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Literary strategies in slave narratives
Essays on slave narrative
Features of slave narratives
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In “The Finish of Patsy Barnes” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, readers can agree on the message of the book being that love for family can do amazing things. In the book, a young black boy named Patsy Barnes and his mother Eliza are living in Tennessee during the time shortly after slavery has nearly ended. After Patsy’s father is killed by a horse they moved North to an area called little Africa. Shortly after, Eliza falls sick with pneumonia, and the city physician can not help her and Patsy needs to find a way to afford a new doctor. Eliza’s sickness made Patsy want to get money for a doctor to save her. When Patsy went to the fair looking for extra work, he learned that he could ride in the race. Patsy knew the horse whose owner needed a rider. The horse was Blackboy, who had killed Patsy’s father while Patsy was young and still in the south. Patsy knew that riding Blackboy would be dangerous, and that he could die like his father, but if he does not ride in …show more content…
In the beginning of the story, when Eliza was sick, she still wanted to get out of bed and work to help care for Patsy. This shows her love, because even though she is sick and can’t work, she still wants to work just to care for Patsy. Patsy, in turn, wanted to go to the stables to exercise some horses to earn money even though his mother was afraid the horses might kill him like his father died. In the text, it says,'"Nevah you min'," said Patsy with a choke in his voice. "I can do somep'n', an' we'll have anothah doctah." "La, listen at de chile; what kin you do?" "I'm goin' down to McCarthy's stable and see if I kin git some horses to exercise." A sad look came into Eliza's eyes as she said: "You'd bettah not go, Patsy; dem hosses'll kill you yit, des lak dey did yo' pappy."’ This shows that even though Patsy’s mother does not want him to go, he knows he needs to get the money for his mother so he can get a doctor for
This week I read the short article on Alan Locke’s, “Enter the New Negro”. This article is discussing the Negro problem in depth. “By shedding the chrysalis of the Negro problem, we are achieving something like spiritual emancipation”. Locke believes that if we get rid of whatever is holding us back we would gain something renewing and beautiful.
Prentice Hall Anthology of African American Literature. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. 163-67. Print.
Further, throughout the book, Sadie and Bessie continuously reminds the reader of the strong influence family life had on their entire lives. Their father and mother were college educated and their father was the first black Episcopal priest and vice principal at St. Augustine Co...
The poem “Likewise” by Langston Hughes is about Jews living and selling products in Harlem. But looking deeper into the writing reveals references to the creeping increase of antisemitism in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
"My Children are black. They don't look like your children. They know that they are black, and we want it recognized. It's a positive difference, an interesting difference, and a comfortable natural difference. At least it could be so, if you teachers learned to value difference more. What you value, you talk about.'" p.12
“Sonny’s Blues” is a short story in which the author presents a view on the realities of suffering in Harlem, New York in the 1950’s and how the presence of drugs can greatly impact not only the users, but the ones who care about the users as well. This can be shown through the literary use of setting, character, and theme. Throughout the story, the narrator struggles with trying to reason with the life his brother has chosen and the choices he has made. Sonny struggles to find an identity for himself having to live under the shadow of his brother his entire life. Sonny however finds solace in music which seems to become an escape for him and help him find meaning within himself. The narrator realizes at the end of the story why Sonny had chosen this life for himself.
Symbolism is such an interesting aspect of stories that when you take the time to sit back and analyze after initially reading it, things seem to pop out at you. Something so small could mean something so great to the story and it may not occur to the reader until they have read through a few times. In “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, symbolism was used quite a bit to represent different aspects of the story. One main use of symbolism was darkness, and it was used in many different scenes within the story. Light was also symbolized a bit within the story, specifically at the end.
Have you ever heard the expression money isn’t everything? Well it’s true and in Langston Hughes short story, “Why, You reckon,” Hughes reveals his theme of how people aren’t always as happy as they seem when they have lots of money.
Reading my first book for this class, I was really looking forward to it. The book, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, is an interesting book because it touches base on mass incarceration and the caste system. Figuring out that society is on a war on drugs and racism in the justice system is upsetting, and yet interesting. Michelle does a really nice job in organizing the book and presenting the plot. The fact that this book informs and explains arguments, what is happening with the justices system is complete true. Our lives would look complete different; and some of her points are happening. People do not realize getting incarcerated will take some of rights away. This essay will reflect on the book its self, answer questions,
The Mother is among a family of four who lives on a small farm and takes immense pride in what interests her, however her passion does not particularly lie in her two children; James and David; nor in her husband and their interests; but instead lies within her chickens. Though chickens bring the most joy to the Mother, they are not the sole animals that live on the farm. The animal that draws the most interest from the father, James and David is their horse, Scott. At a young age, Scott was used as a working mule for the family and grew up alongside the Father and two Sons. To the father, Scott was like one of his own sons, and to James and David, Scott was like their brother; but according to the Mother, “He’s been worthless these last few years”(Macleod, 267). Ever since Scott was young, he was a burden on the Mother’s lifestyle; she never took a liking to the horse even when he served as a source of profit for the family. The Mother had never appreciated the sentimental value that Scott possessed because he had never been a particular interest to her. Once Scott had aged and was no longer able...
