When Steven asks Yellow Pearl if she ever does anything she wants to, she responds with “Oh, of course not! My feelings are irrelevant” (Alone Together). The Pearls don’t have a personality of their own, but if they do they disregard it, saying that it’s unimportant. Pearls can be awarded or given to a gem as if they were simply a piece of merchandise. ![]() A good example of a Pearl’s obedience is in the song “Do It For Her,” where Pearl is teaching Connie how to sword fight, but covertly singing about her obedience to Rose Quartz. They are required to be completely obedient to their owners. They’re created to perform any task from door holding to secretary work to being an attendant. They are created to serve gems of high ranking, such as Sapphires and Diamonds. There is Pearl, the Crystal Gem, but there are also hundreds of other Pearl gems being forced into slavery. The best representation of this are Pearls. The loss of identity and sense of self, dehumanization, and being forced to a life of servitude are glaringly present with certain gems. The parallels to slavery in Steven Universe are flooring. ![]() In both of these stories, they see how the Native Americans (or in Steven Universe’s case- other worlds) suffer because of colonial invasion and try to make it known to people higher up. This is also similar to the writings of Bartolome De Las Casas and Cabeza De Vaca. She changes her form to become Rose Quartz and start a rebellion. In fact, she even proclaims then and there that she doesn’t want to colonize other worlds anymore. It’s similar to what happens when Listwell sees Madison ranting. She suddenly sees that what the diamonds are doing is wrong and tries to put a stop to it. She finds them to be delightful and wonderful- absolutely something worth preserving rather than destroying. When Pink Diamond first comes to earth, she falls in love with the humans. This parallels a lot of Native American stories. It’s justified by the gems until they see that, sometimes, the planets have nice things on them (like humans). This is literally a textbook definition of colonialism. The Diamonds, leaders of Homeworld, use their troops to conquer other worlds, draining their resources and killing all life there. Steven Universe brings up a lot of issues about America on purpose as stated by its non-binary creator.Ĭolonialism and Slavery are two reoccurring themes that are brought up frequently when Homeworld is mentioned. The Heroic Slave purposely brings up the issue of slavery, but The Female American unintentionally brings up issues of feminism and erasure. They all bring certain issues into the spotlight whether they mean to or not. The themes of these stories are rebellion, freedom, humanity, slavery, conformity, and colonialism to name a few. ![]() I’m going to use the whole series for this.Įarly American Literature has a lot of aspects across vastly different books. This introductory paragraph serves as your obligatory “spoiler warning” for the analysis ahead. He needs to cope with his non-human side, his mother’s death, and a myriad of other things throughout the series. It follows a half-human boy named Steven Universe who lives with the Crystal Gems, a group of alien space gem people. Steven Universe is a cartoon series on Cartoon Network. To be honest, I’m analyzing this because it’s one of few contemporary American texts that I know extremely well. Steven Universe by Rebecca Sugar has a surprising (or perhaps unsurprising!) amount in common with Early American Literature.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |