...carried America through the civil war, and freed the slaves. But were these slaves freed? What happened in the areas where the President did not show up? This short story ‘’The whipping Boy’’ (2011) by Richard Gibney is an interpretation of what might have happened, when slaves were told that they now were free. The story, about Tommy’s, Martha’s and Mikey’s escape from slavery, takes place during the Civil war. It is important to know that the story takes place during this time period because a lot happens, involving the ownership of slaves. The confederate states and the Union are in disagreement about whether or not the Louisiana Purchase should be used for slavery. In the text is says that ‘(…) the boy from the Union had come to the farm to let the slaves know they were freemen. ‘’ (l. 1-2) This correlates with Abraham Lincoln passing the presidential order the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 declaring that slaves in Confederate-controlled areas are to be freed. It presumably takes place in the most northerly confederate state Virginia since Tommy, Mikey and Martha are killed halfway to Richmond, the capital of Virginia. Since the slaves where children they have been working for Mrs. Gage and her son Sterling on a farm. While Sterling had been away on the front, the slaves were told, by a boy from the Union, that they were free men. After a month the slaves are still working for Mrs. Gage, but when Sterling comes home, Mikey and Tommy whips and beats him, only Martha...
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...Eassay – The Whipping Boy The Civil War is the central event in America's historical consciousness. While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the United States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 determined what kind of nation it would be. The war resolved two fundamental questions left unresolved by the revolution: whether the United States was to be a dissolvable confederation of sovereign states or an indivisible nation with a sovereign national government; and whether this nation, born of a declaration that all men were created with an equal right to liberty, would continue to exist as the largest slaveholding country in the world. The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the Deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The American writer Richard Gibney later used this as a theme in his novel “The Whipping Boy”, where he gives us a portrait of the differences between what the written law said and what actually happened. In the short story, foreshadowing is one of the things you will read. P. 1, l. 6: “In destroying the beasts as they slept, the slaves treated the dogs better in death than the dogs had treated the slaves in...
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...“The Whipping Boy” – analytical essay. Before 1860 slavery was considered “normal”. You would have one or several slaves, who would have to do as you please. These slaves were people of colour, and their owners were not. You could treat your slaves as you pleased, since the human rights did not include slaves. In “The Whipping Boy” we follow three slaves who served the Gage family. They lived in the south where slavery was not inhumane, like some thought in the north. On January 1st 1863 Abraham Lincoln issued the order Emancipation Proclamation. It proclaimed that all slaves were free. This is where “The Whipping Boy” begins, with freedom, but we will soon learn that an executive order, issued by the president is not enough to free all slaves just yet. The historical setting in “the Whipping Boy” is in the era of the Civil War. The Civil War was between 1861-1865. It was a fight between the Union and the Confederacy. Seven slave states declared their secession from the United States. They wanted to hold on to the slavery and therefore wished to be independent from the Union. After four years of combat the Confederacy collapsed and slavery was put to an end. In the beginning of “the Whipping boy”, we get presented to three slaves, Tommy, Mikey and Martha. The three slaves belonged to the Gage family that consisted of Sterling Gage, a First Lieutenant who was sent away to the front fighting for the Confederates, and his mother Mrs Gage who deteriorated in her bedchamber day...
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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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...The Whipping Boy By Richard Gibney During the American Civil War, big parts of the Afro-American population in the States were held as slaves. It was a dark time in American history, as the white people suppressed the black part of the population. The hatred from the Afro-American was massive in the middle of the 18th century, and we can even draw lines op to the present, where that hatred is still seen in the streets all over America. In the short story The Whipping Boy by Richard Gibney, we have three slaves, who are given their freedom. From one day to another, they’re suddenly free. They don’t know what to do with it, except from repaying what they’ve been put through for many years. Revenge and hate are rough subjects, but at the time, it’s understandable that the three slaves act the way they do. Mikey dreams big about the future with Martha, whereas Martha is showing signs of her being reticent. “When Mikey and Martha lay alone, he offered to smother the old woman in her sleep. Then they could all go north, Mikey, his new wife and his brother, all working for wages in the city. Martha baulked at the suggestion and raised her eyes to Heaven. She looked at him in disbelief.” (Page 2, line 44) One of our main characters is Mikey. He is in love with his girl Martha, another main character, but they don’t share the same view on the future. When the three slaves are granted their freedom, the first thing on Mikey and his friend Tommy’s mind, is revenge. But when it...
