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Place and environment in African American literature: by Sara Elkhodiry PECAN IMAGE 2 In A Gathering Of Old Men, Gaines uses natural imagery to portray the relationship the characters feel to their ancestors. In chapter 6, Gaines states. “Then a pecan dropped from that tree in the backyard, fell on the tin roof, and tumbled on the ground,”“You had pecans tall all around you.” The natural image used here are the pecans. In this images, the reader visualizes pecans growing all over the graveyard. There’s a connection between the graveyard and the ancestors as the pecans grow out of the trees that grow from the same soil their ancestors are buried in. The graveyard pecans become the host (a literal embodiment) of Dirty Red’s ancestors. Throughout chapter 6 Dirty Red shares the pecans with everyone around him from the old men to the young children. As Dirty Red eats the pecans, he describes their taste as “good” implying something distinctive about the fruits of the graveyard. By eating the representative body of the Ancestor, Dirty red is empowered as his ancestor’s memories are associated with it. Dirty Red’s sense of agency arises as he feels nostalgic after eating the pecans. His remembrance of his ancestors creates his sense of self as an African American. By eating the pecans, his connection with his ancestors strengthens as he is engulfed with their memories. He shares the pecans with the people around him which creates a sense of unity within them as they all feel nostalgic. MULE ANNOTATED IMAGE In their were watching god, the mule was related to Janie's lack of agency.Upon Janie’s objection to marriage, Nanny explains how the power hierarchy places black women on the bottom as " 'de mule[s] uh de world' " (Hurston 29). The mule represents the way African women are treated in Janie’s society. Furthermore, Nanny uses the mule’s symbol in a way to silence Janie’s voice and to force her to surrender to social standards. In other words, by implementing this marriage, Nanny and the society force Janie to conform to social racial and sexual placement. Janie’s sense of agency is destroyed because of the mule’s attachment to her identity as a woman.

SELF REFLECTION , EXPOSITORY ESSAY.

Sara Elkhodiry
Professor: Uhl
FIQWS 10108
October 5^th, 2017
                                                     Self-reflection on Expository Essay.

      Writing this Expository essay has helped me become a more professional writer. The genre of this Expository essay is to investigate an idea, evaluate evidence, and to formulate an argument that identifies Douglass' use of imagery that can later aides his theme of “dehumanization.” I hoped while writing this Expository essay to analyze the given text professionally, to become a better thinker, and to develop clear thesis throughout the whole essay. I learned to analyze the text on a more professional level, and I got to reflect more on the dehumanization topic. I also learned to integrate vocabulary and to relate it to different texts. I worked on supporting my case with reliable sources that can be documented and verified.

       Throughout my previous essays in High school, I used to summaries ideas rather than analyzing them, but in this essay, it was different. I learned to interpret every word in the given text and to consider why these words fit together. I began to think and reflect on my own rather than relying on others to explain to me. In this essay, I learned to consider the setting, the character’s tone, the dialogue, the narrator, the voice, and the theme.

      One of the tasks in this essay was to link vocabulary or concepts from the article “Ecocritical Approach to Literary Text Interpretation” to Douglass’ work to aid his theme of dehumanization. By concerning ideas from one work to another to support my argument, I learned to think more efficiently when it comes to examining texts.

       The strategies I learned in my FIQWAS class helped me in writing this Expository essay professionally as we learned to revise many times to get the best possible version of our essays. Collaborating with each other in class helped in giving us more suggestion on how to write this essay. Writing this Expository essay made me more adept at analyzing, drafting, and editing.

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