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A Short Analytic Review of A Child's Grave, Hale County, Alabama A Child's Grave, Hale County, Alabama is a very solemn and morbid short poem by the American poem writer Jim Simmerman. The short poem is just a single stanza without any rhyming words, about 7 sentences long. This poem depicts a poor man living in Alabama who steals a plank of wood in order to bury his child. He leaves his hut and his wife and steps out into the cold December air and begins to drive the plank of wood into the ground where his child resides. At the time of the burial of this Alabamian's son, the year is 1936 in the season of December.
Frederick Douglass & Harriet Jacobs Slavery has been noted as one of the biggest social issues in America. From the beginning of time, race has been seen as a barrier for some people despite their various attempts at equality none seem to yield any positive results. Frederick Douglas and Harriet Jacobs both have tried to be seen as equal to others but come up short due to the oppression of their skin color. But as a result of their power to not conform to being enslaved and treated like objects due to dehumanization is what leads them on their journey to becoming one of the few free slaves. “My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute.”
Later on in his life he was separated from his family and was sent to Baltimore, Maryland to be a slave for Hugh Auld and his family. The Aulds were not as cruel as his past owners because Mrs Auld was a Northerner and Northern slave owners were more kind and not as tough on slaves as Southerners were. It was here Douglass was able to acquire an education, learning basic reading and writing skills, until Hugh Auld found out and made her stop (“Frederick Douglass Biography”). Slave owners kept their slaves uneducated because they saw an education as an alleyway for a slave to begin freely thinking and eventually escape. Frederick did just that, borrowing identification papers from an African American sailor and escaping to New
Frederick Douglass was a slave from Maryland who, through luck and intelligence, was able to escape slavery at 20 years old. In his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, he describes how it felt being a slave throughout his childhood and adolescence, as well as the traumatizing conditions on plantations. Douglass also discusses how he learned to read and write, which causes him to consider his position in slavery and helps to inspire his escape. Nevertheless, once he arrives in New York, Douglass’s hope quickly fades as he is faced with the reality of his situation; he is all alone in a place where he could easily be caught and returned to slavery, making the efforts of his escape in vain. In the excerpt from his autobiography,
Frederick Douglass was a slave for a total of 20 years until he escaped to the North on September 3, 1838. Douglass was in the care of his grandparents and then his grandmother abandoned him, leaving Douglass at Colonel Lloyd’s plantation. There, Douglass worked every day at the plantation and in the city of Baltimore, alternating every few months. While at Lloyd’s plantation, Douglass wore a sackcloth shirt, slept on the floor, and ate cornmeal every day. Douglass was put in the care of “Aunt Katy.”
During a time of civil unrest caused by racial tensions throughout the country preceding the Civil War, men who were born into captivity and slavery but rose above their background to become a prominent member in their community calling for social reform sometimes wrote what is referred to as a slave narrative. Each author wrote their autobiography for their own reasons, such as proving to the public that they were once a common slave or simply telling their story. Nonetheless, whether intentional or not, these authors often successfully advocated a case against slavery through employing rhetoric to convince both the white and colored audiences that change was needed. Two prominent authors of such slave narratives, Frederick Douglass and Olaudah
“I have observed this in my experience of slavery, – that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom.” Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, this autobiography was published in 1845. Frederick a prominent abolitionist figure was the first black “public intellectual.” At a time where many slaves were illiterate and prohibited to learn how to read and write, Douglass, despite being forbidden to do so by his master (Hugh Auld), managed to learn to read and write. His narrative has very astounding vocabulary which impressed many people.
In the 1800s, for a slave to know how to read and write was not only unheard of, but illegal. Frederick Douglass was born a slave in rural Talbot County, Maryland. For about seven years, he received reading lessons from his mistress Hugh, but that all changed as soon as she commenced her duties as a slaveholder. The once kind hearted woman was changed into a woman to be feared. She stopped teaching Douglass how to read and would monitor his whereabouts in her home to ensure that he was not reading anything.
How would you feel if someone could control what you were thinking? In “The Feed” written by M.T Anderson, everyone living in the community had a feed in their brain that was controlled by one large organization. Violet, the main character, suffers through a malfunction in her feed that changes the way she sees her society. Most people’s opinions can be changed when they have experienced the benefits and the disadvantages of something. Since Violet is aware of how life is with and without the feed, she becomes hesitant to believing that her community is being run efficiently.
“Depot Blues,” sung by Son House, is a song unrelated to working or prison experiences. It is, however, a love song that has entertainment purposes. In Alan Lomax’s recording, House describes an experience at a train station. He desperately wants his old significant other, whether his ex-girlfriend or ex-wife, who he lost to return to him. In the 4th verse, House states that if he were strong enough, “[he] would set this train off the track” (from c.d. liner notes).
Frederick Douglass was one of the best black writers during this time. He taught himself to read and write while he was still a slave on the plantation. People did not believe he was a slave because he spoke so well. He wrote a whole auto biography proving he was a slave. Frederick proved that even though you grow in hard time does not mean you just give up you can make a difference that is why he is an and inspiration to us all.
Poems can be analyzed in various ways ranging from their complexity to the emotions they convey to readers. The poems, “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes and “The Harlem Dancer” by Claude McKay will be analyzed based on their similarities and differences to name a few. The poems may describe different events; however the overall connection between the two can be identified by readers with deeper reading. Comparisons between the poems may easier to analyze and identify compared to the contrasts based on the reader’s perception. Overall, the concept and much more will reveal how the poems are connected and special in their own way.
“A Song in the Front Yard” by Gwendolyn Brooks is a narrative poem. This poem is written from the perspective of an innocent, naïve child. The poem tells several stories, the surface story and the hidden metaphor. Therefore, the narrator is that of a child, the surface story is of a young girl who has lived a sheltered, picturesque life. The young girl lives life in the “front yard”, but she wishes to live in the “back”.
In a similar way, pursuing illegal immigrants is like targeting minorities, it attracts far less attention than killing Caucasians. Immigrants are often reluctant to come forward and report of suspicious behavior, and there are even times when no one notices the victim’s disappearance. This makes easy prey for the killer. If the killer goes through the trouble of hunting those crossing the border in the darkness, he can abduct them, take his time, and then dump the body in the desert in a secluded area.
The poem fully develops the idea of the limited of privileges that some might have according to the their races and the racial division. The “borderlands” is the division of a place, but in the eyes of Gloria she makes the character grow up in a place where there is a racial division. The character is in the middle of how of her race is important as her cultural ways get in the way of trying to practice each one of them. The poet writes in both english and spanish to explain how she speaks to the different races she carries. As you read the poem you can feel how the tone changes as the author is speaking of the different events that she goes through in her life.