet differences in races still matter. Since the birth of this nation, it has long sought for an identity. Who are the Americans? Is it the white people who speak English? Are Blacks, Hispanics and Indians considered Americans? These are the questions that so long hunted for an answer yet were only resolved at the dawn of the twenty first century after harsh riots and civil rights movement. It may be correct that all citizens sing the Star Spangled Banner, pledge allegiance to the Constitution yet not everyone has been granted equal rights. Sometimes equity and equality need to be fought for. These may be are the reasons why representatives of these oppressed cultures have written literature to express their sentiments.

Ralph Ellison may argue that his novel, “The Invisible Man”, had universal characters, wherein anyone who suffers the same oppression could relate himself to the protagonist; however, the case that it has been written by an African-American could lead to the conclusion that the novel articulated the sentiments of the Black people. The novel has been about the narrator’s quest for freedom, identity and selfhood.  Though the narrator has accomplished his goals in the end of the novel, the identity that he has taken on is that of an invisible man. Invisibility is a major theme of the novel. In fact, there are three types of invisibility that has been discussed. The first is partial invisibility that people would not see a person fully yet only limited to what the people ought to see. The second is invisibility by denial, people would see you as another person; and the last is full invisibility, which is resignation from the community. Thus, the novel stressed the worse consequences of prejudice due to race difference. Though the novel has been nihilistic and individualistic, the novel has inspired freedom movements and has produced leaders like Malcolm X.

Nevertheless, Philip Roth’s impasse in “Defender of the Faith” is of no less different from the predicament of Ellison. It is not of grave importance if Grossbart has been serious or not about his grievances. His machinations and mischief were not enough to hide the pressing quest for attention by the Jews in the army. Even Sgt. Marx has been persuaded by Grossbart to give special consideration to the Jews. Yet in the end Marx has turned the table and was able to exercise fairness for all, which earned him the title: defender of the faith.

Though N. Scott Momaday was not writing accurate history in his book: “The Way to Rainy Mountain,” however, it has well described the conception and the growth of the Kiowa people, their journeys and their stories. Momaday wanted to look at his heritage at as “many angles” as he could. He wanted to show the world that his ancestry had civilizations and did not belong to what some early white men called as “noble savage.”

Thus, all of these novels are stories about seeking identity. The similarities are marginalized and oppressed people in the society have written all of these stories. Their goal is to seek a space in the American culture where their identity would be accommodated. The demand may be as small as Momaday’s request for respect and recognition for his people to freedom from harassment and equity and equality. However in these modern times, we have now realized and understood the doctrines of our founding fathers. The American identity is an ever-expanding context wherein the future people would have a hard time identifying which is American.
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To Kill a Mockingbird


“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Atticus Finch in To kill a Mockingbird

To kill a mockingbird is a novel that depicts many human errors as seen and understood by Scout, a child of 6 years.  At an early age she is exposed to her town’s hypocrisy, prejudice, racial discrimination and judgmentalism, common human characteristics where the story is built on, and in her activeness as a child, she and her brother had become entwined with the mockingbirds of their society. These two mockingbirds are offered as sacrifices in the story to drive the story’s point and expose the conflicts of the story, of man against man and man against society.  These two conflicts brought out the worst characteristics of the people in Maycomb but it was also an instrument in revealing that there are mockingbirds that are wrongly judged by other people but are in reality harmless and good.  These are in fact people who seek to do good without audience, who does not do good to be recognized but because they want to show goodness to others who are in need of it. This very exposure of Jem and Scout to the mockingbirds of their town helped shape their moral values, they found a new hope that their town is not as bad as it seems, despite of a number of people who sees bad in everything but themselves, there are still good people who had, although fallen into the pit of prejudice and discrimination, still opt to show kindness.    

