Go Down, Moses.
The pieces that I read for this essay is from the Vernacular Tradition “Go Down, Moses”. I grew up listening and singing to the song Go down Moses without knowing the deep meaning that was associated with it. I now understand that this poem is very significant to African Americans tradition because it represents the struggles they faced to get freedom when they were captured as slaves. “Go Down, Moses,” a spirituals of the vernacular tradition which also represents the history of slavery of black people in United States. The story of Go down Moses was used to express the undeniable desire for freedom felt by the African Americans slaves. The desire to be free could be heard from the audio as the voice in the song stresses the word “go”.
This reading is about slavery in the bible, when the people of Israel were held in Egypt by pharaoh. In the Old Testament, God chooses Moses to lead his people out of slavery. He sent Moses to Egypt to warn pharaoh to release his people or he will smite his first born dead. In the bible when pharaoh refused to listen, God reacted by killing every first born in Egypt. As a result, pharaoh decided to release his slaves and “Let my people go” as the last line suggested. As we know, black slavery ended when people started fighting back for their freedom. Even though some people died in the process, the fight for freedom was accomplished.
However, after reading the book version and listening to the audios I noticed a significant difference on how the spirits of the word are transmitted through different version, and the tone of the each pieces.
In the book version, the opening lines tell Moses—the leader of the people of Israel who were held captive as slaves by the Egyptian ...
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...n be compared to the hardship felt by the people of Israel in the phrase, “Oppressed so hard they could not stand.”
In contrast, the tone of the poem was very different for both book and audio version. Reading Go Down, Moses from the book was boring, less meaningful and less heartfelt because it just felt like I was reading a newspaper. It was hard to comprehend real meaning and emotion to it. On the other hand, listening to this story on the audio was very heartfelt, and full of emotions. Paul Robeson’s voice was deep and intense in the audio and it sounds like I was hearing the message directly from God. One could easily feel the pain and hurt from Robeson’s voice that he was calling for help. Like mention before, he sounds like he’s weak and in pain from the abuse. Overall, both versions have the same meaning which is the call for freedom for the slaves.
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While reading, I felt a sense of sadness for the caged bird, as its undeniable determination was persistent and valiant. Along with the message of the poem, I also appreciated Angelou’s unique sense of “unstructured verse” and her non-traditional poetic approach. It is clear that the caged bird represents African Americans and the free bird represents the white population, however, the poem is well written which sends this implied message of African-American suppression in a poetic, yet clear,
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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.
This wonderful piece displays the time period in which slavery was taken place , reconstruction, baptism , going to church , and brushes up on the idea of how African American humans developed from the time when they were being devalued and treated like "nothing more than animals." Revelations is a very popular piece, reason being that the choreography is so magnificent at telling it 's story it comes off as an inspiration for the viewers. At the start of this piece it was originally ten sections, but later on sections was constantly removed as the work progressed over time. Revelations are now divided into three sections "Pilgrim of Sorrow," "Take Me to the Water" and "Move,Members,Move" which are all unique in their own
...ng message. They manage to leave ideas and experiences of the real world to help us connect. Bob Dylan manages to express Emmet’s inferiority in his ballad because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Both To Kill A Mockingbird and A Raisin In The Sun demonstrate lack of power and control over one’s own life through the form of racial inequality. Tom was accused of a crime he didn't commit just because a whites voice is more powerful .Mama was endeavoring to get her family out of the rathole and the laws simply suppressed her. That’s why there have been so many civil movement for equality.
Langston Hughes, a renowned poet from the early 1900s, has written numerous poems that have various themes and meanings. Although a lot of his poetry has to do with the struggles of African Americans during the time of slavery or during the early 1900s, Langston Hughes’ themes differ from poem to poem. One theme that appears in multiple poems of his is the theme of race, Langston Hughes uses the theme of race in his poems as a way to challenge the racial barriers that are placed on society. The theme of race is discussed in a plethora of his poems and it is important to examine a few of these poems which include, “I too, sing America”, “Theme for English b”, and “Let America be America Again”, to point out that Hughes tries to implement the sense of hope into African Americans of the time, also he uses race as a way to provide a focus on the oppression of slaves.
The theme throughout the two poems "A Black Man Talks of Reaping" and "From the Dark Tower" is the idea that African American live in an unjust
In conclusion, this poem shows the progression of desegregation throughout the south. When the poem is placed in context to the time in which it was written, it is easy to identify the injustices of African Americans. The most notable observation is when the beach is marked “colored” (Trethewey). Analyzing this poem via historical criticism allows the reader to fully understand the injustice and also experience the growth of society towards desegregation.
...map of proper behavior for the new society that has been liberated from slavery. Within the context of history, the myth offers future generations a glimpse of a new religions beginnings. As the new code of laws is set into place, a new and more powerful god emerges – a god of great strength, a god that supersedes all other gods, one god above all others.
The founding fathers constructed the Constitution with the notion that “all men were created equal.” However, many minorities still struggle for the same rights and opportunities as others. “Mother to Son” and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” are poems written by Langston Hughes that use symbolism to exemplify the struggles of African Americans as they attempt to persevere through adversity. Hughes utilizes the stairs in “Mother to Son” and the rivers in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” as his main modes of symbolism.
Exodus is the second of the five “books of Moses” that tells the story of the Exodus of Israelites from Egypt through the Sinai Desert. When Moses was born, the Israelites were oppressed by the Egyptian Pharaoh and bound to a harsh life of labor taking part in building some of the great public works of Egypt such as the pyramids, fortresses, and installations to regulate the flow of the Nile River. For fear that the Israelite population would continue to increase, the Pharaoh insisted that every male Hebrew child would be killed at birth. Ironically, during this oppressive period, Moses, the “future deliverer of Israel”, was born. To protect his life, his mother sent him down the Nile in a specially woven ark. He was found by the Pharaoh’s daughter who took him in and, to add to the irony, she hired his mother to be his foster nurse. The baby boy grew up and was adopted into the Pharaoh’s household and named Moses. His name is derived from the Egyptian root “mose” meaning “son”, but in the Bible, it is said to hale from the Hebrew root meaning “drawn out of the water.”
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