Journal #7

I have chosen to use the element of imagery to analyze the poem the slave mother by Frances Harper. The beginning of the poem begins with describing how the child "shrieked" and then goes on to describe a "broken heart". Even though the author is describing something as simple as a child being taken away from its mother she uses the words shrieking and broken heart to almost inflict the appearances that actual physical damage is being done to the individual. Later towards the middle of the poem she describes how the "boy clings to her side" this is something that could also be interpreted with two meanings. Although reading this may initially be a simple meaning of a baby being held as they usually cling to the mothers side, it is so much more than that. This also described how the baby is holding on to its mom as for fear of being taken and how a slave baby might hold on to the memory or their mother for their entire life. The last aspect of this poem I am going to bring up is how she describes that "he is not hers, although she bore For him a mothers pains; He is not hers, although her blood Is coursing through her veins!" The choice of wording she used in describing how her son is her biological property was words like "blood" and "pain". This is also symbolic of the pain and the sheer negative emotion a slave mother feels as her child is being ripped from her arms.

Journal #6

The Mulatto race was one that was stuck in between cultures, kind of suspended in this in between space in which they weren't necessarily strictly doomed to slavery as many African Americans were but they were not given the right of the white race either. The most key example that I observed being a large theme in both pieces was the marriage factor. both Jacob and Rosalie wanted to marry but if they were to do so they would not be able to be actually recognized as a marriage under law because of their suspended race. I took into consideration that maybe this problem of marriage was simply because Jacob was a slave which gave her no rights but Rosalie suffered from the same ideal issues of validity and she was not a slave. There was also the feeling of shame that was professed between Rosalie and her lover, she so wanted to be marries and even though he loves her and claims that she was his only love, he still married another because of the social ramifications of marrying a mulatto was too much for him to take, although he still ended up boring her child none the less.
Also just something to mention that i found very interesting as being kinda a mirrored effect between analyzing these two stories together is that Jacob was a slave throughout the story and then she was freed at the end, where as Rosalie was free through the entire story until her daughter was sold at the end. I just found that to be an interesting parallel.

Journal #5

The piece "An Indians looking glass for the white man" and "Indian Names" were both addressing the same issue only in different ways. That issue was that they were addressing tghe fact that the "Red Man" was never just going to go away, even in the whitemans brutality to dispose of such a race they were going to remain even if it were to only be in memory. The first piece "An Indians looking glass for the white man" used the took of reflection to show how hypocritical the white man was in going about their cause, even by attacking the bible in which the white men held as justification for their deeds; "He who loveth God loveth his brother" (John 4:21). The Piece Indian Names on the other hand used the tactic of memory and sorrow to elaborate the same theme. In the poem she reflected back amungst the race in a possitive manor by pointing things out such as the race being "noble and brave" (Sigourney, 1204). She also fought by stating that the indians memory was never to be forgotten, serving to try to defeat the purpose of the white man all together. Both these tactics served to be effective in putting up a fight and demonstrating the strength of the "red man"

Blog # 4

The Tenth of January struck me as being a little hard to follow. At the beginning it talked so much of sand and how the sand was described as "sand-heaps and sand-hillocks and-roads; for men digging sand, for women shaking off sand, for minute boys crawling in sand; for sand in the church-slips and the gingerbread-windows, for sand in your eyes, your nose, your mouth, down your neck, up your sleeves, under your chignon, down your throat. The symbol I am going to focus on in this piece is going to be sand. I felt that the way the sand was described as being something of such a hindrance just at the beginning of the piece had to prove to introduce the mood of the story. I think that this sand could serve to be many things but what I interpreted the meaning was of power. It spoke of men being the ones digging in sand and the women shaking off the sand, therefore they are the ones getting buried by what the men are digging. I just felt that the essence of women was being drowned in this story, it seemed to give the appearance that women are hurt women cry and women learn to cover it up in order to do their duties, women often get buried.

Blog #3 Question 1

I actually really likes Irving's short story "The Wife". When I first began to read this piece I thought that it was going to be just another piece about how a woman is nothing without her man or how the mans success is all that matters as so many stories from this time would depict. But this story rather showed how a woman is such support for a man even when he is not flourishing as he should. The couple in this story demonstrated a marriage based on love as she embraces her husband in relief in finding out that all that was bothering him was his fears of not being able to support the family. She showered him with love and compassion and this showed how the marriage was about love and support, not about power and convenience. I think this piece might have been written during a pivotal time in American history when marriage was developing more into the romantic love model rather than the convenience and child bearing model. The story was enjoyable for me to read as I was pleasantly surprised of the fact that it wasn't just another tail of how a woman is nothing without her man, but rather a man is nothing without the support and graces of a woman.