Colum Mccann's Transatlantic

In Colum McCann, TransAtlantic, the crossings of the Atlantic loosely connects the stories in the first half of the book. The first crossing occurred when Jack Alcock and Teddy Brown, two war veteran, embarks on a mission to accomplish the first non-stop airplane flight across the Atlantic to Ireland, in 1919. In 1845, we meet the great Frederick Douglass who completes the second crossing by boat. His journey too ended in Ireland. Finishing the first part of the book is the third crossing of Senator George Mitchell who took various trips across the Atlantic to Ireland, in 1998. McCann give life to these stories by use of fictional scenes and imagery. He beautifully captures the essence of those times as he retells the history of these men.

Douglass

…Lifted the barbells one after another---first from the floor and then high in the air---until sweat dripped down onto the wood. He positioned himself to watch himself in the oval looking glass. He would not become soft. It was exhaustion he wanted---It helped him write. He needed each of his words to appreciate the weight they bore. He felt like he was lifting them and then letting them drop to the end of his fingers, dragging his muscle to work, craving his mind open with idea. (pg. 51)

It is these fused slavery chains that help him articulate the sorrows and the strengths found within his speech and writings that he almost always delivered with intense passion. Douglass uses these barbells to unleash emotions in him that only the pain of slavery could. He then would take these feelings and pour it into his writings “He wanted them to know what it meant to be branded: for another man’s initials to be burned into your skin: to be yoked about the neck; to wear an iron bit at the mouth…” (pg. 51) McCann accounts of Douglass’s driving motivation behind his writings are another way in which he gives this old historical life. He uses the flattery of words to evoke emotions in his readers. These vivid expressions are what grasps his audience and draws them into the very scene that is being

During his tours within the streets of Ireland Douglass witnesses hunger and a pain of a different kind. He wanted to reach out to the people on the streets as much as he could but he is always pulled away in a hurry. While lecturing in the south Douglass encounters the most disturbing results of the famine. He saw “…moving rags. The rags seemed more animate than the bodies within…children marooned by hunger…men stared balefully into the distance…” (pg. 71) McCann again appeals to his reader sanctioning them to feel the pain of those he so intensely describes. Douglass empathy drives him to inquires about the injustices of the Irish people and he is quickly reminded of his place when “Webb took him outside out onto the verandah by the elbow and said: But Frederick, you cannot bite the hand that feeds” (pg. 70). In this moment Douglass realized that he had allowed himself to be swept away forgetting he was a guest there Ireland. He chooses to continue his lecturing about equality for the men and women of America and decides he must remain silent on the issues he witnesses in Ireland. He can fight only one battle at a time, attempting to take on the burden of another country troubles is far too much for one