Phl240: love, hatred, and resentment
PHL 240: Love, Hatred, and Resentment WQ 2019
Midterm Paper
Directions: Choose one of the following prompts, and write a 3-4 page essay (standard formatting) in which you respond to the prompt’s question(s), using quotes and textual evidence from the relevant reading to support your analysis, explanation, claims, or arguments. You must cite all quotations with the author’s last name and the page number
- In “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger,” Audre Lorde gives an account of her experience of anger, as a response to being subjected to racial hatred, and addresses the ways in which her anger is often misplaced and misdirected toward other Black Women she meets. How does Lorde explain this anger in terms of identification and/or disidentification, a longing for community and/or a failure of community, and the other consequences of racism that she addresses in her essay?
- Write an essay in which you explain Lorde’s distinction between anger and hatred, and clarify the reasons for why she argues that Black Women cannot respond to racism with only anger, but must also learn to “mother” themselves. What are uses of anger, what are its limitations, and how does “mothering” oneself offer necessary tools that anger, alone, cannot provide?