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The Poison Book Analysis

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We have Douglass and Garnet, both African Americans, as they face in a debate related to a campaign to request money to send Bibles to the slaves of the South. Lincoln wanted to achieve a union between the South and the North, and to achieve its purpose he use the argument that both, people of the South and the North read the same Bible and pray to the same God. The Bible is a set of books that contain the word of God, include rules and doctrines to follow to behave in the best way. Blacks and whites interpret the Bible differently and adjust it to their personal ideals and beliefs. In The Poison Book, Callahan offers us many examples of how blacks and whites interpreted the Bible and how these interpretations were applied at the convenience …show more content…

Although the Bible was the same and both prayed to a God, the interpretation they gave of the teachings and the readings of the Bible were different. The curse of Canaan and his descendants was related to the issue of servility and slavery, the whites used this relationship as a justification that God was in accordance with slavery. As Callahan mentioned in The Poison Book, “Jefferson Davis defended chattel slavery and the foreign slave trade as the “importation of the race of Ham,” fulfillment of Africans’ destiny to be “servants of servants.” They used this text to defend slavery and that blacks had been destined to be slaves. The most important teaching of whites to Christianize blacks was the importance of obedience. The blacks did not believe in what the whites preached. According to Sarah Fitzpatrick, a black slave, she said that on Sunday the whites wanted them to go to church, to Sunday school and to read the Catechism, but on Monday there was no comparison with them, if they did not obey they punished them. She believed that all of Christianity was to try that the blacks thinks that white were good people, when in fact they were not. The blacks do not stay behind, they use the texts of the bible for their own interpretation of the story, for example the Southern African American preacher says that “got so scared that his hair stand straight and his face turn right pale — and sisters and brothers, there am what the first white man come

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The idea behind keeping the slave’s faith in the Lord was that the Lord allows slavery because white people are better than the blacks. Basically, any slave who disobeyed their owner was disobeying the Lord, resulting in an eternity in hell, “To be good children of the Lord, the slaves must beware of Satan who created their cunning wicked master of Hell – for it was Satan who created their desires for freedom and tempted them to run away” (Oates

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854 Words | 4 Pages

Imagine being fourteen years old and living in a small town in Georgia, packing up as much as you can, or what could fit under your clothes and into a bag, and moving to the Congo of Africa. That’s exactly what the Price family did under their father’s will. Throughout Barbara Kingsolver 's Poisonwood Bible, Leah price experiences the Congo to its’ full potential. Both her psychological and moral traits were formed by cultural, physical, and geographical surroundings. The congolese people influence her decisions and thoughts throughout the book.

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555 Words | 3 Pages

Auld’s misinterpretation of the passage emphasizes slave owners use of religion to reinforce their power over their slaves. Christianity rationalized the concept of buying and selling human beings, and that God approved this too. In addition, Douglass used religion as a way to fuel his abolition movement. Under Master Hugh’s, Douglass began to learn how to read and write. Once

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146 Words | 1 Pages

Hammond wanted to control every aspect of the slaves, and they were quick to reject this. According to Faust, “He seemed unable to eradicate black religious expression, evidence of which appeared to him like tips of an iceberg indicating an underlying pattern of independent belief and worship that persisted among his slaves”. When Hammond attempted at replacing black worship, the slaves did not lose their sense of religion. When Hammond tried to compromise the slaves, some slaves resorted to arson and escape as ways to rebel against Hammond, however the escapes were never really successful. Runaways wanted to disrupt routine and rebel against the work system that Hammond had created.

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732 Words | 3 Pages

Christianity was, to the slaves of America, (something with a double meaning). In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Frederick Douglass, the author, argues about how Christianity can mean one thing to a free white man and something completely different to a black slave. The slave owners follow the ‘Christianity of the Land’ while the slaves follow the ‘Christianity of Christ.’ Frederick begins to build his credibility to a, white, northern, audience by including documents from trustworthy writers and by getting into personal experiences through his writing. Throughout the narrative, he is articulate in how he writes, and it shows the reader that he is well educated.

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486 Words | 2 Pages

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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996 Words | 4 Pages

Allen Dwight Callahan’s The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible connects biblical stories and images to the politics, music and, religion, the book shows how important the Bible is to black culture. African Americans first came to know the Bible because of slavery and at that time the religious groups would read it to them instead of teaching them by letting them encounter it for themselves. Later the Bibles stories became the source of spirituals and songs, and after the Civil War motivation for learning to read. Allen Callahan traces the Bible culture that developed during and following enslavement. He identifies the most important biblical images for African Americans, Exile, Exodus, Ethiopia, and Emmanuel and discusses their recurrence and the relationship they have with African Americans and African American culture.

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1157 Words | 5 Pages

Douglass is relentless when attacking the church, he states, “The American Church is Guilty” (Douglass 1039). This has a slightly taste of irony, because here Douglass, a colored man, is calling out the most “sacred” body of people. It almost as if he was the master and they were the slave now. Next, the main theme expressed by

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1080 Words | 5 Pages

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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1657 Words | 7 Pages

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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872 Words | 4 Pages

You take Yong Goodman Brown, a man living in an area and time where it is deeply rooted in their Christian beliefs. Then you have Phillis Wheatley who is an African slave who is writing to privileged white men in Cambridge. Both are planted firmly in their Christian faith and the difference is one of them is a slave, and the other one is a free man with a wife and family. Yet, after reading Young Goodman Brown, it seems that only one of them

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559 Words | 3 Pages

Douglass shows us an example of religious irony when he explains how his county views the murder of any colored person. In chapter four, Douglass states, “that killing a slave or any colored person , in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community,” (Douglass 34) The religious irony is shown here because the South has always been known as the ‘Bible belt’ and yet these actions were accepted, and even

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1049 Words | 5 Pages

It is a common argument for Christian slaveholders to make “…that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right…” (5). this argument exposes their hypocrisy as it conveys how they attempt to stretch small pieces of scripture to justify the violence of the American slavery. Douglass thus asks if it is humane to use a small piece of writing to damn an entire race to hardship and subhuman treatment. This case of blasphemy is amplified by the observation that Douglass makes of one of his slave masters, Mr. Covey, in that “he seemed to think himself equal to deceiving the almighty” (61).

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488 Words | 2 Pages

Africans who were already enslaved saw conversion to Christianity as a road to freedom, and many others who were not already enslaved believed conversion would protect them from becoming

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692 Words | 3 Pages

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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