What is Protest Literature
Protest literature conveys different definitions and meanings. According to Stauffer, "there is no common understanding of protest literature; the term has been used to mean almost all literature or no literature". Therefore, every genre can be described as "protest literature" because literature is a way and art of showing emotions, values and concerns. Because of the uncertainty of the definition, Stauffer provides a wide range of norms that can help classify the literature according to his views.
Stauffer enumerates a set of norms that helps classify by what he means by protest literature. Firstly, he defined protest literature as language that changes the society and self. In addition, Stauffer went deeper by describing the literature as a "catalyst or mirror of social change". Furthermore, some of the necessary requirements for protest literature stated by Stauffer are three in number. They are empathy and symbolic action, in which empathy promotes shock value, inspires emotions and desires, and symbolic action supports interpretation.
Even though almost all literature can be called protest literature in a sense that they all portray a point of theme or view, protest literature has to be specifically written for change. In other words, the writer needs to have specific goals for change in society or individuals from the very start. Therefore, the effects of protest literature cannot simply be spontaneous or by accident. Furthermore, protest literature cannot be judged by how effective it is. This shows that protest literature fails to persuade or "convert" even one individual, the literature is still consider a success because a point has been made which results in acknowledgement...
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... exactly they were or what direction to take.
Slowly he moves to and fro, to and fro, then faster and faster he swishes up and down.
His blue shirt billows in the breeze like a tattered kite.
The world whirls by: east becomes west, north turns to south; the four cardinal points meet in his head.
Mother!
Where did I come from?
When will I wear long trousers?
Why was my father jailed?
Works Cited
-Boy on a Swing by Oswald M. Mtshali
-Corruption:Lament by Sam Chrenyan
-Dance the Guns to Silence by 100 Poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa
-Fields of Gold- Children of Poverty by Jan Weeratunga
-Prophets Of Protest: Reconsidering The History Of American Abolitionism,Ed,Timothy Patrick McCarthy and John Stauffer,New York:The New Press,2006,pp 23-38
-Protest poetry:The voice of the conscience,Ananda P.Strestha,CNAS JOURNAL,VOL 27,No 2,(July 2000)
This book gives a well-rounded picture of abolitionism in a way that not many have done before. And I think that if more historians did this, instead of making history very one-sided, it would eliminate some of the controversy of historiography.
McInerney, Daniel J. "The Fortunate Heirs of Freedom: Abolition & Republic Thought". Lincoln: University of
History has encountered many different individuals whom have each impacted the 21 in one way or another; two important men whom have revolted against the government in order to achieve justice are Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. Both men impacted numerous individuals with their powerful words, their words carried the ability to inspire both men and women to do right by their morality and not follow unjust laws. “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” by David Henry Thoreau along with King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, allow the audience to understand what it means to protest for what is moral.
Altman, Linda Jacobs. Slavery and Abolition in American History. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 1999. Print.
The antebellum American antislavery movement began in the 1820s and was sustained over 4 decades by organizations, publications, and small acts of resistance that challenged the legally protected and powerful institution of slavery and the more insidious enemy of black equality, racism. Abolitionists were always a radical minority even in the free states of the North, and the movement was never comprised of a single group of people with unified motivations, goals, and methods. Rather, the movement was fraught with ambiguity over who its leaders would be, how they would go about fighting the institution of slavery, and what the future would be like for black Americans.
Marable, Manning. Race, reform, and rebellion: the second reconstruction and beyond in Black America, 1945-2006. 3rd ed. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. Print
Welling, G. M. (2005, 11 07). From Revolution to Reconstruction . Retrieved 07 07, 2010, from From Revolution to Reconstruction : http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/tj3/writings/slavery.htm
Frederick Douglass used family values, basic human rights, and religion to persuade the northern white audience toward the cause of abolition. He expects his readers will share his “hate [for] the corrupt, slaveholding, woman whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of [southern slaveholders]” (Douglass 71). American slavery does not exist in today due partly to Douglass’s effort to help advance the cause of abolition.
Much like Andrew Jackson, the Abolitionists were able to “steal a page” from Jackson’s “book” and recreate their own version of Jackson’s individuality. The Abolitionists were culturally and socially distanced because of their “radical” view. The Abolition movement allowed numerous social activists to voice the immoral implications of slavery. The bold men and women of the Abolition movement stressed the idea of equality of the races, which was a sentiment that was not shared among many outside of the movement itself. The never-ending debate on the issue of slavery was prominent and plentiful across the states but few believed in abolition much less total and indefinite equality of the slaves. The minority of Americans were Abolitionists, but their cause allowed moral reforms to be heard. Nevertheless, this reform movement was solely based on an individual’s “moral compass”. In Fredrick Douglass’ “Letter ‘to My Old Master,’” he states, “… I am myself; you are yourself; we are two distinct persons, equal persons. What you are I am. You are a man, and so am I.— God created both, and made us separate beings. I am not by nature bound to you, or you to me.” Fredrick Douglass gives a perfect statement on the meaning of the Abolition movement, all men are created by God equally and should be treated as so. Through Douglass’ statement one can see how individualism and reform ideals are capable of allowing
Fromm, Erich. “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem” Writing and Reading for ACP Composition. Ed. Thomas E. Leahy and Christine R. Farris. New York, New York: Pearson, 2009. 258-263. Print.
Martin Luther King and Henry David Thoreau each write exemplary persuasive essays that depict social injustice and discuss civil disobedience, which is the refusal to comply with the law in order to prove a point. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” King speaks to a specific audience: the African Americans, and discusses why he feels they should bring an end to segregation. Thoreau on the other hand, in “Civil Disobedience,” speaks to a broader, non-addressed audience as he largely expresses his feelings towards what he feels is an unjust government. Both essays however, focus on the mutual topics of morality and justice and use these topics to inform and motivate their audience to, at times, defy the government in order to establish the necessary justice.
Paul Hawken, in the chapter “Blessed Unrest,” records the people of a new social movement, as well as their ideals, goals, and principles. He writes how they are connected, along with the diversity and differences they bring to make the social movement unique. Hawken communicates to the readers the various social, environmental, and political problems they will encounter in today’s world as well as similar problems of the past. Problems that these groups of organizations are planning to undertake with the perseverance of humanity.
Researchers classify social movements according to the type of change they seek (Aberle, 1966, Cameron, 1966, Blumer, 1969, as cited in Macionis, 2007). According to John Macionis, a social movement is when people commonly band together to create an organized activity that encourages or discourages social change (Macionis, 2008). In the case of this radical society, Hippies were typically ...
Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.
Literature has had a major impact on society, and, also our history. Literature has reformed and shaped civilizations, changed political systems, and has exposed injustices (3). Our literature has changed and developed as we have, keeping up with our society. “...literature is crucial for the advancement of society (3).” With literary works, we can convince others to view things a certain way, share our opinions, and more. Literature is greatly intertwined with our society and everyday lives, and they would not be the same without it. Literature plays an irreplaceable role in our