literature
literature
In 1920-192, 800,000 people came about 2/3 of them were from southern and eastern Europe.…
aa Gyasi’s Homegoing, my eyes were opened to a history that is often swept under the rug; stories frequently deemed unspeakable and inappropriate due to the gravitas and the guilt attached. Its multigenerational narrative struck me as a compelling strategy in describing the history of oppression faced by black Americans by creating characters shaped by their ancestors, yet all driven by their own motivations and desires for happiness in life.…
1. Prohibition was a way to reduce the use and manufacturing of alcohol in order to reduce people taking advantage of the usage.…
The best way to give someone the idea of an institution’s terrible enormity, is to give them depictions of people who have suffered under it. This is the principle idea of the slave narrative, where former slaves tell their experiences in slavery and how they escaped. As most were written when slavery was still legal, the true purpose of these published accounts is addressed in a myriad of different ways throughout, but sums up to this - to convince the reader, through depictions of abuse and dehumanization, that slavery should not be condoned, for the perpetual abuse and misery the slave must endure is not worth the product. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs are two examples of slave narrative authors who utilize this emotional appeal…
"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs is discussing an enslaved woman's voyage through the dreadful institution of slavery to her freeing. Through her portrayal of enslavement, the reader is able to comprehend what it was like for many of African Americans to be dehumanized and shrunken by slavery. Transcribed in 1861 to appeal to the emotions of the Northerners, particularly the women, about the cruelty of slavery, the life story is an interpretation of a woman's life, what the author calls her…
The era of the 1920’s was perceived by many to be “roaring”. Exiting new inventions, entertainment, and social trends dominated the lives of people living in this decade. However, not everything was as glamorous as it seemed at the time, and hindsight has shed much light on the harsh realities of this period. Perhaps the 1920’s were not as “roaring” as people at the time perceived them. Examples of misconceptions in the 1920’s are: that the stock market was “roaring”, that everyone shared in the prosperity, and that society was making leaps forward.…
In 1776, the population census claimed 2,929,214 individuals earned their freedom from England through the Revolutionary war, meanwhile 757,208 Africans were kept bound against their will in slavery (Braudel pp. 22). Many Americans died in the war to win their national freedom from England, slaves in turn felt they had earned just the same respect to abolishing slavery. The American Revolutionary war and American Slavery movement were wars fought to revolutionize American freedom and were for the same purpose of equal rights.…
Judy Jones is the daughter of the Mortimer Jones. Glowing with vitality, Judy is casual, charming, and irresistible to many men, including Dexter. She is attractive, unattainable, and amusing, “entertained only by the gratification of her desires and by the direct exercise of her own charm” (Fitzgerald 4) . Judy does not seem to be fully aware of how manipulative she is toward the many suitors who pursue her—or if she is aware, she doesn’t care. “She was not a girl who could be "won" in the kinetic sense” ( Fitzgerald 4).…
“The Book of Negroes is a master piece, daring and impressive in its geographic, historical and human reach, convincing in its narrative art and detail, necessary for imagining the real beyond the traces left by history.” I completely agree with The Globe and Mail’s interpretation of this story. One could almost see the desolate conditions of the slave boats and feel the pain of every person brought into slavery. Lawrence Hill created a compelling story that depicts the hard ships, emotional turmoil and bravery when he wrote The Book of Negroes.…
In the article published by The Nation titled “Report From Occupied Territory,” author James Baldwin is reporting about the gruesome violence police officers are showing minorities in the streets as he writers from first and third person. The subject and also the narrator in this article is a humble and ordinary salesmen who becomes a victim after coming to child’s aid. One of the first things that Baldwin addresses in this piece that is a common occurrence is that African Americans,…
Before the 1800s in the United States, much of the population was not religious. Religious skepticism de-emphasized the role of god in daily life and encouraged rational thought. Some Americans, including the founding fathers believed in deism, believing not in the bible, but in science and reason. Authors like Thomas Paine wrote in favor of Deism in works like “The Age of Reason.” Other groups affiliated with Unitarianism, believing that Jesus only a religious leader not the son of god. They pictured God as a loving father instead of a stern creator. Others believed that god created the world, but no longer controls it.…
Richard Wright was determined to make a profound statement. In his novel, Native Son, he endeavors to present the “horror of Negro life in the United States” (Wright xxxiii). By addressing such a significant topic, he sought to write a book that “no one would weep over; that would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears” (xxvii). Native Son is a commentary on the poverty and helplessness experienced by blacks in America, and it illustrates the abhorrent ways that blacks were treated, describes their awful living conditions and calls attention to the half-hearted efforts offered by white sympathizers. Told from the perspective of his character Bigger Thomas, Wright crafts a story depicting the oppressive lives endured by Negroes and makes it so despicable that it grabs the attention of the reader and forces him to reevaluate the state of society. There is much in this novel that would cause a reader to cry, but, to Wright’s point, the topic is so significant that it resonates more deeply and elicits a deeper response.…
In Exchanging Our Country Marks, Michael Gomez brings together various strands of the historical record in a stunning fusion that points the way to a definitive history of American Slavery. In this fusion of history, anthropology, and sociology, Gomez has made expert use of primary sources, including newspapers ads for runaway slaves in colonial America. Slave runaway accounts from newspapers are combined with personal diaries, church records, and former slave narratives to provide a firsthand account of the African and African-American experiences during the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. With this mastery of sources, Gomez challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about slavery-- for example, that "the new condition of slavery superseded all others" (48)-- and he advances intriguing new speculations about the development of a collective African-American identity. In Gomez's words: "It is a study of their efforts to move from ethnicity to race as a basis for such an identity, a movement best understood when the impact of both internal and external forces upon social relations within this community is examined"(4).…
This narrative begins with the childhood of Frederick Douglass and ends with his adventures as an abolitionist. He gives insight into his personal recollections of his first awareness of what it meant to be a slave, from his own experiences and his experience as a witness to the brutality of one human being upon another human being. He allows readers through his words to have a front row seat to the world of slavery and the main objective of slavery supporters to dehumanize and oppress another race and culture. The goal of his prose is to raise awareness of the cruelty of man upon the backs of blacks, which subsequently he hoped would end…
The Dehumanization of the Enslave: Frederick Douglass The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself…