The Unredeemed Captive by John Demos
John Demos in a sense presents themes that are entirely familiar and conventional. The themes of sin, retribution, and repentance are very prevalent in his writing. The loss of piety, the failure of spiritual nerve, the absolute necessity of reform; and the certainty of God's punishment if reform was not achieved appear throughout his book (Demos). (In this instance, Eunice's failure to return to her native land is putting her at risk in the eyes of God). For approximately 60 years John Williams who had been a captive for almost two years, and is one of the main characters of the story writes different letters, sermons, in an effort to reach the captive daughter. According to John Williams, "God is the bestower and giver of all our good things. Our mercies come to us not by casualty or by accident. These mercies are not of our own procuring and purchasing" (Demos, 62). John Demos uses the story of John Williams to describe the conflict between the Puritans and Jesuits. "The Jesuits had their own cultural and religious ways versus those of the "savages"; the adjustments and compromises they feel obliged to accept, and the core of essentials they must vigilantly defend" (Demos 129). The conversion of English captives to Catholicism was the primary goal of the Jesuits. "The Indians were not mere imitators of an alien model; their culture, their history and their values contributed strongly to the evolving patterns of converting to Christianity" (Demos 171).
In John Demo's book, Mr. John Williams the main narrator uses four types of writing and one other last section to tell his story of captivity. The four parts are in chronological order: First the pastoral letter he wrote to those c...
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...s found a great interest in history. Therefore, after graduating from high school he attended Harvard, Oxford, and then graduated from UC of Berkeley in 1961 with a MA in history. He has written many books on history like: A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony (1970), Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (1982) and Past, Present, and Personal: The Family and the Life Course (1986). All of Demos books dealt with family culture and about the history that other historian would not write about. Today Demos is a Professor at the University of Yale in New Haven, Conn. John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story From Early America,
(First Vintage Books, April 1995)
Frederick Douglass wrote in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, about the devastation associated with slavery and the destruction from which comes desperation. Douglass intends to summon upon the guilt and empathy of his white audience by giving an account from which the reader is able to coax up a new perspective on the dreadful oppression. Seen especially in the third paragraph where Douglass provides a series of rhetorical devices including: apostrophe, anaphora, personification, exemplum, and epithet in his sorrowful bellowing to passing ships.
In the book “The Mad Among Us-A History of the Care of American’s Mentally Ill,” the author Gerald Grob, tells a very detailed accounting of how our mental health system in the United States has struggled to understand and treat the mentally ill population. It covers the many different approaches that leaders in the field of mental health at the time used but reading it was like trying to read a food label. It is regurgitated in a manner that while all of the facts are there, it lacks any sense humanity. While this may be more of a comment on the author or the style of the author, it also is telling of the method in which much of the policy and practice has come to be. It is hard to put together without some sense of a story to support the action.
The narrative enables Douglass to flaunt his hard-earned education. As stated before, his diction brings pathos to his work. He describes his experiences in a way that lets his audience feel the indignity of being owned by another person. For example, D...
The novel “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer goes into great detail to describe the main character, Chris McCandless, who died traveling alone into the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless, whom in the novel renamed himself Alex, left his home and family to travel to Alaska in 1992. In Alaska McCandless planned to live an isolated life in the desolate wilderness, but unfortunately he did not survive. This non-fiction novel portrays his life leading up to his departure and it captures the true essence of what it means to be “in the wild”.
At the end of “Into the Wild” by John Krakauer epilogue, my view towards McCandless’s journey and death is emotionally similar to McCandless’s parents as they accept Chris’s death. Chris’s parents weren’t really involved in his life so they never really knew why he cut everyone off. My initial guess is that Chris got tired of his parents controlling his life and just wanted to get away. Throughout “Into The Wild” Chris’s parents seemed like they didn’t support or care about Chris, or they didn’t know how to show it, however my opinion about Chris’s parents did change because the author shined light on his parents and how they came to senses with their son’s death and that they actually really did care about their son Chris McCandless.
Lee, Desmond. “The Study of African American Slave Narratives “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” and “Narrative of Frederick Douglass”.” Studies of Early African americans. 17 (1999): 1-99. Web. EBSCO
Jeffrey Reiman, author of The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, first published his book in 1979; it is now in its sixth edition, and he has continued to revise it as he keeps up on criminal justice statistics and other trends in the system. Reiman originally wrote his book after teaching for seven years at the School of Justice (formerly the Center for the Administration of Justice), which is a multidisciplinary, criminal justice education program at American University in Washington, D.C. He drew heavily from what he had learned from his colleagues at that university. Reiman is the William Fraser McDowell Professor of Philosophy at American University, where he has taught since 1970. He has written numerous books on political philosophy, criminology, and sociology.
