Similes In Sojourner Truth's Speech

African-American Literature Assignment

During the1800’s and most of the 1900’s African-American people were in a period where they were looked down upon and lived through a rough period of slavery. Many families had been sold into slavery by an american man on a farm or they became slaves to be able to provide for their families. Men and women would work non-stop without complaint or their would be disciplinary actions. Mother’s would see their kids who were just born sold as a slave so that a man could make more money. During this time a woman, Sojourner Truth was under wrath of slavery and was of being treated less just because she was a woman. In 1851, Sojourner Truth wrote a speech to the public about her rights as a woman and how the

In Truth’s speech she uses a simile as an example to show the hardships, she says “If i could work as much and eat as much as a man when I could get it - and bear the lash as well!” The simile her emphasizes her point that slaves, men or women, would be treated the same way. They would both bear the same punishment and were looked at the same standards for how much work they do. In Clifton’s poem she mainly uses repetition. In the poem she says “ tell me your dishonored names. here lies here lies here lies here lies hear.” this adds to the clear idea that the slaves weren’t treated well and they weren’t honored for what they did. It’s effectiveness shows because this is where it all stays the second half of the untold story lies right there. Both writings possess similar points towards their main

Clifton chose to do a poem as the main part of slavery had past come 1989 so most of the story had been revealed by history. In many aspects a speech is much more powerful for getting a point across compared to a poem. With a speech the observer is able to see the speech live and follow along and feel the emotions with the author compared to reading a poem after it has been made. In Clifton’s poem she captures her point of revealing another side of the story that was untold and she did open eyes about slavery. She isn’t able to capture as much as Truth does and it isn’t effective since Truth’s topic is much more grand compared to her’s she talks about a mother and her child and she uses devices to further appeal to that. Truth is able to expose the inequality that was in that times society between men and women and how they were treated. While Clifton’s mainly appeals to exposing social injustice towards slaves and the work they did while receiving no credit for it