...“Shick, shick” my landowner’s hoe turning up the soil as my bronze arms burned under the blazing sun. Working on as a sharecropper was no better than being a slave after a few years of harvest the landowners have you so far in debt you have to give them 100% of the crop, little to no pay and then you are a slave. I hadn’t let that happen to my wife, daughter, and I, not yet. Everyday I was up at six and didn’t return home until nine except for supper. The sun slowly had begun to set and I had slowly begun to finish my work. My daughter’s head bobbed up and down as she picked crop and placed it in her wicker basket, my wife could barely be seen in the rows of wheat, the scythe in her hand moved swiftly, like me she worked like a bull trying to get our family up north. It was hard enough living in Virginia in 1926, with the Jim Crow laws, but the constant fear of being lynched by the Ku Klux Klan, was unbearable. After the sun had set we began our return to our three room, unheated cabin. “We gon’ be able to pay da’ whole we owe to da’ landowner dis’ season.” My wife noted as we walked back. “Mm Huh,” I replied, “we may even have ‘nough ta make a profit.” “It be heaven if we da have ‘nough to buy Ella a present fo’ her birthday o’ Christmas.” “Yeah,” I said ending the conversation. Delicious scents wafted through our house from the rusty old pots my wife had been roasting food in, since early this afternoon when we had returned to eat lunch. We all propped our tools in one of the...
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...I lived in a time when my people weren’t even considered people. In that time, some of my people acted more civilized than the people who dared to say we weren’t functioning members of society like our lighter skinned, blue eyed counterparts. This time in which I was born in stemmed from a kind of so-called “physical” slavery from the white man to the blacks. I remember I never understood the concept of the physical slavery back in the 1800s as a child. My parents used to talk about those kinds of things a lot, sometimes too much, when I was younger. And of course, it called for questions. “Momma, can’t they just leave the plantation? You said they wasn’t chained up or anything, so why can’t they just run away? That’s what I would’ve done,”...
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...William Faulkner was a great short story writer whose literature has withstood the test of time. “A Rose for Emily” is one of his better know pieces that can be interpreted in many different ways. The theme one connects with after reading the story depends on the reader’s view of the writer and the writing itself. Many people look at the story as a love story in which a woman is unable to let go of her lover and only wants to preserve him like a rose. Letting go was difficult for the women and holding on was easier. She did what she had to do to preserve her love for her lover even if it was against the town’s laws. The time period in which this short story was written is also important when critically analyzing the writing and the writer’s purpose and theme. During the time that Faulkner wrote this story, he was greatly in debt and seeking ways to become financially stable. He wrote this story not knowing that it would be his first published work and bring him wealth and recognition. It was first published in 1930 but covers the time periods of 1861-1933. This was a very critical time in American history. During this time period, the South was fighting for their livelihood, slavery against the North. They were trying so desperate to hold on to what had held their southern cotton economy together. They felt that the federal government had no power over the states especially their slavery supported economy. They did everything to hold on to their culture but eventually war was...
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...The Whipping Boy Slavery has always been a debated subject especially in the United States. Slavery began in the United States when some African slaves where brought to the North American in 1619. There has been slavery throughout the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1861 a political and military war between the Northern and Southern states began because they had different views of the human rights and the southern states still used blacks as slaves in some areas. This war was called the Civil War. The short story “The Whipping Boy” is about the three slaves Martha, Mikey, and, Tommy, who have lived as slaves during the Civil War. It’s a short story about slavery, freedom and their revenge on Sterling Gage who has tortured the three slaves throughout their lives. The short story is published in 2011 and is written by the author Richard Gibney. The short story shows how harsh and brutal it was to be a slave and how they fight to achieve freedom. It also shows how revengeful the slaves were because they were treated very badly throughout their lives. The short story takes place in the United States in the end of the American Civil War. “It was the day after the boy from the Union had come to the farm to let the slaves know they were freemen” (Page 1 lines 1-2). This is the first quotation in the short story and it already tells us that it takes place in America in the Southern states. The key word “the Union” says that the story takes place in the Southern...
