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Name: Course: Instructor: Date: Escaping Stigma In almost all societies, certain groups of individuals are stigmatized. The stigma of one’s birth is a wound which is very difficult to heal fully. It is normally resistant to the formal and informal tools that are generally available in the society such as laws and moral values. For instance, during the age of slavery, an individual’s enslaved status was acquired at birth since it was a question of whether your parent was a slave or not. Several years of stigma influenced by one’s birth cannot be simply erased by legal declarations that burn discriminatory laws or social codes. It is, therefore, not easy for one to escape fully the stigma of one’s birth just as suggested by the Chinaberry Tree. The Chinaberry Tree also suggests the possibility of a lifetime stigmatization as a result of one’s birth. The novel brings out various instances that support the possibility of lifetime stigmatization. For instance, Laurentine, who is one of the main characters in the novel, is treated as a stranger despite having no control over the fact her biological father is a white man. She finds herself isolated because of stigmatization. The author states, “She had played under it (The Chinaberry Tree) as a child with two exquisite dolls, wondering rather wistfully why the few children in the neighborhood didn’t play with her” (Fauset 2). Laurentine’s sense of loneliness and isolation as a result of her bad blood is evident right from her childhood. The sense of isolation or loneliness persists even into her adulthood. The society judges her because of her “bad blood” and despite having been well taken care
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