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Maya Angelou compared to Langston Hughes
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Three Women Writers: A Study in Virtue and Christianity of the 18th and 19th centuries
The popularity of Toni Morrison's Beloved has recently awakened a mainstream interest in African-American literature. Writers, such as Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes, have also facilitated the infiltration of African American voices into popular culture. This website is devoted to three women who, like Morrison and Angelou, have aided in the formation and development of the African American literary tradition, but often remain unremembered in today's society.
Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Jacobs, and Harriet Wilson have all made valuable contributions in the forms of poetry, narrative, and fiction to the early stages of a growing literary tradition. Although these women portrayed different viewpoints, utilized different writing styles, and wrote within different contexts many comparisons can be made amongst their work. Specifically this site focuses on the common themes of virtue and Christianity represented in the authors' work and in their lives.
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Phillis Wheatley
Wheatley was born in Africa in the early 1750's and was brought to Boston in 1761 as a slave. The Wheatley family, who was a prominent family in the Boston community, purchased her. The Wheatley's encouraged and taught her, and within sixteen months Phillis was reading and writing fluent English. At the age of fourteen she was writing poetry and hailed as a prodigy of her race. In 1773, Wheatley's first and only published volume, entitled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was released. After the death of Mr. and Mrs. Wheatley, Phillis was left to support herself as a poet and sea...
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...n she is free. But, in Our Nig, Frado is treated like a slave and feels confined by the Bellmonts, yet she is a free person. In this way, Wilson seems to complicate and combine these binaries.
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Bibliography
Bennett, Jr. Lerone. Before the Mayflower: A history of Black America. New York: Penguin, 1988.
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York: Penguin, 1987.
Shields, John, ed. The Collected works of Phillis Wheatley. New York: Oxford, 1988.
Wilson, Harriet E. Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black. New York: Vintage, 1983.
Voices from the Gaps: Harriet E. Adams Wilson http://www.~engl.cla.umn.edu/Lkd/vfg/Authors/HarrietE.AdamsWilson
Voices from the Gaps: Phillis Wheatley http://www.~engl.cla.umn.edu/Lkd/vgf/Authors/PhillisWheatley
Readers unfamiliar with Phillis Wheatley may wonder of her background and who she was in particular to be able to gain rights to be mentioned in early American literature. Wheatley was born in 1753 and was captured by Africans, and sold to an American family known as the Wheatley’s. She quickly became a member of the Wheatley family, living in the home, and being tutored on reading and writing.
Wheatley was born in West Africa around 1750, and was captured when she was 7. John Wheatley purchased Phillis for his wife, Susanna; together they taught Phillis how to read and write, and as early as 12, Phillis was writing poetry and her first poem had been published. Wheatley’s poems implicitly advocated for racial equality, while condemning slavery. Her work received some negative feedback from political figureheads, such as Thomas Jefferson. White America classified a human as having the ability to read, write, and reason; therefore, leaving no room for the uneducated Africans, seeing Africans as nonhuman. Jefferson claimed Wheatley’s work was not literature because the moment he admitted Wheatley’s work was indeed literature, he would have had to admit she was a human being. The way Phillis Wheatley handled the adversity she faced is admirable. Wheatley definitely impacted American history, and “owes her place in history to advocates of inequality” (Young 1999
Gates, Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. Print.
Women have faced oppression in the literary community throughout history. Whether they are seen as hysterical or unreliable, women writers seem to be faulted no matter the topics of their literature. However, Anne Bradstreet and Margaret Fuller faced their critics head-on. Whether it was Bradstreet questioning her religion or Fuller discussing gender fluidity, these two women did not water down their opinions to please others. Through their writings, Bradstreet and Fuller made great strides for not just women writers, but all women.
