Harper's Use Of Figurative Language In The Process Of The Slave Trade.
The activist and poet, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper describes the setting in detail of the process of the slave trade. Harper illustrates, the separation of children and parents being pulled apart and are being sold to separate families as objects. He also uses figurative language through his choice of words to give an emotional response to the reader.
In the beginning half of the poem, Harper uses specific and meaningful words in order to capture the reader’s attention. For instance in line 2, “wretchedness” and in line 3 “sons of despair” as a way to not only describe the pain and the emotional damage upon the African Americans being sold to slavery, but also causes the reader to have an emotional response. By placing the reader at an emotional
point of being seperated by his/her family, the reader is able to understand how awful the situation was at that point and time.
The use of a rhyme scheme is also used to be part of the structure of the poem as more of a melody. For instance, “And saw their dearest children sold/Unheeded rose their bitter cries/While tyrants bartered them for gold.” (6-8), with this type of literary device, Harper is able to provide more passion rather than having focusing on the sound of the poem. Moreover, the word “anguish” is used multiple times which can be the use of repetition as a way to remind the reader of the torment of conditions that the slaves have lived in. Overall this kind of structure and language is performed as another attempt to deeply describe in depth of the horrible act of this slave auction.
By discussing the style of Harper, the structure of this poem is meaningful and is able to describe the inhuman act. This difficult topic is difficult to discuss and is harder to even bee put in this position, however “The Slave Auction” is a poem used the use of words to describe a painful memory of most African Americans in early American History.
In the beginning half of the poem, Harper uses specific and meaningful words in order to capture the reader’s attention. For instance in line 2, “wretchedness” and in line 3 “sons of despair” as a way to not only describe the pain and the emotional damage upon the African Americans being sold to slavery, but also causes the reader to have an emotional response. By placing the reader at an emotional
point of being seperated by his/her family, the reader is able to understand how awful the situation was at that point and time.
The use of a rhyme scheme is also used to be part of the structure of the poem as more of a melody. For instance, “And saw their dearest children sold/Unheeded rose their bitter cries/While tyrants bartered them for gold.” (6-8), with this type of literary device, Harper is able to provide more passion rather than having focusing on the sound of the poem. Moreover, the word “anguish” is used multiple times which can be the use of repetition as a way to remind the reader of the torment of conditions that the slaves have lived in. Overall this kind of structure and language is performed as another attempt to deeply describe in depth of the horrible act of this slave auction.
By discussing the style of Harper, the structure of this poem is meaningful and is able to describe the inhuman act. This difficult topic is difficult to discuss and is harder to even bee put in this position, however “The Slave Auction” is a poem used the use of words to describe a painful memory of most African Americans in early American History.