The 1940’s, was a period of extensive racial discriminative and segregation within America. Laws known as the black codes were passed after World War II, which strictly limited the rights of many blacks and segregated them from the whites. The short story, The Test by author, Angelica Gibbs reflects aspects of the American society and culture during the 1940’s. It highlights on the issue of racism as it tells the story of a young woman named Marian who is taking her second driving test. As the story progresses, we see how Marian’s driving instructor continuously mocks her and is extremely racist, discriminative, patronising and condescending towards her. Soon after, we see a shift in tone as Marian challenges her driving instructor and as a…show more content… This is presented throughout the short story as we rely on the use of dialogue in order to get the stories main events and ideas across. “‘Damn you!’ Marian cried.” This is the climax of the story where Marian challenges the driving instructor. It shows a shift in Marian’s tone from her usual polite, respectful and formal language as she breaks while revealing her internal conflict. Another example is during the driving test and the driving instructor was humiliated and angry for being challenged by Marian, “’Return to the starting place, please,’ he said, and made four very black crosses at random in the squares on Marian’s application blank.” This highlights the driving instructor’s abuse of power as he failed Marian by putting ‘at random’ four black crosses on her application blank. It also shows that he wasn’t failing Marian on her driving, but it was because of her race and who she was that he deliberately failed her. The effect of the lack of narration is that as the reader we rely on the use of dialogue within the story to convey the plots events and present the issue of racism in America during the 1940’s. We are also positioned to respond with disgust, anger and disgrace towards authority figure as it highlights on the idea that authority figures are corrupt and abuse their power within society. This is due to the way in which African America’s are treated because the ‘authority figures’ within society believe that they are superior as they have the power to change the system and the dynamics within society in order to suit their own