This paper examines the drastic differences in literary themes and styles of Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston, two African--American writers from the early 1900's. The portrayals of African-American women by each author are contrasted based on specific examples from their two most prominent novels, Native Son by Wright, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston. With the intent to explain this divergence, the autobiographies of both authors (Black Boy and Dust Tracks on a Road) are also analyzed. Particular examples from the lives of each author are cited to demonstrate the contrasting lifestyles and experiences that created these disparities, drawing parallels between the authors’ lives and creative endeavors. It becomes apparent that Wright's traumatic experiences involving females and Hurston's identity as a strong, independent and successful Black artist contributed significantly to the ways in which they chose to depict African-American women and what goals they adhered to in reaching and touching a specific audience with the messages contained in their writing.
The African-American Years: Chronologies of American History and Experience. Ed. Gabriel Burns Stepto. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons, 2003.
Egerton, Douglas R. Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
She has written many famous poems, including “On Being Brought from Africa to America” and “To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth.” Phillis was sold into slavery at the age of seven and brought to North America from Africa. She did not know how to speak English at that time. She was purchased by the Wheatley family. They taught her how to read and write as she displayed great talent and brilliance. Just like Booker T. Washington she was unable to understand the conditions black people have to face when they are enslaved. In the poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America” Phillis narrated her story. She is saying that it was great luck that she was brought here. The Wheatley family did her a huge favor by bringing her here. Africa is her pagan land. She says that coming to America introduced her to Christianity. Christianity is the religion which taught her reality, peace, salvation and moral values. This religion gave her an opportunity to explore and understand herself, and get out of her sinful state. Christianity saved her life which she was unaware of. All the dilemmas that she is facing in America are nothing compared to if she had remained unsaved in Africa. This shows her favoritism towards slavery, she would rather want to remain a slave then being in
James, Johson Weldon. Comp. Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 832. Print.
Locke, Alain. ?The New Negro.? Black Nationalism in America. John H. Bracey Jr. New York/Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company Inc, 1970. 334-347.
Toni Morrison. The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Eds. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith, and Trudier Harris. New York: Oxford UP, 1997.
The career-ready mathematical process standard number two states that students will be able to reason both contextually and abstractly. Process standard 2(a) asks students to make sense of quantities and their relationships in mathematical and real-world situations. The quantity discussed in this video is the amount of marshmallows needed for the students to all have enough to roast on their class camping trip. The problem itself is a real world situation that will have consequences for the student’s themselves. If the estimate a low number of marshmallow bags to bring on the trip some of them will still be hungry, if the number they estimate is too high then they will most likely have to many left over to eat. Standard 2(d) states that the student will be able to evaluate the success of an approach to solving a problem and refine it if necessary. When the children split up into groups to manipulate the marshmallow in their bags some student’s had remainders. When they discovered that everyone could not have and the equal amount they devised several solutions. One group of student’s suggested that anyone who wanted more than four marshmallows to get the remained, another group asked that the remaining marshmallows be cut in half and divided between everyone else in the group. The third mathematical process standard asks that students use critical thinking skills to justify mathematical reasoning and critiques the reasoning of others. Standard 3(a) states that students will construct and justify a solution to a problem. Toward the end of the video the children elected a spokesperson to present their answer and the children debated the amount of marshmallow bags they would need for their camping
In “On Being Brought From Africa To America” Phillis Wheatley speaks directly from her experience of coming to America, and how she became very religious on her arrival, so she uses her religious beliefs to explain how lucky she was to be in America and how she made a lot of achievements. Phillis Wheatley was a young black female poet, who started discovering her love for writing when she came to America, although it was illegal to educate black people she found a way to teach herself to read and write, even though a lot of people of her race were told that they weren’t good enough to deserve to be Christians and also to enjoy the advantage of being a citizen in America, Wheatley overcame these immense obstacles and she was so grateful for the chance to be a part of the Christian word and also to hear the word of Christianity, she was also very happy that she was brought to America where she has the opportunity to read and write. “Phillis” wasn’t her real name but her master named her that because the slave ship she boarded to come to America was named Phillis.
The "Autobiography". Abrams 1601 - 1604. Mulock, Dinah. Maria. A Woman's Thoughts About Women.
Rudd, R. (2007). Defining critical thinking. Techniques: Connecting Education & Careers, 82(7) 46-49. Retrieved December 9, 2007, from EBSCOhost database.