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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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...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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...From abuse to carelessness, poems “The Whipping” by Robert Hayden and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke both convey a sense of violence from the parent towards the son. Both poems implicate a potential abusive past of the abusers, similarly, which can be the cause of their acts of violence. The physical abusive, however, is not shown to be uncommon but to be very frequent. Although the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” persuades a precious father-son moment, its literal focus is predominantly on the father’s drunken aggression towards the boy. The speaker’s experience in these two poems are each described in different ways, but both with the suspicion of undeserving punishment of abuse. “The Whipping” and “My Papa’s Waltz” show immense differences...
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...During the second semester of college, the class has read poems with dynamic and exceptional themes. As the students ventured off into the different type of authors and poems. One author by the name of Robert E. Hayden caught a student’s attention with his heart-rending and thought-provoking words. Three of Hayden's have a similarity in theme. The first poem is called “The Whipping” and the second poem is named” Those Winter Sundays” and lastly, the third poem is named “Runagate Runagate”. Theses three poems all have the common theme of abuse. To begin with, originally his named used to be Asa Bundy Sheffey. Robert Hayden was born in the year 1913 on August 4 in Detroit Michigan. He was abandoned by his parents and raised by foster parents....
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...Emmett Till was a 14 year old colored boy from Chicago, IL. He lived there with his mother who grew up in Mississippi, a very segregated state. His father was not around much because he was in the service, but he left his mother a ring that had his initials engraved into it. One of Emmett's family members who still lived in Mississippi wanted Emmett to come stay with him for a little bit. Emmett's mother was nervous because she knew of the segregated ways of the south, nothing like Chicago. She warned him of what happens down there and he felt she was over exaggerating so he didn't pay too much attention. After Emmett took the train to Mississippi with his fathers ring his mother gave him before he left he stayed at a house with many other boys of his age from his family and was watched over by their uncle. They would all pick cotton for the first half of the day and then go swimming the second half. On a Wednesday after working in the cotton fields Emmett and the other boys went to a convenient store close by called Bryant's, owned by whites. The boys got their refreshments and exited the store. The owner, Roy Bryant's wife was standing outside of the store as they left and Emmett decided to turn around and whistle at the white woman. The other boys told him it was a very bad idea to do that. They were all scared for what might happen. Days went by of the normal routine and nothing happened so they stopped their worrying, but four days later after the incident on Sunday night...
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...Commentary on an excerpt from The Jade Peony In the excerpt from ‘The Jade Peony,’ Wayson Choy conveys the feelings and emotions of a little boy who has just lost his mother. Feelings of shock and awareness are created by the lack of detail present. The author uses the activity around the boy to exemplify and focus on the silence in the boy’s head. Choy uses tone, imagery and the narrative first person to convey the context and feelings of the narrative voice. A sense of distance and detachment from surrounding is established in the first paragraph with the sound of ‘footsteps’ and ‘voices.’ Nevertheless loud auditory imagery such as ‘a chair fell,’ ‘the curtains whipping,’ and ‘snapping’ illustrates the sense of an echo in the boy’s head. It conveys that everything affects him more, and that his senses are more vulnerable. This, therefore establishing that he has gone through some sort of trauma. The actions in first paragraph like ‘kept calling, rush, whip, shuddered and hesitated for a second’ are extremely quick. This is contrasting to the slow movements like ‘pull and clung’ in the second paragraph therefore illustrating the way time felt slower to the boy and the way the world spun around him. The shock he feels, is therefore highlighted. The quick movements in the first paragraph could also portray the urgency of the situation. ‘Rigid arms’ and ‘mommy’s head move’ are the first time that the reader is given some clue about the mother’s death. The rigid...
