Post 1 & 3 Discussion Week 3

RULES: INFORMATION ON THESE POST ARE DOWN BELOW ALONG WITH YOU CAN USE AMERICAN LITERATURE 2013 8TH EDITION

Post 1: A lack of awareness of cultural differences or the assumption by one cultural group that another is inferior often results in painful personal and social encounters. Apply thisthesis to discuss how this lack of awareness affects the relationships of the characters in Glaspell's Trifles.  Be sure to quote, cite, and reference from the text using appropriate APA format. Your post must be at least 250 words

Post 3: How does Langston Hughes treat the idea of racism in America in his poetry? How does Wright treat the idea of racism in his short story? How would you describe the overall tone of their work? Do you see hope, despair, anger, or something else? What are they trying to accomplish with their work, and are they successful? Why or why not? Be sure to quote, cite, and reference from the text(s) using appropriate APA format. Your post must be at least 250 words

Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) was born in 1876 in Davenport, Iowa.  She graduated from Drake University and worked as a journalist on the staff of the Des Moines Daily News.  When her stories began appearing in magazines such as Harper's and The Ladies' Home Journal, she gave up the newspaper business. I n 1915 Glaspell met George Cook, a talented stage director . Together they founded the Provincetown Players on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  The Players were a remarkable gathering of actors, directors, and writers.  The troupe included Eugene O'Neill and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Much of Glaspell's writing is strongly feminist, dealing with the roles that women play, or are forced to play, in society and the relationships between men and women.  She wrote more than ten plays for the Provincetown Players, including Women's Honor (1918), Bernice (1919), Inheritors (1921), and The Verge (1922).  In 1922, Glaspell married George Cook and moved to New York City, where she continued to write, mostly fiction.  In 1931 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Alison's House, a play based loosely on the life and family of Emily Dickinson.   Glaspell spent the latter part of her life on Cape Cod writing.

Taken from:

Annenberg Foundation (2014).  About the author--Susan Glaspell.  Retrieved from: http://www.learner.org/interactives/literature/notread/author.html

Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was born in Joplin, Missouri. After his parents' separation, Hughes sometimes lived with his mother and sometimes with his father (who did not support his poetry writing), but he lived mostly with his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas. His first volume of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published in 1926, and support from several benefactors followed. By the 1930s, he had become a political activist, and he was drawn to the ideas of racial justice professed by the Communist Party. He was later called to testify before Senator McCarthy's committee on subversive activity. Instead of focusing on form in his poetry, he sought to "capture the oral and improvisatory traditions of black culture in written form" (Baym et al, 2013, p. 2221). His poems boil over with emotionalism, anger, and confusion but are coupled with a curtailed optimism and hope that the African American struggle may soon end. The short video below features Danny Glover's reading of Hughes's powerful poem "Montage of a Dream Deferred."

arnove. (2007, Oct. 14).  Danny Glover reads Langston Hughes "Montage of a Dream..." [Video file].  Retrieved from https://youtu.be/P4RSZeN721A.