Compare the two texts an extract from Black Boy by Richard Wright and A Brief Introduction To The History Of The Deep South for:
1) Tone
2) Use of Language (Style)
3) Register (Degree of Formality or Informality)
Black Boy by Richard Wright is a personal recountive piece while A
Brief Introduction To The History Of The Deep South a piece of
expository writing.
In Black Boy, the narrator recalls and describes 2 incidents that
occurred on the same day which impacted his life and let him better
understand the Whites’ thoughts and how to react to them. The purpose
of the author is to let the reader understand situations that went on
at that time from the first-person point of view such that the reader
can comprehend the severity of the problem, and gives a few insights.
On the other hand, A Brief Introduction To The History Of The Deep
South illustrates briefly how Black slavery began and progressed in
the South. The purpose of the author is probably to inform the reader
on how racism progressed on a whole as a whole area, the south, rather
than to show real life situations that went on within the community.
In Black Boy, the tone is rather dissatisfied and has hints of
complaints, such as in “My face must have reflected my silent anger,
for the boss slapped me reassuringly on the back.” In this passage
some disgust of the narrator is also shown through even the eclipses
right after ‘ “Here have a cigarette,” he said.’ However, in A Brief
Introduction To The History Of The Deep South, the tone is
a-matter-of-factly as the narrator is merely presenting a set of
historical facts, with little bias or emotion, such as in “The
Southerners got very rich from these plantation farms making lots of
money.” In a way it becomes a more reciting tone as the history of the
Deep South is reported.
In Black Boy, words, especially adjectives and adverbs are used to
colour the writing, such as in “every fleeting expression” and “hot,
dusty road”. However, in A Brief Introduction To The History Of The
Deep South, adjectives and adverbs are used for precision of
information, as shown in “ruined plantation” and “brutal system”.
Another case would be “The Yankie Northerners beat the Southerners and
burnt and destroyed many of their beautiful big plantation houses”,
where “beautiful” is used not so much to colour the writing but to
show the massive contrast of before and after.
Black Boy is rather informal, as the narrator tells you the events of
a day in his life.
The article, “The Negro’s Civil War in Tennessee, 1861-1865” by Bobby L. Lovett, can be found in "The Journal of Negro History. Lovett's article relates the importance of the contributions the black soldiers of Tennessee made during the Civil War. He portraits to the reader the determination of these black Tennesseans fight to gain their freedom under some extremely violent and racial conditions.
The Adventures of Huck Finn is a very controversial book which brings much debate on whether it should be taught to children in America. The main reason for this debate is because the offensive word ‘nigger’ is used commonly throughout. The book is a classic and is seen to some people as such a great book that we should overlook the offensive word to understand the real lessons Mark Twain wanted to get across. One solution to this ongoing debate is something called the New South Edition, which substitutes ‘nigger’ for a ‘slave’ a word that is less personal and describes the history of America. Dr. Alan Gribben writes about the controversy and how the change effects the new edition. He uses personal anecdote, emotional appeal, historical references.
The novel showed a pivotal point prior to the Civil War and how these issues ultimately led to the fueling of quarrel between Americans. While such institutions of slavery no longer exist in the United States, the message resonates with the struggles many groups ostracized today who continue to face prejudice from those in higher
C. Vann Woodward’s book The Strange Career of Jim Crow is a close look at the struggles of the African American community from the time of Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement. The book portrays a scene where the Negroes are now free men after being slaves on the plantations and their adaptation to life as being seen as free yet inferior to the White race and their hundred year struggle of becoming equals in a community where they have always been seen as second class citizens.
The poem, “My Great-Grandfather’s Slaves” by Wendell Berry, illustrates the guilt felt for the sins of a man’s ancestors. The poem details the horror for the speaker’s ancestors involvement in slavery and transitions from sympathy for the slaves to feeling enslaved by his guilt. Berry uses anaphora, motif, and irony, to express the speaker’s guilt and provide a powerful atmosphere to the poem.
In Eric Williams' essay, "Capitalism and Slavery", the first thing he stresses is that racism came from slavery, not the other way around. Of course I was immediately put off by this statement after reading Winthrop Jordan's "White over Black: American attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812", which has quite the opposite idea stated in it. Fortunately, Eric Williams' essay nearly tears itself apart on its own without any help from me, as he failed to recognize his own inherent classism and racism. It is his idea that because blacks were not the first to be used for free labor, just the cheapest form of free labor, that it was not racism that made the English, Spanish, and French use them. That, of course, is complete bullshit. Here's why.
