Showing results for "The Right Man" in Classics

Rights of Man presents an impassioned defense of the Enlightenment principles of freedom and equality that Thomas Paine believed would soon sweep the world. He boldly claimed, "From a small spark, kindled in America, a flame has arisen, not to be extinguished. Without consuming...it winds its progress from nation to nation."

Now I'm going to tell you a story that I heard when I was a little fellow and that I like better and better the more I think of it. For it's the same with stories as with many people; the older they grow, the nicer they grow, and that is delightful.

A peasant and his wife owned a horse that grazed in a ditch close to their house. But they thought that it would be better for them to sell it or exchange it for something more useful. The woman sent her husband to town to exchange the horse - she trusted him because "what the old man does Is always right"! - Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author, poet and artist.

In this fictional confession, an unnamed narrator reveals the “great secret” of his life: he was born mixed race - and his ability to pass as white has provided him a unique perspective on America’s profound racial prejudice. As he recounts his experiences in the American South, the suburbs of the Northeast, New York City jazz clubs, and various European capitals, he also grapples with the emotional fallout of a life lived in constant fear of discovery - a life lived, in other words, in a culture unaccountably preoccupied with the shade of a person’s skin.