Research Paper On Treemonisha

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Scott Joplin Treemonisha

Scott Joplin, also known as The King of ragtime, was an African music composer and pianist of the twentieth century. He focused a lot on the perfection of ragtime. Although he was successful, he did struggle during his career because of the time period in which he lived in. Joplin composes many ragtime music, but what is more unique is his opera that he composed, Treemonisha in 1911. Treemonisha was the only opera in existence about the Reconstruction Era of the African-American experience which was written by a black man who experienced it himself.
The Reconstruction Era was during the period after the Civil War which was when slavery was abolished in January of 1865. Although the purpose of the Reconstruction Era …show more content…

There are several Negro families that are living on the plantation and other families back in the woods. In 1866 they did not know what they were going to do. Treemonisha is about a woman named Monisha and her husband Ned. Monisha and Ned prayed that they would have a child that would be educated and be able to spread its knowledge to those who were around them to aspired to do something better and higher than irrationality and conjuring. One September morning of 1866 Monisha and her husband stumbled across a baby girl that was light-brown skinned and under a tree that grew right in front of their cabin in which they lived in. When they found the child, they took her in as if she was their own daughter. Both Monisha and Ned agreed that they would keep their daughter ignorant of her finding out that they are not her biological, because they wanted her to love them as if they were her real parents. They did however promised to make her aware when she was old enough to understand. As their daughter grew up, they noticed that their daughter also named Monisha liked to play under the tree in which they found her, So they decided to call her Treemonisha. When Treemonisha was seven years old, Monisha made arrangements with a white family for Treemonisha to do their washing and ironing, and her father Ned would chop their wood if the white lady would give his daughter Treemonisha an education. The lady consented to the agreement and as a result Treemonisha was the only educated person in the neighborhood. Scott Joplin composed a short strain of music that was part of the Opera that represented the happiness from the people when they feel free from the conjurer and their spells of

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