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The Underground Railroad Literary Analysis

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Literature is often credited with the ability to enhance one’s understanding of history by providing a view of a former conflict. In doing so, the reader is able to gain both an emotional and logistical understanding of a historically significant event. Additionally, literature provides context that can help the reader develop a deeper understanding of the political climate of a time period. Within the text of The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead’s, the use of literary elements such as imagery, metaphor, and paradox amplifies the reader’s understanding of early 19th century slavery and its role in the South of the United States of America. Throughout the novel, Whitehead utilizes a girl named Cora to navigate the political and personal consequences of escaping slavery, the Underground Railroad, and her transition from the title of fugitive to freed. Cora’s ability to convey descriptions of events both tragic and hope-filled such as the dehumanization of slaves or the truth of freedom, while utilizing literary elements, create an emotional understanding of the 1800’s of the United States. From this, derives a bond with the reader that pushes their understanding of the evil nature of slavery that society …show more content…

As many events occur throughout the novel, the reader is able to understand a first-hand understanding of a historical period of time, while also gaining the emotions and logistics of consequential personal experiences. Therefore, from these experiences the reader may achieve a greater understanding of history itself which would not have been possible without the rhetorical devices found inside literature and the truth of Cora’s struggles which were analogous to other slaves of the time, may never have received the general comprehension that it

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Throughout the narrative, the author includes his personal stories about experiencing the violence of slavery first-hand. For example, on page 20, he writes about the first time he witnessed a slave, his own aunt, getting the whip. “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest…I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition… It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery…” The author including his experience of his aunts whipping, in detail, appeals to the emotions of the reader.

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Reading the book, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead depict the life of Cora as she travels on the underground railroad. On her travels the trains make certain stops or should I say certain states like South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, etc. These states represent or symbolize the problems slaves had to face while trying to pursue freedom on the Underground Railroad. These problems can range from being whipped to death, or the master having unconsent sex with the male slave’s wife. Reading these chapters in this novel helped shaped on how slaves told about their life problems in a narrative way

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While learning to read and write ultimately helped him escape, it caused him suffering beforehand. More thorough understanding of slavery made him angrier with his masters, less satisfied with complacency, and more anguished at his position. What he read was liberating and crushing simultaneously, and he detailed this ironic duality in describing his anguished emotions at the time. The writings themselves also prompted discussion of the irony in hypocritically oppressive slave owners who claim to be Americans for freedom and Christians for equality but force the opposites on slaves. Describing his stressful emotions, which happened to be situationally ironic, creates an effective emotional appeal to sympathy similar to the childhood chapters.

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In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs, writing under the pseudonym Linda Brent, writes autobiographically of the painful and tragic struggles faced by her and her family as slaves in the South during the 19th century. As Brent depicts the various obstacles and struggles she endured in her journey to freedom she shows how “slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women” by giving insight to the sexual abuse female slaves were subject to and the aftermath of this sexual abuse. In the following review of Brent’s work, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, I will include a summary of the book’s contents along with an analysis of its major argument and purpose to give understanding to the atrocities face by

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Journal Entry #1: I, Alice Smith, help with the Underground Railroad. I am a free slave who paid her way to freedom. I work to help slaves, who want a better life. The Underground Railroad (UGRR) is a route of houses or places that help slaves runaway to the North. This is our reform movement, besides this, there are Women’s Rights Movements, Prison Reforms, and Education Reforms.

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By making use of these literary devices, Douglass conveys to readers who have not experienced slavery the thoughts and feelings that Douglass had in his story. When Douglass first arrives in New

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Education opens a gateway to Douglass and enlightens him of what is beyond the walls of enslavement urging him towards independence. Slaves being intellectually informed of their surrounds terrified slaveholders due to them being aware of their loss of control over slaves because they are no longer ignorant. Although Douglass was appreciative that some slaves were able to escape through the famous Underground Railroad, he was critically unsure about sending the uneducated slaves off to a place unknown to them as they “do nothing towards enlightening the slave” (71). He views it as doing much “towards enlightening the master” (71). The Underground Railroad created the slaveholder’s fear of their slaves escaping since they were aware of their actions.

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Inspired by a line in a Richard Wright poem about his own personal migration North, Isabel Wilkerson’s 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winning nonfiction novel, The Warmth of Other Suns, focuses on three individual experiences as well as other accounts from 1915 to 1970 - the period known as the “Great Migration.” Taking place over the course of three different decades, Ida Mae Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Pershing Foster never encountered each other during their journeys. Each came from different parts of the Jim Crow South and individually journeyed to three different areas of the Northern United States. The Great Migration was the expedition of almost six million Southern blacks entering the “promised land” of Northern urban life. Although

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An American Slave,” Douglass discusses the horrors of being enslaved and a fugitive slave. Through Douglass’s use of figurative language, diction and repetition he emphasizes the cruelty he experiences thus allowing readers to under-stand his feelings of happiness, fear and isolation upon escaping slavery. Figurative language allocates emotions such as excitement, dread and seclusion. As a slave you have no rights, identity or home. Escaping slavery is the only hope of establishing a sense of self and humanity.

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Through his story, Douglass proves that slavery has negative effects on slaveholders. He uses imagery, flashbacks, and characterization to persuade the reader of the true nature of slavery. His deep thoughts and insights of slavery and the unbalanced power between a slaveholder and his slave are unprompted for a social establishment. Douglass insists that slaveholding fills the soul with sadness and bitter anguish. In addressing effects of slavery on masters cause one man to rethink his moral character and better understand the laws of humanity.

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Underground Railroad is a historical fiction novel written by Colson Whitehead that tells the story of two characters, Cora and Ridgeway, and their experiences during the era of slavery in the United States. The characters of Cora and Ridgeway are vastly different, yet they are both impacted by the same institution of slavery. This essay will compare and contrast the characters of Cora and Ridgeway based on their personality, motivation, and values. Personality Cora is depicted as a strong, independent, and intelligent character who is determined to escape slavery.

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Literature is often credited with the ability to enhance one’s understanding of history by providing a view of a former conflict. In doing so, the reader is able to gain both an emotional and logistical understanding of a historically significant event. Additionally, literature provides context that can help the reader develop a deeper understanding of the political climate of a time period. Within the text of The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead’s, the use of literary elements such as imagery, metaphor, and paradox amplifies the reader’s understanding of early 19th century slavery and its role in the South of the United States of America. Throughout the novel, Whitehead utilizes a girl named Cora to navigate the political and personal consequences of escaping slavery, the Underground Railroad, and her transition

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Dehumanization of both slaves and slave owners must occur for slavery to exist. Slavery harms everyone involved, including the slaveholders who superficially seem to profit from the arrangement. Douglass’s narrative acknowledges the damage inflicted on both sides of the institution of slavery, emphasizing that a human being’s personality and disposition form per the laws and socially acceptable practices exhibited within the society. Douglass has an excellent example how he seen with his own eyes how his mistress became demonized when she became an owner of a slave. Douglass became Mrs. Auld's first salve owner and at the begging when they first met “she [was] of the kindest heart and finest feelings” (38).

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The Underground Railroad. A metaphor as it was, it was neither a railroad nor was it even underground. In the time where slavery became a divided issue with the status of legality in various parts of the country, the underground railroad found its beginnings through collective organized efforts from abolitionists and allies alike to help enslaved African americans to escape to territories and states where they could be free from slavery. It was a loosely-developed system that also included series of routes led by “conductors” such as Harriet Tubman, for escaping slaves, or “passengers”.

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