“An Ante-bellum Sermon” by Paul Laurence Dunbar is an intriguing poem that I had the opportunity to analyze with my group, the Midday Missionaries. The mission of this sermon poem was to remind the slaves that they must stay strong to endure the hardships that they were going through because just like the Israelites, they would one day be freed. With antiquated diction that creates the tone of the piece, and two Black Arts patterns, the mission of this poem is easily identified. As part of the group, I was charged with locating these essentials parts of the poem and the “fresh truth,” in order to help the Midday Missionaries with the analysis of this piece.
Jamaica Kincaid’s success as a writer was not easily attained as she endured struggles of having to often sleep on the floor of her apartment because she could not afford to buy a bed. She described herself as being a struggling writer, who did not know how to write, but sheer determination and a fortunate encounter with the editor of The New Yorker, William Shawn who set the epitome for her writing success. Ms. Kincaid was a West-Indian American writer who was the first writer and the first individual from her island of Antigua to achieve this goal. Her genre of work includes novelists, essayist, and a gardener. Her writing style has been described as having dreamlike repetition, emotional truth and autobiographical underpinnings (Tahree, 2013). Oftentimes her work have been criticized for its anger and simplicity and praised for its keen observation of character, wit and lyrical quality. But according to Ms. Kincaid her writing, which are mostly autobiographical, was an act of saving her life by being able to express herself in words. She used her life experiences and placed them on paper as a way to make sense of her past. Her experience of growing up in a strict single-parent West-Indian home was the motivation for many of her writings. The knowledge we garnered at an early age influenced the choice we make throughout our life and this is no more evident than in the writings of Jamaica Kincaid.
“Sonny’s Blues” revolves around the narrator as he learns who his drug-hooked, piano-playing baby brother, Sonny, really is. The author, James Baldwin, paints views on racism, misery and art and suffering in this story. His written canvas portrays a dark and continual scene pertaining to each topic. As the story unfolds, similarities in each generation can be observed. The two African American brothers share a life similar to that of their father and his brother. The father’s brother had a thirst for music, and they both travelled the treacherous road of night clubs, drinking and partying before his brother was hit and killed by a car full of white boys. Plagued, the father carried this pain of the loss of his brother and bitterness towards the whites to his grave. “Till the day he died he weren’t sure but that every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother.”(346) Watching the same problems transcend onto the narrator’s baby brother, Sonny, the reader feels his despair when he tries to relate the same scenarios his father had, to his brother. “All that hatred down there”, he said “all that hatred and misery and love. It’s a wonder it doesn’t blow the avenue apart.”(355) He’s trying to relate to his brother that even though some try to cover their misery with doing what others deem as “right,” others just cover it with a different mask. “But nobody just takes it.” Sonny cried, “That’s what I’m telling you! Everybody tries not to. You’re just hung up on the way some people try—it’s not your way!”(355) The narrator had dealt with his own miseries of knowing his father’s plight, his Brother Sonny’s imprisonment and the loss of his own child. Sonny tried to give an understanding of what music was for him throughout thei...
population is oppressed and must ignore or postpone their dreams. The more dreams are postponed
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid presents the hypothetical story of a tourist visiting Antigua, the author’s hometown. Kincaid places the reader in the shoes of the tourist, and tells the tourist what he/she would see through his/her travels on the island. She paints a picturesque scene of the tourist’s view of Antigua, but stains the image with details of issues that most tourists overlook: the bad roads, the origin of the so-called native food, the inefficiency of the plumbing systems in resorts, and the glitches in the health care system. Kincaid was an established writer for The New Yorker when she wrote this book, and it can be safely assumed that majority of her readers had, at some point in their lives, been tourists. I have been a tourist so many times before and yet, I had never stopped to consider what happens behind the surface of the countries I visit until I read this essay. Kincaid aims to provoke her readers; her style of writing supports her goal and sets both her and her essay apart. To the reader, it sounds like Kincaid is attacking the beautiful island, pin-pointing the very things that we, as tourists, wish to ignore. No tourist wants to think about faeces from the several tourists in the hotel swimming alongside them in the oceans, nor do they want to think about having accidents and having to deal with the hospital. It seems so natural that a tourist would not consider these, and that is exactly what Kincaid has a problem with.