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Comparing Phillis Wheatley And Maria W. Stewart

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Beginning in the pre-Revolutionary War period, African American writers have engaged in a visionary, yet petulant, dialogue with American letters. The result became African American literature that is prosperous; thereby developing a social insight to their personal experiences and history. Although men are predominantly recognized in history for being well educated and powerful, women have played a great part in shaping America to what it is today. Phillis Wheatley, and Maria W. Stewart, were true Christian African American women that have portrayed historical events though literature. Wheatley and Stewart hold similar ideals for African Americans, however, their personalities are profoundly different. To illustrate, if there was a color …show more content…

In her poem, she capitalizes the words Savior, Christians, and Cain, because her objective is to reach out to true Christians. By using bible text she displays an intelligent and well cultured voice, which she earns respect from her audience – in this case everyone. This short, but powerful poem about slavery amazed people, because it was considered unbelievable that a slave girl could write. Phillis Wheatley is all about change. She changed her country, her name, her religion, and her whole life. That’s a lot of change that most people would never fully execute. Wheatley’s powerful, and relevant poem is able to be understood not only by experience, which made it suitable for all, black, white, men, women, to comprehend. Although assumptions are part of human nature, once people have truly learned something new, it expands our understanding of the world. Thus, being close minded was truly a dishonor to oneself and to God. With this in mind, both writers who were true Christian didn’t appreciate when people would consider themselves Christians, however, they supported slavery. They couldn’t grasp the ideology of slavery, if those slave owners were real Christians. Being a real Christian meant that he or she respected the Bible and followed God’s moral guidance. By having this moral guidance, it gave blacks empowerment to have their voices heard without criticism, for they “may be refin’d and join th’ angelic train” (On Being | Wheatley). Wheatley appeared to be docile towards her audience, while Stewart was

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Harriet Jacobs and Sojourner Truth are women who face adversity categorized in an invisible sub-group, making it difficult for black women to compete in the world. This sub-group is known as intersectionality. Black women struggle with the perception being inferior placing them at the bottom of the social class. Jacobs and Truth, however, share their experiences to other men and women allowing them to be aware of this invisible group. They willingly chose to speak out against this discrimination.

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Early life I’m going to tell you about the early life of phillis Wheatley and how she became the one she is Today. In the summer of 1761 a ship named the phillis arrived in boson. A small and fragile girl No more than eight years old stood shivering at the dock. Sickness and fear consumed her Trembling body which she attempted to cover with an old piece of carpet.

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Douglass tells us this by saying that he believes anyone who is a slave owner cannot be a Christian. In his view, he believes being a slave owner violates the very principles of being a Christian. Auld quote he believes that the Christianity practiced by the Slave owners and the Christianity practiced by non-slave owners are two

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Pratikshya Thapa Prof. Alex Kurian English 2328-73001 12 April 2017 Winnemucca, Hurston and Tan The American Literature consists of artists from various cultural and social background who devoted their life in literary works. There are number of female authors who are known for their magnificent writings. Sarah Winnemucca, Zora Neale Hurston and Amy Tan are some of the famous female American authors. They belong to different racial and cultural backgrounds but share a common ground when it comes to expressing their life experience and opinions through their literary art works.

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In Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” and her essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” the African American social group is being represented in many ways. The texts have similar ways that African Americans are represented for the time period. The African Americans or “colored people” are represented in an aspect that comes from the author's point of view. The African Americans are represented as being unbothered, growing up in a closed community, playing the game with whites, and optimistic.

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During the time when Douglass wrote this book, there were several myths which were used to justify slavery. The slaveholder during his time justified this inhuman practice using different arguments. The first argument they used was the religion. From the narrative, Douglass says that slaveholders called themselves Christians which was the dominant religion by then.

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Aren’t they the children of god as others? Aren’t they sharing the same blood of human being? So, why should they be a slave, why not a respectful human? In fact, Douglass employs the rhetorical appeals of logos and pathos mostly and sometimes ethos also effectively. Even if Douglass incorporated mostly persuasive logical claims through the use of true facts of reality matched with emotional situation, his audience may find him aggressive because of his heated and distressful word choice.

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“ I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, woman-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” (Douglass 100) Douglass does this to show how hypocritical people in the South were being. Churches were teaching the Christian practice of being kind and compassionate while not actually practicing it themselves. Douglass argues that the actions of some people are against religion.

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Throughout his narrative, Douglass’s descriptions of the white slaveholders expose the Christian hypocrisy found in the American slave system. Douglass first does so by exposing how the lesson taught by Christians to help those in need is contradicted by the experiences Douglass has especially with hunger. Douglass reflects on these experiences when he states that for the “first time during a space of more than seven years” feeling the effects of the “painful gnawing’s of hunger…” (54). This event shows the Christians’ lessons of selflessness and kindness is hypocritical as they treat their fellow humans as subhuman. The Christians at the time rely on scripture to make a case for slavery in America.

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If thou doesn’t love thy neighbor as thyself, thou was unchristian like. Fervent sermons transferred meaningful ideas of equality to everyday citizens. Reverend Miller presented this sermon at the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Methodist denomination was one of the most outspoken anti-slavery sects. The Methodist gained the most membership during the Second Great Awakening, in fact one in five Americans belonged to the Methodist Church (Keillor 1).

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For example, Sarah Grimke, a middle-class white woman abolitionist, wrote, “A similar condition of moral pollution and utter disregard of a pure and virtuous reputation…That such a state of society should exist in a Christian nation…” In Grimke’s work, one can note her outrage at the clashing ideals of Christian Slave holders, and noted on the moral effects of the two conflicting beliefs. Northern abolitionists aimed to gain more sympathy by reminding their readers of Christian beliefs and how they clash with the practice of slavery. William Lloyd Garrison even made a remark in his newspaper article asking for a pardon from God for the sin and inequality happening in the country. Many Americans were of Christian faith and by aligning slavery as a sin and a dishonor to God, abolitionist were able to gain more support and outrage for the Northern Abolitionist

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It regards slaves as not human beings. Even the good Christian people don’t treat them equally they view “blacks as the epitome of incivility, thus justifying their mistreatment” (Michael Taylor). In a romantic story everyone is treated as equals but in Huckleberry Finn black people aren’t even allowed to vote in a majority of the states but in the states they are allowed to vote people got angry and said, “I’ll never vote again” (Twain 33). The white people don’t want the black people to have any rights. People won’t do anything nice for slaves because they feel like they don’t deserve it.

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Douglass has shown how religious slaveholders are the worst especially when entertainment comes into play. The first being from one of his slaveholders Master Thomas, he whipped a young woman while reading a quote from the scripture to explain his reason for whipping her. The next example was with his other Master Mr.Covey, he would go to church and preach the word but come back beating slaves and going against the almighty God. The last example that is shown is again shown with Mr.Covey, he was guilty of compelling his woman slave to commit the sin of adultery. All of the examples illustrate that religious slaveholders are worst than non-religious slaveholders.

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Religion and its relationship to slavery is a contradictive subject, whether it was forced upon slaves or was a form of hope and freedom is still commonly debated about to this day. However, these individuals were devoted Christians in the abolitionist movement who all

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