Coming of Age in Mississippi (Anne Moody)

What give this theme its unique power is the attitude of Moody to her life and the material in her book. In the first place, she never feels sorry for herself or tries to persuade the reader to feel sorry for her. What this does is give credence to her courageous involvement in the civil rights movement. From the beginning we see that courage, even when she is a little girl and is left alone with a few beans to care for herself and her sister. We are shown that early on she possessed the courage, which would find full expression later in her life.

In the second place, Moody refuses to idealize the struggle for civil rights and individual dignity in the face of bigotry and oppression. In the concluding pages, we see her as a down-to-earth woman who has no false expectations about any perfect society, which might arise out of th

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than her desire to drink that milk. She tells her mother, who refuses to believe her. Moody thinks, ôI will still bring the milk home. YÆall can eat it but not meö (44). Everywhere she sees hypocrisy, such as the failure of blacks to live the Christian life which they preach (65-66). But all the hypocrisy and all the incidents of bigotry in both the white and black communities do not stop Moody from evolving in terms of personal determination to cut through the wrongs with her own sense of what is right ôCourage was growing in me . . . Little by little it was getting harder and harder for me not to speak outö (Moody 152). What is it that made Moody strong despite-ûor because ofù-the racial oppression and led her to fight against injustice in her own life and in society? There is obviously something special in MoodyÆs mind and heart, which differentiated her from many others who become resigned to bigotry. Certainly a part of her spiritual strength can be attributed to her consciousness of the process of her own evolution. She is constantly reflecting on what is going on around her and assessing it according to her own internal ethical standards. Certainly it is in part due to the strength of those around her in childho
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1684
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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