Three+Characteristics

Three Similar Characters In the book “The Ways of Whitefolks” by Langston Hughes, three characters from __differen’t__ short stories in his book exhibit similar identical characteristics. The stories are in the same time period of the segregated United Stat__es b__ut each character is of different backgrounds, locations, and age groups. One character is the small boy, Joey from //One Christmas Eve//. Another is the adopted black teenager: Arnie from //Poor Little Black Fellow,// and the other is Langston himself in his poem, //Dear Ma//. Each of these characters exhibits the identical characteristics of rebellion, curiosity, and the need to be like white people in those times.

The rebellious attitudes of the characters are the most obvious things that stick out in the each of these stories. Joe leaves his mother Arcie when she’s shopping for Christmas presents for him. Arcie __gives him specific examples__ on page 202 to not go into the theatre where only white people were allowed. Joes inpatients gets the best of him and he wants to go see a white children’s only Santa. He gets the message that as a black boy, he is not supposed to be there and so he flees to go find Arcie. Arnie on the other hand starts rebelling when he wants to meet his new friends he met in Paris. His foster parents bring him to Paris only for a family break and little did Arnie know he’ll make friends there. Arnie’s adolescence kicks in and dis-obeys his parents’ rules. As a result, his parents want to bring him back home because they thought they failed to take care of him. Langston Hues in //Dear Ma// openly admits to his mother that he wants to secede from his heritage. He rebels from traditional African American values as he says in the second paragraph and now works as a secretary in the company because his white background was what allowed him to be. The reader also doesn’t know what his mother’s reaction will be about Langston having a white girlfriend. All three characters become rebellious when their parents start losing control over their lives and then they claim their lives are better.

Some of these rebellious ways happen out of curiosity. Joes disobedience happens when he is curious about meeting Santa. Santa returns psychological abuse by scaring Joe who learns that his curios ways harmed him that night. While in Paris, Arnie is curious about meeting the dancer Claudina who gets Arnie into his friendship with others in Paris. His friends would later cause his adolescence in the story. Langston Hughes wonders in his poem how some people still thought that he wasn’t black. He does not go out of the way to find an answer to that but when people saw his white background, he gained more respect amongst the white population and more disrespect from samples of the black population. Each of these characters were full of curiosity and that’s why they went out of their ways to find answers for the questions their minds had for them.

The last characteristics these people have are the internal and external wanting to be white. __The story //One Christmas Eve// does not say that about Joe, but he wants to go see Santa where all the white children are and he wants to be treated like those children in the story but he is shunned by the group because he is black (run on sentence).__ __And__ before Arnie goes to Paris, he lived in a predominantly white town. He wished he could be white so he was able to make friends and take place in their conversations. Langston Hughes in his letter to his mother says in the first paragraph on the second page that he will marry white and if he has black children, he’ll make sure they are not his. By these examples, it is clear that these characters want to be treated like the white folks around them.

In conclusion, all three similarities for each of the characters are what make their fate in their stories. Even the characteristics they have are similar to each other. Out of curiosity, they have the wanting to be white, and because of their need, they turn rebellious to their guardians. This is why the characters: Joe, Arnie, and Langston are similar characteristically despite the different environments they are in.

Though you use essay format, I believe that you did not answer the correct prompt. Some other concerns are- lack of transitions, run on sentences, and grammar. C-