Similes In Sojourner Truth's Speech

The counterclaim will talk about how Fredrick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs narrative talk about how how women had it worse than men did. The reason why women had it worse was because of the sexual abuse. Men was physically and emotionally abused like women but the fact that women were also sexually abused made it worse than men. In Harriet's narrative she talks about how beauty was a curse "If God has bestowed beauty upon her, it will prove her greatest curse."

In 1846, Sojourner became an abolitionist and a civil and woman’s rights activist. She was a slave and had been mistreated. Truth had been married twice and bore one child with her first husband and three with her second. Her first marriage was not permitted by her owner and the couple was forced to never see each other again. Sojourner was forced to marry her second husband by her abusive owner.

Although from different eras, both Douglass and Rowlandson use similar techniques such as religion, repetition, and sentimentalism to show that being held captive and slavery is wrong. America was founded on Christian beliefs, so Douglass attacked that. He states, “If the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it” (Douglass 1037) Douglass is making a bold move that will spark controversy. He uses statements like this to keep the audience’s attention.

“With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final”; not slavery and oppression.” This relates to the hardships and the fact that the people don’t recognize how terrible it is. And that these meanings of these “free” words mean something else to him and other slaves. He shows that the changes are hard but once they are made everything will be peaceful. Rhetorical features and strategies are Douglass’ forte’ in engaging with the audience.

‘’ No words, No tears, No prayers, from his glory victim, seemed to move his iron heart fro his bloody purpose.’’ (page 5). Douglass appeals to the mournful emotions of the audience by expressing how the overseers gave no mercy or cared about the effect of whippings to the slaves. Douglass use of parallelism displayed how slavery was

Douglass uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling his audience how unfairly Douglass is treated and how white men or slaveholders take control of the life of a slave because in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass on page 1 paragraph 1 it says, The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.” What this piece of evidence is demonstrates is that Frederick Douglass did not even now his own birth and that he had to guess on what his master said and that his master knows more what Frederick knows about his life. Another way that Douglass’s uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling their audience how unfairly Frederick and many other slaves were treated because because in the Document “‘ Pro Slavery Arguments South’’ on paragraph 6 it says,”Southern slaveholders pro-slavery arguments defended the interest of the plantation owners against attempts by abolitionists, lower classes, and non-whites to institute a more equal social structure.”

Douglass character proved that he was honest and true to his speech. Douglass appealed to his audience by choosing word and experience that appealed to the anti-slavery society. He also made sure to sound unbiased when he was intruding his belief. Together with ethos he expressed pathos in is speeches by appealing to us audience emotionally.

The poem Truth, by Gwendolyn Brooks, has a lot of symbolism in it. Different things throughout the poem both represent parts of the Civil Rights movement as well as things that we can relate to our lives today. She did really well with her literary elements used, especially personification. This makes her writing more relatable and realistic in our minds to grasp. Truth is a wonderful poem full of all sorts of different literary elements.

In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.

“One who is a slaveholder at heart never recognizes a human being in a slave” (Angelina Grimke). This quote was created to show the effect that slavery had on not only the slave, but the slaveholder. The slaveholder would dehumanize the slave to the point where the human was no longer recognizable; instead, the slave was property. Throughout this autobiography, Frederick Douglass uses language to portray the similarities and differences between the two sides. He allows the reader to spend a day in the life of a slave to see the effects from it.

Throughout the narrative Douglass uses rhetorical imagery in order to provide readers with an insight to the true horrors of slavery. In chapter one of the narrative, Douglass speaks of the time when he would witness his aunt being tortured and beat by the master. He writes about seeing her “covered in blood” with “a whip upon her naked back”. Douglass uses and explains this experience in detail in order to paint a picture in the readers’ head and give them a firsthand experience to the harsh life of a slave. By using blood as an example of what he sensed, he is bringing in a word that is emotionally tied.

Frederick Douglass writes his narrative to educate the reader on the horrors of southern slavery. Douglass writes with the purpose of turning the reader against slavery and fight for abolishment. Throughout Frederick Douglass’s narrative he crafts figurative language such as imagery, repetition, and similes to shed light on the horrors of slavery and to get people to fight against slavery. To give the reader a detailed picture Frederick Douglass utilizes imagery. Douglass uses imagery in great detail when describing the beating of Aunt Hester, Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely naked.

Harriet Jacobs and Sojourner Truth are women who face adversity categorized in an invisible sub-group, making it difficult for black women to compete in the world. This sub-group is known as intersectionality. Black women struggle with the perception being inferior placing them at the bottom of the social class. Jacobs and Truth, however, share their experiences to other men and women allowing them to be aware of this invisible group. They willingly chose to speak out against this discrimination.

After having read both Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and Harriet Jacobs’s Incident 1. How were Douglass and Jacobs similar and different in their complaints against slavery? What accounts for these differences? In both the inspiring narratives of Narrative in the Life of Fredrick Douglass by Frederick Douglass’s and in Incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs the respective authors demonstrate the horrors and disparity of slavery in there own ways.

Throughout the course of African American Experience in Literature, various cultural, historical, and social aspects are explored. Starting in the 16th century, Africa prior to Colonization, to the Black Arts Movement and Contemporary voice, it touches the development and contributions of African American writers from several genres of literature. Thru these developments, certain themes are constantly showing up and repeating as a way to reinforce their significances. Few of the prominent ideas in the readings offer in this this course are the act of be caution and the warnings the authors try to portray. The big message is for the readers to live and learn from experiences.