Mockingbird is a collective name for certain passerines or songbirds that are uniquely able to mimic or imitate with unusual exactness the sound or song of other birds and even certain reptiles and amphibians.   Some of these birds developed the ability to incorporate their own songs into the calls of the birds that they mimic.  They are common in the North, Central, and South America, from southern Canada to Chile and Argentina.  These birds mainly feed on insects, seeds and fruits but are not classified as pests, thus the notion of being harmless.  Mockingbirds are very helpful in keeping insects in check, they are also important in the transporting and scattering of seeds to far off places where they can germinate and grow.  Aside from its ecological and agricultural importance, mockingbirds are also a source of aesthetic appreciation, its mimicry of other’s calls can be soothing and enjoyable, and their vivacity and playfulness is contagious. In the story Atticus Finch told Jem and Scout that it is bad to kill a mockingbird because it intends you no harm, in fact all it want is to sing to everyone, thus killing a harmless and innocent creature that only sought to make everyone happy is bad.

The first mockingbird to be introduced in the story is Arthur “Boo” Radley.  From the beginning of the story he is portrayed as a strange and mysterious character, living in seclusion, locked up in his parent’s house.  Nobody has seen him set foot outside or even peek at their window for fifteen years, and within that span of time many vicious tales were weaved around him, all of them depicting him as a vicious and scary character these tales rooting from his youthful mishaps and had grown to extremely negative notion of him and from then on had not left his name until in the end of the story.  In his younger days he got into a gang whose mischievousness brought the attention of the law on them and sentenced them in a correctional facility, however Boo’s father spoke with the judge to keep his son at home and be the one to look after his behavior wherein the judge agreed.  From then on Boo was never seen outside their house and no news of him after, even his mother and father avoided public eyes retreating to the security of their house even during Sundays where it is customary to expect visitors and socialize.  This strangeness in the family plus Boo’s mysterious presence in the house, although they did no one harm, their peculiarity is seen as reason enough for raised eyebrows and wagging of tongues.  Boo Radley in fact has grown to be a very shy man who shuns attention and keeps to himself.  Although mischievous in his younger days, which is common to growing up kids, he had grown to maturity but the condemnatory eyes of the people in town would rather dwell on his youth’s mishaps.  Extremely shy of human contact he showed fondness and affection for the two children by stashing small gifts on the hollowed trunk of a tree outside their gate where Jem and Scout pass by after school, small gifts such as gums, soap carving in the image of Jem and Scout, and a pocket watch, also by secretly putting a blanket around Scout during the fire that burned Miss Maudie’s house.  And in the end by saving Jem and Scout from the vengeful Ewell who tried to harm both of them in revenge for Atticus’ defense of Tom Robinson and for exposing what is really happening within the Ewell family.    Like the mockingbird, Boo Radley is a victim of prejudice, of being judged basing on insufficient information.  Having done that one mischief during his youth, he was forever tagged as violent and not in the right mind, with stories being told about him in various degrees of fictional narratives but always picturing him as a menacing phantom especially in the imagination of children.  In the story Boo had already been killed by the town’s people a long time ago, by making up stories about him to scare the children from becoming like him they had killed his persona and did not allow him to become a new person in their eyes.  

Tom Robinson is a gentle and respectable man who is unfortunate enough to be colored and so had to endure discrimination and racial judgment from the people around him.  Having been set apart from society and knowing the feeling of being alone and an outcast not so much because of his character or personality but because of his color which is out of his control, he had learned to live quietly and accept the conditions life had given him.  Yet, despite of his situation he has compassion for his fellows and easily sympathizes with those he deems that share his predicament impervious of race and color.  With these qualities he had the misfortune of being gullible enough to other people’s wicked intent, thus becoming entangled with the life of the Ewells.  Tom Robinson, having passed the house of the Ewells daily to and from work has acquainted himself with Mayelle Ewell with the best intentions to befriend her and empathize with her situation hoping to ease her sadness.  Having seen her loneliness and the hardships that she goes through keeping house, tending her siblings and looking after her father, he resolved to help her in every way he could specially with the manly chores such as “chopping up the chifforobe”.  He also treated her well and politely by calling her “miss” and treating her as such.  Unfortunately his kindly actions were used to pave the way for his disgrace and in the end his untimely death.       In this novel, he is one of the mockingbirds as illustrated by the author.  He was good in his intentions and seeks nothing in payment for his goodwill; he had led a quiet life and fed his family through honest labor and hard work, yet because of his color he is racially judged and discriminated, prejudicing him as outright guilty of raping Mayella Ewell where in the end, with Atticus Finch defending him, he was pronounced innocent and free from the charges that the Ewells brought against him.  However t, a black man against a white man then is like itself a verdict, although he was not sentenced in court he was sentenced by the white people to die.  

