4037

Haunting Oppressions: Race, Class, and Gender

When looking at the idea of oppressions, a huge list of limiting concepts come to mind, but race, class, and gender are the main issues that oppress people. There are certain ghost stories that are the epitome of each of these different types of oppression. The ghost stories, "Po’ Sandy" by Charles Chestnutt and Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, epitomize oppression through race. The House of the Seven Gables, and "Luella Miller" are two stories that convey the message of oppression through class. Lastly, Kingston’s autobiography The Woman Warrior and "The Yellow Wallpaper", portray the idea of oppression through gender.

In "Po’ Sandy", Uncle Julius tells a white family, Annie and her husband, about a slave family. Mars Marrabo is the owner of this slave family and because he is white and he owns the black family, he can do anything he wants to with them. He does not consider the fact that they are a family too and that they do not want to be split up. Since Marrabo was going to take away Sandy from Tenie, his wife, they decide to turn him into a tree so he can stay near her. Although, this ends up causing more trouble because people keep coming and trying to chop him down. If there was not this idea of race oppression then the family could have lived happily ever after, but because of this issue they were torn apart for years.

After looking at the race oppression in Po’ Sandy, there is an even more sense of oppression in Beloved. Many instances through out the novel, Sethe, Denver, Paul D., Beloved, and the other black slaves have been oppressed solely because of their race. Sethe was striped of her self-worth by the having her milk taken by the guys at Sweet Home. That was the only thing that she had left because Sweet Home had taken everything else away from her. They finally took that last little thing that she was holding onto away from her. Once she finally escaped from there the oppression did not stop. She was again stripped from the only things that meant something to her: her children. The white schoolteacher came to claim what was his, Seth’s family, and Sethe did not want that to happen so she took things into her own hands. The white ladies that came and exorcised Beloved, oppressed Sethe for the last time. Sethe had wanted see Beloved for so long and once she finally got Beloved here, she was exorcised back from where she came.

People are oppressed no only through race, but also because of class issues. In The House of Seven Gables, class was a tremendous issue. Judge Pyncheon used his class as a way for him to get what he wants. He was able to pay people off in order for him to get what he wanted, solely because he was of a higher class than the rest of the Pyncheons. There is a hierarchy through out the Pyncheon family and it can be seen through the actions of the family members. An example of this is when Hepzibah starts up the spice shop. There were other people who could have started up that shop, but they were too good, or too high up in the class hierarchy.

In Luella Miller there is not as much of a class different between the people, but there is enough of a class different between Luella Miller and the neighbors that help her out. Although she has some way of luring people into her home to help her, she still gets these people because she is of a higher class than they are. Since she is more of a rich lady in the community, the other neighbors around her feel like they are under her in class rank, so they are more willing to help her. Had Luella Miller been of a lower class the people of the community would not have allowed her to oppress them, and there would be about eight more members of the community because they would not have died.

Oppression by gender is the last major way of oppression shown threw this collect of ghost stories. In "The Yellow Wallpaper," her husband John oppresses Jane. Because John is a physician and because he is a guy, he feels like he has the right to do what he wants to do with her. He not only oppresses her by taking her to a remote summerhouse, but while she is there she has strict orders as what she can and cannot do. She is not allowed to see her baby and she cannot have any visitors, which means that she is completely cut off from the outside world. There is no reason for a woman to be kept like an animal in a cage. The only reason that John is getting away with this is the fact that he is male and she is female. However, at the very end of the story, Jane over comes this oppression, but she had to sacrifice her sanity. So, in actuality, Jane is still effected by the oppression from John.

All of the examples so far have been of oppression by Americans, but in The Woman Warrior, it is the Chinese culture that oppresses the women. There are several examples through out The Woman Warrior, and one of the main ones is Fa Mu Lan and simply the silence of women that the Chinese cultures puts on them. Fa Mu Lan is not allowed to show her own physical and mental strength because she has to disguise herself as a boy. Once they find out that she is a girl, she is oppressed again because she is told to leave the battlefield. Aside from Fa Mu Lan, Kingston and all the other women are silenced because they are women and they should not be allowed to voice their opinions.

It is hard to say that there are only certain reasons why people are oppressed, because as you can see, there is a number of reasons why people are oppressed. Sometimes, there can be a combination of the many of the different reasons, an example of this being race and gender in the Chinese culture. Through out every ones life they are going to encounter some form of oppression, be it race, class, or gender.