Flight in Song of Solomon, Native Son, A Worn Path, Sad Sweet Story of Sugar Lips Shinehot, and Portable Promised, and Land First Eagle Story
Since the beginning of time all human beings have had a fascination with human flight. Watching a bird soar through the air, one cannot help but desire the same capabilities. Imagine the point of view of the bird that flies high above the trees, among the mountains, over the ocean, and high in the air, far away from the clamor of everyday life on the ground. To have the freedom and power to release ones self from the tribulations experienced with two feet on the ground, and spring up and away into the peaceful, blue sky is a common human desire. Since ancient times, flight has represented the opportunity to free ones self from the chains of oppression. For example, in the Bible, Moses delivered the enslaved Israelites from Egypt and the Lord instructed Moses to tell them, "You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself" (Exodus 19:4). Not only does flight represent freedom from oppression, but it has also served as a source of strength: "But those who wait on the Lord/ Shall renew their strength; / They shall mount up with/ wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31).
Throughout history, Americans have grown up admiring and desiring the many mythical figures with the ability to fly without even having wings. Superman, with super human powers, had the ability to circumvent the globe and save innocent people from harm with his ability to fly. Santa and his reindeer could not possibly distribute toys to children all over the world without the ability to fly. Peter Pan, the eternal child, lived his life consumed in the childish pursuits an...
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When first introduced to Douglass and his story, we find him to be a young slave boy filled with information about those around him. Not only does he speak from the view point of an observer, but he speaks of many typical stereotypes in the slave life. At this point in his life, Frederick is inexperienced and knows nothing of the pleasures of things such as reading, writing, or even the rights everyone should be entitled to. Douglass knowing hardly anything of his family, their whereabouts, or his background, seems to be equivalent to the many other slaves at the time. As a child Frederick Douglass sees the injustices around him and observes them, yet as the story continues we begin to see a change.
John Hollander’s poem, “By the Sound,” emulates the description Strand and Boland set forth to classify a villanelle poem. Besides following the strict structural guidelines of the villanelle, the content of “By the Sound” also follows the villanelle standard. Strand and Boland explain, “…the form refuses to tell a story. It circles around and around, refusing to go forward in any kind of linear development” (8). When “By the Sound” is examined in regards to a story, the poem’s linear development does not get beyond the setting. …” The poem starts: “Dawn rolled up slowly what the night unwound” (Hollander 1). The reader learns the time of the poem’s story is dawn. The last line of the first stanza provides place: “That was when I was living by the sound” (3). It establishes time and place in the first stanza, but like the circular motion of a villanelle, each stanza never moves beyond morning time at the sound but only conveys a little more about “dawn.” The first stanza comments on the sound of dawn with “…gulls shrieked violently…” (2). The second stanza explains the ref...
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Go Down Moses by William Faulkner is an artful collection of short stories that connect in a biblical fashion to create a coherent novel. Within each story Faulkner beautifully illustrates the tensions arising from man’s struggle to overcome the curse of Adam, and how that biblical narrative plays out in the South. A complex family tree plagued by sin and encompassing two “races” with a heavily mixed bloodline slowly unfolds from chapter to chapter. In nearly every story, the black characters are juxtaposed against their white counterparts, neither race can be understood without the presence of their opposite. Faulkner uses this set up to repeatedly contrast the black slave community’s humanity and capacity to love, against the white community’s refusal to treat them as more than heartless pieces of property. Rider, Eunice, and Molly Beachem are all outstanding pictures of the true humanity and compassion of the black community. While the Sheriff, Old McCauslin, Roth Edmonds, and Ike demonstrate the white man’s inability to see these qualities in blacks, and the sin that results from this blindness.
In sum, all of these key arguments exist in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” because of the institution of slavery and its resulting lack of freedom that was used to defend it. This text’s arguments could all be gathered together under the common element of inequality and how it affected the practical, social, and even spiritual lives of the slaves.
...ional. In addition, some of the money will be needed to hire a home inspector before the house is put on the market. The cost of this service varies but it can be paid for with the money from the emergency fund if the home inspector has to make multiple trips to iron out problem areas within the house.
...ed when I first met her at the door, -- a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings."(28) Douglass even admits that it is rare to find a slave holder who is completely bad. "Bad as all slaveholders are, we seldom meet one destitute of every element of character commanding respect."(39)
In Song of Solomon, a novel by Toni Morrison, flight is used as a literal and metaphorical symbol of escape. Each individual character that chooses to fly in the novel is “flying” away from a hardship or a seemingly impossible situation. However, by choosing to escape, one is also deliberately choosing to abandon family and community members. The first reference to this idea is found in the novel’s epigraph: “The fathers may soar/ And the children may know their names,” which introduces the idea that while flight can be an escape, it can also be harmful to those left behind. However, while the male characters who achieve flight do so by abandoning their female partners and family, the female characters master flight without abandoning those they love. Throughout the novel, human flight is accepted as a natural occurrence, while those who doubt human flight, such as Milkman, are viewed as abnormal and are isolated from the community. It is only when Milkman begins to believe in flight as a natural occurrence that he is welcomed back into the community and sheds his feelings of isolation.
Within the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave” Douglass discusses the deplorable conditions in which he and his fellow slaves suffered from. While on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, slaves were given a “monthly allowance of eight pounds of pork and one bushel of corn” (Douglass 224). Their annual clothing rations weren’t any better; considering the type of field work they did, what little clothing they were given quickly deteriorated. The lack of food and clothing matched the terrible living conditions. After working on the field all day, with very little rest the night before, they must sleep on the hard uncomfortably cramped floor with only a single blanket as protection from the cold. Coupled with the overseer’s irresponsible and abusive use of power, it is astonishing how three to four hundred slaves did not rebel. Slave-owners recognized that in able to restrict and control slaves more than physical violence was needed. Therefore in able to mold slaves into the submissive and subservient property they desired, slave-owners manipulated them by twisting religion, instilling fear, breaking familial ties, making them dependent, providing them with an incorrect view of freedom, as well as refusing them education.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the physical burdens of slavery that he faced on a daily basis, it was the psychological effects that caused him the greatest amount of detriment during his twenty-year enslavement. In the same regard, Douglass is able to profess that it was not only the slaves who incurred the damaging effects of slavery, but also the slaveholders. Slavery, in essence, is a destructive force that collectively corrupts the minds of slaveholders and weakens slaves’ intellects.
Welty, Eudora. “A Worn Path.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. 4th Compact Ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2008, pp. 95-100.