History ignored repeats itself: A peek at Books written by Katherine Ann Porter, Richard Wright And Andrea Lee

Essay by MattyHigh School, 10th gradeA-, January 1997

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So it is true. History ignored repeats itself. I have heard the quote many a time, but did I ever listen? Of course not, "That won't happen to me", every teenager's motto. From reading the story Black Boy by Richard Wright, I learned that history does repeat itself when ignored. In Black Boy, the writer described his childhood in the early 1900's. He describes problems much like today. This point was also made certain by other stories we read, such as, New African by Andrea Lee, and The Grave by Katherine Ann Porter. In which the authors described childhood's from more than twenty years ago, and there are many of the same experiences as now.

In the book Black Boy, the author describes (from a child's point-of-view), the problems of his childhood. The problems he encounters include a single parent family, a father who leaves his mother, starvation, and missed child support payments.

There is even one seen in the book his father is taken to court by his mother to rebuke the father's privilege to see his child. The father proceeds to lie in court and the judge ruled in his favor! Many families in today's society are single parent families, just like in this book. For whatever reason, one parent leaves the other with the kids and never pays the child support. Then when they are sued for the missed payments, they lie to the court and win!

In the story, New African, there is a totally different conflict, however it also describes a current day situation. There is a little girl in this story whose brother gets baptized. Afterward, everyone around her tries to get her to be baptized, since her father is the pastor. For example, her mother and father drop subtle hints...