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...With Slavery Comes Hope The slavery stories portrayed in the short stories of Amnesty International delivered a newfound empathy for the people that have gone through these horrors. Article four is essential when discussing the Universal Decleration of Human Rights due to the overwhelming amount of slavery that has taken place around the world already. Although these are written, and encouraged to never be taken lightly, they still happen around the world today. Slavery will always be prevalent around the world in some way or another. In the short stories, a life of hope mixed with terror is a constant part of these people’s daily lives. Katya is one of the women portrayed in the short story under article four. In this story she is held a slave to the underground sex trafficking world. She was promised a waitressing job in the Balkans but instead was put to use in ways she never thought would happen to her. After Katya realized she wasn’t going to be a waitress she tried to leave, “So she decided she wanted to run back to mummy” (pg. 37 Lewycka). The owner wasn’t about to let her go after having spent good money on her. The owner of the whorehouse had Branko, the owners nephew beat her and eventually fractured some of her ribs and broke her foot. The owner seemed fine with this mistreatment of Katya but could not condone the other more horrendous treatment of her. “The bruises in her mouth and cigarette burns on her cunt I can’t condone” (pg. 38 Lewycka) The owner continually...
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...Analytical essay – “Saving Mr Ugwu” In historical context, Africa has always been a great market for slavery, and especially western countries like France and Great Britain have exploited that in the past through their colonization of the continent. Although it might be popular thinking that slavery organized by western countries has been abolished many decades ago, it is not necessarily true. Modern slavery in Africa has just had a slight change in character since then. This short story deals with the white man’s continuous oppression and exploitation of black people and their labour force. Furthermore the text thematizes deeply rooted historical conflicts between whites and different black ethnicities within Nigeria. The short story”Saving Mr Ugwu” is written by the Scottish author Lin Anderson. The story takes place in Nigeria, a former British colony, and mostly focuses around Mr. Ugwu and his family who was forced to move from Lagos to the Nigerian Bush because of his job. Mr. Ugwu is an Ibo and is born in the former capital of Nigeria, Lagos. Ugwu works for a big western sugarcane company, and manages the pay checks of the workers who harvest the sugarcanes. These workers mostly belong to another ethnic group, the Hausa. The text gives us the impression that some sort of hierarchy exist amongst the different Nigerian ethnicities and the few white men who live in the bush. “Mr Ugwu thinks once again, how lazy and dirty these Hausa people are”(S2, L59) This hierarchy...
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...In between, in the short story of “Sweat” written the Phenomenal Zora Neale Hurston there was a silence character named “Bertha”. Hurston depicted Bertha as the other women to Delia’s troublesome relationship with her husband Sikes. Even though Bertha is a silence character throughout the short story. She holds an important key role in the novel. Particularly, in the story the love triangle relationship can be tie in with slavery. When our African men had more one women as their mistress. And it still exist to today to where we have cheating men. Furthermore, Sikes had so much authority over the towns people, that the author states that “Sykes reminding Bertha that this was his town and she could have it if she wanted it”. (1036) Also Hurston...
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...The Whipping Boy By Richard Gibney In the late 1800 a violent and comprehensive civil war began in the United States of America after Abraham Lincoln supported banning slavery. The war was a conflict between the Union in the North and the Confederacy in the South, Non-slavery against slavery. One of the most significant events in the history of the United States. The North was fighting to end slavery and protect the Union. Richard Gibney addresses the controversial subject slavery in his short story ”The Whipping Boy” that takes place in the end of the American Civil War where slavery was abolished. ”The Whipping Boy” starts in medias res in a slave plantation in the southern part of America around the late 1800 (1864-1865). The reader is introduced to three slaves: Martha, Mikey and Tommy. They work and live at a plantation owned by their masters: Old Mrs. Gage, who is very sick and cries bitter tears over her husband’s death and the young First Lieutenant in the Confederate army, Sterling Gage, who has been in battle at the front for a year. The plot takes off when the three slaves are informed that slavery has been abolished: ”It was the day after the boy from the Union had come to the farm to let the slaves know they were freemen”. The action rises as the slaves are declared freemen and decide to travel to the north and get jobs. ”Then they could all go North, Mikey, his new wife and his brother, all working for wages in the city.” They had stopped working in the...
