Self Expression

A detailed Summary of Self Expression

The American social environment has revolutionized the ways in which people express their sexual identity. Years ago it was taboo for a young lady to talk about sex or even arouse her interest about the topic. Sheltered under her parents wings a girl was not given the opportunity to explore her sexuality. Parents molded their children in their image and did not allow them much choice or opportunity for diversity. It was not as socially acceptable for a young person to be allowed to express themselves through clothes, music or lifestyle as it is today. Stuart Ewen presents an excellent point in his article "First Impressions" about young people and how they have come to shape their own identity . Although this article is about the influence of urban styles on materialistic impressions, he makes a remarkably strong point about the historical transformation of individual identity. Ewen states "The old world of the parents was rooted in a continuity...the new world on the other hand, demanded a sense of self that was malleable, sensitive to the power of increasingly volatile surfaces. Addressing the historical transformation of individual identity, historian Warren Susman describes it as a shift from the impor

Lorde's segregated childhood left her alone and unstable in her later teenage years. Knowing nothing outside of what her mother had taught her left her scared and unknowing of what to expect of the real world. Finally moving out from underneath her parents roof two weeks after her high school graduation, Lorde was out on her own. Lorde shares with us her feelings of bitterness and resentment towards her mother as she was leaving. For example, she says "I began to seek some more fruitful return than simple bitterness from this place of my mother's exile, whose streets I came to learn better than my mother had ever learned them" (Lorde, 104). Lorde finally rid herself from that sheltered lifestyle and went off to find herself. She began to make some new friends and met her first boyfriend, Peter. This experience helped Lorde to form her own individual ideas about life, love and sexuality. At first, Lorde felt it was only socially expected that she date a male and become sexually involved with him. That is what she believed society demanded of her. Her friends were doing it, her mother did it and now she had to do it. Because society was so apt in adhering to it's traditional values back then, anything outside of the norm was socially unacceptable. This unacceptance is why Lorde allowed her self to conform to the ways of society and fall in to the same circle her mother had been trapped in all of her life. This marked the first step in her journey towards discovering her sexuality. Her relationship with Peter only lasted a few months. Shortly after, Lorde began to sense a strong attraction towards women that she could no longer ignore. She took every enticing experience and learned form it. Lorde rapidly learned more about her self than she ever imagined existed. This was the beginning of a whole new world for Lorde. Finally free to do with her life as she pleases, Lorde took on a very different approach to life.

tance of "character" to the importance of "personality" (Ewen, 411). Audrey Lorde incorporated this theory throughout her book "ZAMI a New Spelling of My Name" Lorde takes us on a journey through her life starting with her early childhood years. As a young black girl being raised by a strong, independent homosexual mother living a hetrosexual lifestyle, Lorde shows us how she secretly takes on many of her mother's characteristics. Audrey Lorde uses her mother's sexual identity as a foundation in developing her own sense of sexuality while struggling to express herself as a young, homosexual black

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Approximate Word count = 1717
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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