Atticus Finch has taught his children to respect people and life itself, he has taught them not to harm  unless you are harmed or only in defense of one’s self, but refrain from harming people and creatures alike for as long as can be.  He likened his teachings to a mockingbird who deems no one harm, it goes about its business singing giving pleasure to those who hears its songs, but because it mimics other birds’ calls sometimes people mistakes it for some other bird that must have done them wrong.  Like in the story, Boo Radley had been likened to a mockingbird who, because of his past and his strange lifestyle was turned into a topic for gossip and tall tales, in a way killing him and preventing him from living a normal life outside their house.  Tom Robinson, also a mockingbird by his race and color, although respectable in his ways and kindly the town’s people automatically judged him  as a rapist and even though he was innocent they had exacted revenge on him.  Boo and Tom are examples of a mockingbird, they are just a representation of all the mockingbirds that are scattered and like them isolated from human by lifestyle, color, belief, and even educational attainment.  There are many like them then and now in every place, people who are scrutinized by their physical peculiarities hence forgetting that there is more to the skin that meets the eyes.  
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Marx and Engels: European Industrial Revolution Accelerated History

As a preliminary matter, in order to understand Marxist theory’s critique of Liberalism, it is absolutely necessary to understand the concept of class conflict.  This is because Marxist theory relies on this notion of class conflict as a theoretical point of departure without which further theoretical developments would simply become impossible.  Early on in The Communist Manifesto, introducing the Proletariat and the Bourgeois, Marx emphatically declares that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." (Marx 321)   The society that was modern to Marx was therefore the product of a historical evolutionary process in which struggles between and among different social classes were the fundamental evolutionary and revolutionary causes.  He referred to social relationships that were predicated on slavery, feudalism, and even more primitive types of social organization. It can therefore be established that Marx viewed class struggles as a pervasive and driving force throughout all of written history and that Marx viewed his era’s forms of social organization as having developed inevitably from these historical struggles.  The European Industrial Revolution severed the peasants from the land, the masses migrated to the cities and found employment in factories, and this was actually a positive development because it expedited the formation of the Proletariat which would revolt against the Bourgeoisie.

Having established to his own satisfaction the fact that class struggles were rooted in history, Marx then proceeded to more precisely define what he meant by classes in a capitalist context.  The unifying theoretical thread was his conception of the means of production.  The Bourgeois referred to the elite or ruling classes that owned or otherwise controlled the means of production; the Proletariat, on the other hand, referred to the working class that subsisted through wage labor and did not control the means of production.  Capitalism therefore had an inherent structural feature, the means of production, which functioned to divide people into different classes with different benefits and different burdens.  The Bourgeois had developed and freed itself of feudal control through its self-centered pursuit of profit and its economic power had led to increased levels of social influence and political power.  Having institutionalized the source of its power, capitalism, the Bourgeois had then turned its attention to maintaining its power.  This could only be accomplished, in Marx’s view, by maximizing profits through the exploitation of the masses of the working class.  Marx viewed this capitalist ruling class in very deterministic ways and argued that exploitation and struggle had become systemic features of capitalism (Marx 323-324). The primary justifications that Marx provides for a working class revolution are his convictions that capitalism is systematically incapable of being managed for the welfare of the masses or otherwise being modified in ways that might harmonize the desire to maximize profits with societies that have class equality.

In sum, the only way for the masses to escape this exploitation is to revolt, overthrow the ruling class, and abolish capitalism.  The European Industrial Revolution created the conditions and the masses that would revolt and this, in a very real way, might have been viewed as a positive development both Marx and Engels.
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American Literature