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...Kamal Namou Comp. Lit. 121 Response Paper The short story of A Dark Brown Dog by Stephen Crane has meaning even before the story begins, its creative title brings to mind a dark brown dog who represents a man just being freed from the chains of slavery. The author, Shane Crane, uses his own experiences of owning a dog as a young boy and how the dog reacted to that. This makes symbolism the main literary element used throughout this story. Being written in 1890 the story is a response to the reconstruction era in the Untied States shortly after the time period of slavery was abolished known as Jim Crow. This was a time here in the United States after the civil war when slaves had been emancipated, and equality was supposedly underway. Unfortunately as we all know that was not the case, many blacks were still subjected to slavery in different ways across the country. In the story the dark brown dog takes on the role of a former slave, the symbolism then begins with a rope tied around the poor dog. It shows how yes the slave may now be “free”, but what can he do with that freedom when he has nowhere to live so the dog is forced to walk the long lonely path hoping someone will come and save him. When the dog is explained to be stumbling and awkwardly moving it resembles that of a being not knowing what to make of its newfound freedom without guidance. Then a little boy is introduced showing the new generation of southerners in the United States. When the two meet they...
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...Douglass was written by Frederick Douglass. It explains both slavery for slaves and slave owners. Douglass tells the story of his most important and inspirational moments and he tries to explain one of the most lethal and sad years of our country's times. He was the odd one out of all the slaves, he had hope. He believed that freedom for slaves was possible and he would do anything in his power to make it come true. One of Douglass first steps to freedom was to learn how to read and write and Mrs. Auld had covered that for him until she had been blinded by the power of controlling people, slaves. Douglass has gone through many adventures and has seen what it means to be free and not to be free. He has...
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...The short story of A Dark Brown Dog begins even before the first word is read on the page. Its ingenious and creative title brings to mind an image of what the story will be focused on, a dark brown dog who represents a man who has recently be freed from the chains of slavery. Stephen Crane writes a comprehensive description of this little dog and its experience of being taken in by a little boy. The amount of symbolism used throughout this essay is staggering, and is the main literary element used in this piece of work. Written in 1890, this story represents the period of time that came shortly before. The dog, the boy, and the father all act as important symbols in this classic retelling of the reconstruction period know as Jim Crow. Jim Crow was the period of time in the United States after the Civil War. Slaves had been emancipated, and equality was supposedly underway. Unfortunately that was not the truth of what really went on in the United States. Many blacks were either still kept as slaves, or subjugated into a serf like state. The dark brown dog, which the story derives its title from, enters the story and takes on the role of a former slave. He is seen in the beginning as walking down the road, tripping over the long piece of rope tied around his neck. This piece of rope is symbolic of the former slavery which he just became free of. However, it is impossible to do anything with that freedom because now the dog has nowhere to live; the dog is...
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...could become an art form. With just his mind and his mouth, he made audiences across everywhere laugh at his wild, comedic tall tales. Although meant to be entertaining and certainly tall, these stories were envisioned as a satirical response to the social inequities that he saw in his world. It was strange to see a Southerner talk about the injustices of war, gender, and, most notably, slavery. Some of Twain’s most notable works include Huckleberry Fin and Tom Sayer, but these stories are not the only things he has published. Short stories such as “Excerpts from Adam’s Diary”, “True Story”, etc., made Twain one of the most notable American writers. Within these famous stories also come Twain’s interpretation about the world around him. His writings become his reflections about his world, upon which Twain shares his experiences and his thoughts through fictional stories that sometimes weigh heavy on the heart, or just let us laugh our hearts out, although some stories were nonsensical such as “The story of Grandfather’s Old Ram” to the heart wrenching “True Story.” Twain was not only an author, but a great lecturer. With his “shows”, people from all over would come in and enjoy Twain storytelling/lecturing, all the while either knowing or not knowing Twain’s messages behind his stories. Twain, having been born during the Civil War times, had a lot of experience with war. Though, he did not participate in any battles, Twain still lived in an era, where brother fought brother...
