In a poem titled…, Wheatley wrote “ No more, America, in mournful strain, / Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain, / No longer shall thou dread the iron chain, / Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand, / Had made, and with it meant t’enslave the land.”(Wheatley 1353). In these lines, Wheatley considers America an enslaved person who is in deep fear and dread of the iron chain which is a metaphor of slavery, a lived reality by the poet. Wheatley also uses the word tyranny, which in short, means cruel, unusual, and unreasonable exploitation of power used for the purposes of oppression and humiliation. Tyranny is a great descriptive depiction of what African Americans were going through. This depiction instills a feeling of anger and fear and allows the reader to draw an image of a chained slave who is in deep pain and unable to move or even scream. It is also a call for America to be liberated from all sources of …show more content…
In this book titled “The Poems of Phillis Wheatley,” Wheatley wrote a poem about the death of one of her children titled “A Funeral Poem on the Death of C.E., An Infant of Twelve Months.” In this poem she wrote, “E'er yet on sin's base actions I was bent, / "E'er yet I knew temptations dire intent; / "E'er yet the lash for horrid crimes I felt, / "E'er vanity had led my way to guilt,” (Wheatley, 48). In these lines of the poem, Wheatley imagines that the child is talking and expressing his/her feelings after death. The child is spared from this hostile world that is full of crimes and guilt to a more peaceful and nonviolent world. Wheatley gives the reader the impression that the deceased child is speaking and the reader can hear his/her voice. If Wheatley did not mention that the child is saying those words, the reader might think that she is happy for the death of her