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...theatre is very important part of our culture. Without entertainment, whether it is individual or with a group humans could not stay occupied. Throughout time stories have been pasted down from generation to generation-through words, books and theater. Theatre continues to thrive and has become an important subject in schools now. People are allowed to express their creative and critical thinking to really allow the viewers to get involved. The purpose of theater is to develop performance art through any distinctively cultural foundations. Theatre is able to enrich our social and cultural views through art and performance. Actors provide a stage that they can really test the limits of their own creativity by ongoing dialogue of ideas. The “whipping man” is to show the relationship between a master and slave. We are shown that after losing everything you never know what you will have left. Caleb is part of a white family that bought slaves and treated them like family. Caleb leaves and returns only to find out that the two people who are left after war are two slaves his family owned. Simon and John are now forced to take care of Caleb because that is all they know to do. Simon is the main caretaker and demands respect from Caleb when he returns home, because things are different now and he should not be treated the same. John struggles with this relationship with Caleb because when they were younger the two were best friends until Caleb was given the opportunity to whip john. The...
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...Pearl Sold to the Devils for Gold CHARACTERS * JOHN, right eye-blind boy, Paul’s almost little brother * PAUL, left leg-amputated boy, John’s almost big brother * BOSS, syndicate’s leader * SYNDICATE 1/ DOMINIQUE * SYNDICATE 2 * WAITRESS * BOY THIEF * POLICEMAN SCENE ONE Mid-morning, at the street SYNDICATE 1: I think were lucky today! SYNDICATE 2: Why? What’s the reason? SYNDICATE 1: See that kid….Standing near the store. SYNDICATE 2: Yeah! Yeah! I got you. [Syndicate 1 approaches the kid] SYNDICATE 1: Hey there kid! What’s your name? JOHN: I’m John. SYNDICATE 1: How old are you? JOHN: I’m six years old. SYNDICATE 1: Why are you alone? Where are your parents? JOHN: I lost them two years ago. SYNDICATE 1: What happened? JOHN: I can’t remember anything. SYNDICATE: Don’t you have any relatives or friends here? JOHN: I don’t have friends. SYNDICATE 1: Why? You know what, friends give each other gifts. JOHN: Like what? SYNDICATE 1: Like chocolates. Do you want some? JOHN: Uhuh… SYNDICATE 1: Does it taste good? I have more chocolates do you want some more? JOHN: You have more? Do you have lots of it in your pocket? SYNDICATE 1: Yes! But a friend of mine has lots of it in his house. JOHN: Really? She must be rich! How lucky, I wish I was like her…rich… eating all those chocolates. SYNDICATE 1: I’ll introduce you to her. Don’t be afraid, she’s friendly especially to kids who are lonely like you. JOHN: You think so...
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...Critical Essay This film takes place in the south in 1937 during The Great Depression. The Great Depression was a time period during the 1930s in which there was a severe worldwide economic depression (history.com). This happened after the stock market crash of 1929. They encounter many historical markers of the culture of the time. Some examples are the radio, bank robbers, and a KKK meeting. This film is loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey (imdb.com). Some parts of the film are historically accurate. Characters that actually existed were George “Baby Face” Nelson, Pappy O’Daniel and Tommy Johnson (google.com). In the film George Nelson is a bank robber that sometimes called “Baby Face”. There were actually a lot of bank robbers during this...
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...cocoa beans that are grown in the farms in the Ivory Coast and Ghana, a small nation on the Western side of Africa. The farmers of these poor nations are notorious, however for sometimes relying on slaves to harvest their beans. The slave are boys between 12 and 16 , sometimes as young as 9-- who are kidnapped from villages in surrounding nations and sold to cocoa farmers, who use whippings, beatings, and starvation to force the boys to do the hot, difficult work of clearing the fields, harvesting the beans and drying them in the sun. The boys work from sunrise to sunset and are locked in windowless rooms where they sleep in bare wooden planks. Far from home, unsure of their location, unable to speak the language, isolated in rural areas and threatened with harsh beatings if they try to get away, the boys rarely attempt to escape their nightmare situation. Those who do try are severely beaten as an example to others and then locked in solitary confinement for a prolonged period of time. Every year an unknown number of boys die or are killed on the cocoa farms of the Ivory Coast and Ghana. The plight of the enslaved children was publized around the world in September 2000 when True Vision, a British television company, took video on slave boys on several ivory. Coast farms and broadcast a documentary in Britain and the United Sates. An erlier 1998 report of the United Nations Children’s Fund had conclude that many Iory Coast farmers used slaves and the U.S. State Department in its...
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