American Identity-Perseverance

Perseverance as a trained core to the American Dream reflects optimism and belief that through hard work and determination, one can achieve whatever one desires. Sometimes perseverance calls for utmost patience despite the challenges one goes through while keeping the hope that one will eventually get their heart desires in the long run. Therefore, this discussion aims to analyze perseverance in the fiction work “Pawn Shop” and the non-fiction “Incidents in the Live of a Slave Girl.”

In The Pawn Shop, the author presents the trait of perseverance through a protagonist African American character (Jackson) who goes through challenges of discrimination, racism, poverty, and violence. Still, despite all these struggles, he does not give up on his dreams. He perseveres in pursuit of a better future (Baym & Levine,2011). At the story’s beginning, the author describes the narrator as someone who, despite going through struggles in life, including homelessness and alcoholism, rises above circumstances to reclaim his life. He endured hard times due to harsh living conditions. For example, through the following sentence,” I order you to come up with $1000 cash in less than 24 hours to obtain his deceased grandmother’s stolen regalia” from the Pawnshop owner (Baym & Levine,2011). However, he shows determination and perseverance when he goes against all odds and secures the money.

Perseverance in the non-fiction “Incidents in the Live of a Slave Girl,” the author Harriet Jacobs sheds light on her personal experiences being a slave woman. She narrates that slavery experiences for women were much worse than for men due to gender stereotypes. She describes that being enslaved Black, she faced so many difficulties with her desire to maintain prescribed virtues, for example, in the line “but when I reflected that I was a slave….and that the laws did not sanction such marriages” (Jacobs,2009). However, despite these challenges, Jacobs did not allow them to destroy her self-sense of being a woman. While he suffered humiliation, abuse, and harassment from her master (Dr. Flint), she was determined to overcome the challenges and emerge victorious (Jacobs, 2009).

References

Baym, N., & Levine, R. S. (Eds.). (2011). The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Eighth International Student Edition. WW Norton & Company.

Jacobs, H. A. (2009). Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself, with “A True Tale of Slavery” by John S. Jacobs (Vol. 119). Harvard University Press.

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Week 3 Discussion
Discussion
PERSEVE RANCE
Complete the Literary Analysis Tools Modules from Weeks 1 and 2 before completing this assignment. Part of your grade is based on selection, integration, and citation of quotations.
Read all of the information below before posting your response. This is a post-first forum, and you must post your response before gaining access to your classmates’ posts. Submitting a blank post may result in a reduction of your grade..

Post responses to both prompts. You must post on three different days to earn full credit for participation.
Post 1: You learned the definition of the American Dream in Week 1, and you also learned about the American identity. Traits often associated with the American identity include boldness, confidence, perseverance, and integrity. These traits are often demonstrated through a character’s words or actions. This week, we’ll focus on perseverance and how it is reflected in two of the readings. Choose one character from a work of fiction (“The Soft-Hearted Sioux,” “Pawn Shop,” or The Invisible Man) and one person from a work of non-fiction (“Speech to the Osages,” Incidents in the Live of a Slave Girl, or “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”). Describe how perseverance is reflected in each.
Criteria:
300 words minimum (excluding quotations and citations)
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• Include two properly integrated and cited direct or paraphrased quotations (one related to each character) to support your claims. See the Week 1 and Week