Ah, Woe Is Me
A) Summary of The Story: In the beginning of this short story we are introduced to Sarah, an aging black servant living in South Africa. She works hard for an upper-class white family and spends all of her money on education for her three children who are sent to a boarding school. They come home once a year at
Christmas, and the first time the narrator meets the children, she is surprised at their well-mannered behaviour. She finds, however, that Sarah is a bit harsh towards them, and she comments on this. Sarah tells her that it is better to learn the lesson now and grow to accept one's fate later. In the course of the following year, Sarah must give up her job because of her legs, and one day her daughter comes to the house. Slowly she tells her story to the narrator. How the younger brother is working now, and how she is taking care of Sarah. The narrator offers her some clothes and some money and invites her inside for a cup of tea. When she is about to leave, she starts crying and can only mutter that her mother is very ill. Unsure of what to do, the narrator hands her a handkerchief. B) An Essay About the Text: The setting in this story is South Africa in the
1950's. Apartheid and segregation are words that describe the conditions under which the blacks (the native Africans) live perfectly. The blacks nearly have no rights and must accept being oppressed by the whites. Sarah is only one of many poor blacks who only just manages to earn a living by working as a servant for a rich white family (the narrator). Slavery does not exist anymore, but it can be difficult to distuingish the life of a slave from that of a native African in the 50's except from the fact that they do after all get paid for their work.
Sarah is very concerned about her children getting a good education. She probably wants them to have a better life than she has had so far, and while that is a very noble thought, the facts speak against it. Her children do not at this time have a very good (if any) chance of getting a good solid education because it is very expensive, and their mother does not make that much money.
Even if she did make enough money, her legs are bad, and at the end of the story, she has to give up her job (and thus take her children out of the boarding
One of the major questions asked about the slave trade is ‘how could so Europeans enslave so many millions of Africans?” Many documents exist and show historians what the slave trade was like. We use these stories to piece together what it must have been to be a slave or a slaver. John Barbot told the story of the slave trade from the perspective of a slaver in his “A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea.” Barbot describes the life of African slaves before they entered the slave trade.
The first aspects we can analyze is the level of difference between the slavery of Africa compared to the European form of slavery. As these sources illustrate traditional African slavery was quite different on several levels compared to the European form of slavery many are familiar with. Slavery in Africa as stated before can be more closely associated with indentured servitude where the slaves were often treated as a member of the family rather than treated with brutality. According to the multiple sources discussed earlier, a prominent aspect of European slavery in Africa was to the harsh treatment and dehumanizing of its slave it order to keep them subordinate to their European captures. Historians might beg the question why was European slavery different than traditional African
Slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries consisted of brutal and completely unjust treatment of African-Americans. Africans were pulled from their families and forced to work for cruel masters under horrendous conditions, oceans away from their homes. While it cannot be denied that slavery everywhere was horrible, the conditions varied greatly and some slaves lived a much more tolerable life than others. Examples of these life styles are vividly depicted in the personal narratives of Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince. The diversity of slave treatment and conditions was dependent on many different factors that affected a slave’s future. Mary Prince and Olaudah Equiano both faced similar challenges, but their conditions and life styles
"Unit 2: Reading & Writing About Short Fiction." ENGL200: Composition and Literature. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. 49-219. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
As victim count continues to rise, its difficult to see how such great numbers of men, women and children are bought and sold every year. Trafficking can be found in many forms, including: prostitution, slavery, or forced labor (Harf and Lombardi, 2014). It wasn’t until the 1980’s that international human trafficking became globally noticed. With the lack of government intervention and control in several nations, and the free trade market, slavery once again became a profitable industry (Harf and Lombardi, 2014). As previously mentioned, easier movement across nations borders is one of the outcomes of globalization. It is also what makes human trafficking so easy today. It is estimated that about 20.9 million people are victims across the entire globe (United Nations Publications, 2012); trafficking accounts for 32 billion dollars in generated profit globally (Brewer, n.d). 58 percent of all human trafficking was for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and of this 55-60 percent are women (United Nations Publications,
In The First Day, exposition has been applied in various sections. For instance, the story explains that the little girl is taken to the first school preferred by her mother where they are rejected, forcing them to look for another school. This device is used to give a deeper explanation about how determined the mother is taking her daughter to school and how much she wants her daughter to have a better life. This provides the audience with the reasons as to why the mother had to look for another school (Edward, 1950). Exposition is also expressed where the mother collects all documents that she thinks were required even though she could not read. This also indicates that the mother wants to ensure that nothing will prevent her daughter’s
At Mrs. Graham’s, the owner of the second pool, she reaches out to him and welcomes him with a drink. ...
In it's simplest form, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, (or CBT as it will be referred to from here on out), refers to the approach of changing dysfunctional behaviors and thoughts to realistic and healthy ones. CBT encompasses several types of therapy focusing on the impact of an individual's thinking as it relates to expressed behaviors. Such models include rational emotive therapy (RET), rational emotive behavioral therapy (REBT), behavior therapy (BT), Rational Behavior Therapy (RBT), Schema Focused Therapy, Cognitive therapy (CT). Most recently a few other variations have been linked to CBT such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectic behavioral therapy (DBT), and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) (Harrington and Pickles, 2009). The main aspect that all of these branches of therapy share, is that our thoughts relate to our external behaviors. External events and individuals do not cause the negative thoughts or feelings, but, instead the perception of events and situations is the root cause (National Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapists, 2010).
Northup, Solomon, Sue L. Eakin, and Joseph Logsdon. Twelve years a slave. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Print.
“Would you like me to take your cup for you?” the landlady kindly offered her hand outstretched for the teacup Billy had been fiddling about with, “It has a quite fancy design and I would hate for it to be stained”
Human trafficking is the third most profitable and fastest growing criminal activity in the world, after guns and ammunition and drugs. Roughly 2.5 million people are trafficked every year, they are recruited through some form of coercion or deception and exploited, mainly for forced labor or sexual exploitation. The market value of human trafficking is approximately $32 billion per year. (Polaris Project.) “This is a global problem, no country is spared.” (Slavery Today). About three out of every 1,000 persons worldwide are trafficked at any given point in time. Women and children are the primary targets, but men are also trafficked. Forced labor claims 20.9 million victims, of whom 90% are exploited in the private economy (Slavery Today).
Antolini during the middle of the night, Mr. Antolini invites him over, and upon his arrival Mrs. Antolini is up from bed after an evening of entertaining and is making coffee and cakes for Mr. Antolini and
Macteer’s household, Mrs. Macteer offers Pecola a glass of milk to drink. When she receives the cup of milk it is in a
c. Traditional writing is too historical. Instead of looking at writing of the past for