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...views about women in her stories. The relationship between men and women in Kate Chopin's stories imply the attitudes that men and women portray. In many of Chopin's works, the idea that women's actions are driven by the men in the story reveals that men are oppressive and dominant and women are vulnerable, gullable and sensitive. Chopin also shows that females, like Desiree and Eleanor, undergo a transformation from dependent and weak to stronger women free from their husbands by the end of the story. In the short story 'Desiree's Baby,' Kate Chopin reveals her idea of the relationship between men and women by showing instances of inferiority and superiority throughout the story. In 'A Point at Issue,' there are many instances where the idea of hypocrisy and the attitudes that the main characters display and how their actions affect each other's lives, show the impact that men have on w... As I read "Desiree’s Baby" by Kate Chopin, I couldn’t imagine living in an era where my value as a human being was determined by my skin color. I ask myself if I would have been considered an Afro-Cuban and treated like a slave just because my father is a "Quadroon" (1/4 African)? Would my father’s skin color, heritage and ethnicity make me an "Octaroon" (1/8 African) regardless of the fact that my skin is lighter than most Caucasian’s? "Desiree’s Baby" by K. Chopin is set in the early nineteen hundreds, just before the American Civil War. In that era, slavery was legal and people who...
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...Regional Southern Fiction Regional southern fiction writers focused on the dialect, characters, customs, and setting of a specific region when they wrote their stories (Campbell 2010). Dialect and detailed descriptions of the region were integral to the story to make the characters authentic to the region and for readers to understand the region in which the characters lived. The descriptions of the land and the accents of the characters are what separated the south from the north. In Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” and Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the reader learns about the journeys of two old ladies. While these journeys are both life journeys they are different in nature. The protagonist in “A Worn Path’s” story is about a journey of race and the obstacles in life that she has had to overcome and still has to face each day of her life, while the protagonist in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is about a spiritual journey that one must take in order to find favor with God and receive His grace and all of His goodness. Both of these stories transcend time and please because the themes in both of these while different can be seen in the world around us today. Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path” is a journey about race and the obstacles the old lady has to overcome in order to help her grandson whom swallowed lye a few years back and occasionally gets sick so Phoenix Jackson has to travel through the woods into town to get him medicine. The time of year that this particular...
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...An Essay on Richard Gibney’s “The Whipping Boy” Slavery has always been a debated subject among Americans, and numerous artists, authors, directors etc. have through American history given their take on ‘slavery’ before and after the abolishment. However in recent years the subject of slavery has appeared in several books and films (12 Years a Slave, Django etc.), where most of them describe the brutality, in which, Afro Americans lived. “The Whipping Boy”, does as the others describe the historic brutality, but it also takes a different view that gives a curious reason for the oncoming racism, in the period. “The Whipping Boy” as many other stories, told during and after the American civil war, takes place in the Confederate States most likely in the South East, where plantations were abundant. The civil war has just ended as a messenger boy from the Union has told the former slaves of their freedom, alas the year is 1865. Our third person narrator, Martha, does not really believe the messenger, as she believes him “too young and underqualified to confer freedom upon anyone…”, though the two brothers Mikey and Tommy believe in the Union boy’s story, whereas their first act as free men is to kill the dogs of their former slaver/master Sterling Gage. This, at first, seems quite brutal, but we quickly learn that “… the slaves treated the dogs better in death than the dogs had treated the slaves in life.” Which leaves the mind open to imagine different...
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