Journal #7

Using vivid imagery, Francis Harper makes the reader feel a great sense of compassion in her poem "The Slave Mother".  This poem describes a mother and her child as an unknown person separates them from each other.  This was a very common act during the times of slavery and while anyone would be saddened to hear of such a cruel act, Harper takes it a step further by making you feel as though you’re seeing this happen with your own eyes.  By making the reader feel like they’re there allows her to stir something deep within them, something that makes the reader hate what they’re reading about and hate the person doing this.  This ability to bring out such strong emotions from her reader made Harper a very good writer for the antislavery cause.

            Examples of these strong images are found all through out the poem, from beginning to end.  In the first stanza it says, “Heard you the shriek? [. . .] as if a burden’d heart Was breaking in despair.”  This first line immediately grabs your attention and makes you wonder what could be happening that is hurting this person so much.  The first half of the poem carries on in this same way, using very vivid language such as “The shuddering of that fragile form [. . .]” or “As if a storm of agony Were sweeping through the brain.” which makes the reader question why these two people are in such a state of fear. 

            When it’s finally revealed that someone is trying to separate a mother and her child the reader has no choice but want to help these poor people and stop the monster doing this to them.  With her use of imagery Harper gets you on the side of the slaves, bringing to the surface the want to stop senseless acts like this and bring an end to slavery. 

Blog Post #6

               Today in America everyone is seen as an equal.  We all have the same rights, and no matter where you’re from, what your job is or how much money you make you’re treated fairly.  Unfortunately America wasn’t always like this, and in “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, Linda is the perfect example of how someone from a different social class can be treated so unjustly.

                Slaves in this time weren’t seen as equals to white men, and it was very evident in the way they were treated.  Poor housing, horrible working conditions and the lack of any basic human rights were just a few of the hardships that a person from the lowest social class, the social class of a slave, had to endure.  It was these types of circumstances that pushed Linda to the extreme of running away from her master even faced with death if she was caught.  But realistically Linda had no choice.  Without even the ability to buy her own freedom Linda was left with only one way out.

                Had Linda been born into any other social class at that time her life would have been completely different.  She could marry who she wanted, live where she wanted, work doing what she wanted and make the choices that a free person gets to make.  Unfortunately this was not the case, and just the simple fact that she was born into a class that made her “less” than a white person caused her to go through a life of immense suffering and hardship. 

Blog Post #4

“The Tenth of January” by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps is a very touching, tragic story that brought up many emotions and reactions that I haven’t felt from a piece of literature in a long time.  While all the parts of the story were great, reading about the actions of Richard Cross are what really kept my interested.

                Dick is introduced in the story as a hard working young man who just came from his father’s farm to the city in search of work and a place to stay.  It puzzled me why a young man like Dick would immediately become so closely bound to Asenath when nobody else wanted her, but in the story when it said “[. . .] he for the first time saw what she was [. . .] his blue eyes widened [. . .] a pity like a mother’s had crept into them [. . .]”, it became painfully clear that Dick only stayed with Asenath out of a since of obligation.  This observation is further solidified when Asenath see’s Dick with Del Ivory on the river bank where it is obvious that there’s something going on between them.  I figured Dick stayed with Asenath so as not to hurt her by leaving her for Del, and while this isn’t a very good base for a relationship, Dick knew how much he meant to Asenath and all she did was give him love in return, so that was at least something.  For the time being, I thought Dick was a respectable guy.

                Through al her ups and downs Dick stuck by Asenath and it seemed as though he was a genuinely good person.  But all that changed with the collapse of the mill.  When Dick pulls Del from the rubble, he completely forget about the girl still stuck in the burning debris, the girl that was able to get out of bed every morning because she had him in her life.  When Dick ran Del to the hospital and left Asenath “tombed alive” in the furnace, I had never been so infuriated with a character in a story.  To just leaver her there like that was awful and unforgivable.

                Phelps was able to take a character I was rooting for the whole story and make me despise him in just one paragraph.  And while this did anger me, it really highlights the skill of Phelps writing and makes “The Tenth of January” a story I won’t soon forget.