The Life of Anne Moody

Paper Summary:

The writer discusses the book "Coming of Age in Mississippi", that is focused on Moody's position as a black woman in a world that she considers as being for whites. The writer looks at her description of what it was like living in Mississippi during the 1940s and 1950s and how the racial issues she encountered as a child led her into a life of political activism, as she worked tirelessly to change the world as it relates to the treatment of black people. The writer describes how Moody's life story shares what she learned about the social significance of race and what impact this had on her life. By considering Anne Moody's life and the world she grew up in, the racial issues that were present in the 1940s and 1950s are portrayed in this paper. The impact Moody's environment had on her life is also demonstrated.

From the Paper:

"'Coming of Age in Mississippi' is broken into four sections, each one describing a different section of Moody's life. The first section is "Childhood" and this is the only section of the book where Moody is not driven by her awareness of the way the world is. In this section, she is too young to question the world she is experiences and just accepts the world for what it is. It is in the next section titled "High School" that Moody begins to question the world and how black people are treated. From the first point where Moody begins to see the way the world is, her response is anger. She is angry at the white people for treating the blacks as they do. She is angry over the murders of prominent black people. But her anger is not only at the white people. She is also angry at the black people for letting the world be like this. A lot of the anger at black people is based on her observation that black people are not standing up for themselves. While everyone else around her seems to feel like they have no choice but to live in the place that white people have put them, Moody sees that things could be different."

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