“How I Learned to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass is the story of one young man’s pursuit for intelligence, proficiency, and literacy. This selection describes the challenges Douglass himself faces as he conquers his aspirations to read and write amidst his enslavement. The literary nonfiction forms that I found to be most prevalent throughout the excerpt were a sense of place, and personal experience. Innumerable times throughout Douglass’s essay he refers to specific locations, establishing the setting in which his story takes place. Douglass gives an account of various personal experiences during the whole of the discourse, granting readers the opportunity to connect individualistically with the author. Correspondingly, Douglass merges all together the two forms, a sense of place as well as personal experience within the piece.
In Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, he retells the story of a young man named Chris McCandless by putting together interviews, speaking with people who knew him, and using letters he writes to his companions. Chris McCandless also known as Alexander Supertramp is a bright young man and after graduating from Emory University with all honors, he abandons most of his possessions and travels around the west, making long lasting impact on whomever he meets. He then hitchhikes to Alaska where he is found dead. In chapter 14 and 15, both named “Stikine Ice Cap”, Jon Krakauer interrupts the boy's story and shares his anecdote of going to Alaska to climb a dangerous mountain called the Devils Thumb. Krakaure’s purpose is to refute the argument that McCandless is mentally ill because many others, like Krakauer have tried to “go into the wild” but they are lucky to survive unlike McCandless. While describing his climb, Krakauer exhibits through the descriptions of and uncertainty about personal relationships.
This book Into The Wild is about how a young man wants to get away from the world. He does escape from society, but ends up dying in the process. The author, Jon Krakauer, does a great job of describing Chris McCandless and his faults. Chris is an intelligent college graduate. He went on a two-year road trip and ended up in Alaska. He didn't have any contact with his parents in all of that time. Krakauer does a great job of interviewing everyone who had anything to do with McCandless from his parents, when he grew up, to the people who found his body in Alaska.
When a new slave is introduced to the plantation, Sarney, a young slave, notices something different about him. Within the first nights the new slave, John, offers to teach Sarney letters in exchange for rolls of tobacco. Every night from then on, Sarney begins to learn the alphabet letter by letter- something very dangerous and illegal for a slave. One day, talking with John and Mammy, John explains to them how he was a runaway that eventually became free. “And you came back?” Mammy asks him, “Why?”. “To teach reading” John explains simply to her (pg. 55). It turns out John could have safely lived the rest of his life in peace- instead he gave up his freedom to return to the nightmare of slavery and for one reason only- to teach slaves how to read and write. “We all have to read and write so we can write about this- what they doing to us.” (pg.58). Because he realizes that there is a real problem at stake, John was willing to give up a free life to better the chances of other slaves.
John Demos’s “the Unredeemed Captive” is a story about a man named John Williams, and his five children who were captured by Indians during a war in 1704. John Williams and his children are eventually released, but much to his disappointment, his youngest daughter Eunice remained with her captors, and married an Indian man. This story has a captivating storyline, and makes for a very compelling narrative. In this paper I will attempt to make a critical analysis of John Demos’s work. The major areas I am looking at are the evolution or the piece, from beginning to end, what the major sections of the book are and how they flow together, and how this work is and isn’t a conventional narrative.
“Without Conscience" by Robert D. Hare is one aimed towards making the general public aware of the many psychopaths that inhabit the world we live in. Throughout the book Hare exposes the reader to a number of short stories; all with an emphasis on a characteristic of psychopaths. Hare makes the claim that close monitoring of psychopathy are vital if we ever hope to gain a hold over Psychopathy- A disorder that affects not only the individual but also society itself. He also indicates one of the reasons for this book is order to correctly treat these individuals we have to be able to correctly identify who meets the criteria. His ultimate goal with the text is to alleviate some of the confusion in the increase in criminal activity by determining how my of this is a result of Psychopathy.
In “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson,” Mary Rowlandson, a Puritan mother from Lancaster, Massachusetts, recounts the invasion of her town by Indians in 1676 during “King Philip’s War,” when the Indians attempted to regain their tribal lands. She describes the period of time where she is held under captivity by the Indians, and the dire circumstances under which she lives. During these terrible weeks, Mary Rowlandson deals with the death of her youngest child, the absence of her Christian family and friends, the terrible conditions that she must survive, and her struggle to maintain her faith in God. She also learns how to cope with the Indians amongst whom she lives, which causes her attitude towards them to undergo several changes. At first, she is utterly appalled by their lifestyle and actions, but as time passes she grows dependent upon them, and by the end of her captivity, she almost admires their ability to survive the harshest times with a very minimal amount of possessions and resources. Despite her growing awe of the Indian lifestyle, her attitude towards them always maintains a view that they are the “enemy.”
What do you think of; when you hear the word slave? According to Merriam-Webster a slave is someone who “is completely subservient to a dominating influence”. Two of the most known African Americans, who were born slaves and helped others of their race become free, were Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Using different tactics they helped many people become free from slavery. This paper will demonstrate Fredrick Douglass’s narrative ‘An American Slave’, which will expose his crucial role in the abolition of slavery, how Douglass overcame slavery, and took control of his own life. Douglass’s tactics for helping slaves will then be compared to Harriet Tubman, one of the most famous Underground Railroad conductors.