Analysis of Mis-Education of the Negro The most important aspect for a teacher to understand is that every student that comes through their door has their own experiences, history, and point of view. Mis-Education of the Negro is about how the euro-centrism-based learning has, in one way or another, crippled the African-American community and their pursuit for an equal opportunity in our society. Written by Carter Godwin Woodson in 1933, this African-American studies book is written so that everyone can understand what society has done and what they can do to correct their wrongs. Author Carter Godwin Woodson dedicated his life to studying African-American history and fought so it can be taught in schools and studied by scholars.
Ida B. Wells was born into slavery, and lived in Holly Springs Mississippi. She was later freed, and learned from her parents what it meant to be a political activist. By 1891, Wells was the owner of the newspaper, Free Speech, and was reporting on the horrors that were occurring in the south. Wells, along with other people of the African American activist community were particularly horrified about the lynching’s that were occurring in the south. As a response to the lynching that was occurring, and other violent acts that the African American community was dealing with Wells wrote three pamphlets: Southern Horrors, The Red Record, and Mob Brutality. Muckraking and investigative journalism can be seen throughout these pamphlets, as well as Wells intent to persuade the African American community, and certain members of the white community to take a stand against the crime of lynching. Wells’ writings are an effective historical text, because she serves as a voice to an underrepresented African American community.
Where the Negroes Are Master: An African Port in the Era of the Slave Trade is a book written by Randy J. Sparks, who is Professor of History at Tulane University. On the Gold Coast during the eighteenth-century, Annamaboe was known as the largest slave trading post. The trading post was a home to very successful African merchants who had an odd partnership with some people in Europe. That made the town and the people that lived in the town, an extremely important part of the Atlantic’s exchange web. The port of Annamaboe was located in present day Ghana. The port brought the merchants into contact with people from the Royal African Company, Rhode Island Rum Men, European slave traders, and Africans who were captured from neighboring nations, daily. Since the leaders of Annamaboe were
Richardson, Riche. Black Masculinity and the U.S. South: From Uncle Tom to Gangsta. University of Georgia Press, 2010. Print.
The "American Slavery" Book Review This book achieved its goal by reflecting on the past and history of American Slavery. We can see in much detail what America was and has become throughout the era of slavery. It was the Colonial era that America began to see what true slavery would soon become. The author, Peter Kolchin, tries to interpret the true history of slavery. He wants the readers to understand the depth to which the slaves lived under bondage.
Despite each individual having different circumstances in which they experienced regarding the institution of slavery, both were inspired to take part in the abolitionist movement due to the injustices they witnessed. The result is two very compelling and diverse works that attack the institution of slavery and argue against the reasons the pro-slavery individuals use to justify the slavery
Analyzing the narrative of Harriet Jacobs through the lens of The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du bois provides an insight into two periods of 19th century American history--the peak of slavery in the South and Reconstruction--and how the former influenced the attitudes present in the latter. The Reconstruction period features Negro men and women desperately trying to distance themselves from a past of brutal hardships that tainted their souls and livelihoods. W.E.B. Du bois addresses the black man 's hesitating, powerless, and self-deprecating nature and the narrative of Harriet Jacobs demonstrates that the institution of slavery was instrumental in fostering this attitude.
Imagine a historian, author of an award-winning dissertation and several books. He is an experienced lecturer and respected scholar; he is at the forefront of his field. His research methodology sets the bar for other academicians. He is so highly esteemed, in fact, that an article he has prepared is to be presented to and discussed by the United States’ oldest and largest society of professional historians. These are precisely the circumstances in which Ulrich B. Phillips wrote his 1928 essay, “The Central Theme of Southern History.” In this treatise he set forth a thesis which on its face is not revolutionary: that the cause behind which the South stood unified was not slavery, as such, but white supremacy. Over the course of fourteen elegantly written pages, Phillips advances his thesis with evidence from a variety of primary sources gleaned from his years of research. All of his reasoning and experience add weight to his distillation of Southern history into this one fairly simple idea, an idea so deceptively simple that it invites further study.
The issue of Slavery in the South was an unresolved issue in the United States during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. During these years, the south kept having slavery, even though most states had slavery abolished. Due to the fact that slaves were treated as inferior, they did not have the same rights and their chances of becoming an educated person were almost impossible. However, some information about slavery, from the slaves’ point of view, has been saved. In this essay, we are comparing two different books that show us what being a slave actually was. This will be seen with the help of two different characters: Linda Brent in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass in The Narrative of the life of Frederick