Susan Donnelly’s poem “Inoculation” explores the comparison between sin, disease, and slavery, and initially, this connection is nonexistent to one of two characters: Cotton Mather. This piece opens by stating, “Cotton Mather studied small pox for a while, instead of sin,” and automatically there is implanted the idea that disease and sin are independent of each other; this diction is imperative for Donnelly because it gives the vantage point of Mather prior to discussing the small pox outbreak with his slave, Onesimus. The blatant introduction makes it clear by the end of the poem how terribly wrong Mather was in his ideology of a separation between small pox and sin: the topic of his studies does not change, unlike the claim of his first belief. …show more content…
As the piece continues and becomes more centrally focused, as opposed to the overall happenings of Boston with its outbreak, it reads, “Not being ill himself, thank Providence, but one say asking his slave, Onesimus, if he’d ever had the pox.
To which Onesimus replied, ‘Yes and No.’” With this, the theme is only partially established, yet without the final lines of the poem, the slave sounds as if spewing nonsense at Cotton Mather. To elaborate, Onesimus explains that, while he had small pox, he quite obviously survived, despite the fact he should not have after having “take[n] inside all manner of [the] disease.” It is with the conclusion of the poem that the connections are formed and the theme is resolved and established. These final lines read, “My mother bore me in the southern wild. She scratched my skin and I got sick, but lived to come here, free of smallpox, as your
slave.” The imagery employed here formulates the picture of a man once suffering with a deadly disease now healthy physically but still afflicted mentally by another malady: slavery. It is this imagery that makes the final connected between sin, disease, and slavery and clarifies Onesimus’s reply and the theme of “Inoculation.” The survival after having to undergo the tribulation of the deadly disease small pox was not all positive. Instead, this success only led him into a life of slavery; and this act by Mather to have Onesimus as a slave is sin-like and inhumane. In the end, Cotton Mather did not sway from his original studies: by aiding in the fight against the small pox spread, he allows more individuals like Onesimus to become slaves, and as such he is allowing more sinful and humanly wrong acts. The theme concludes the poem, in that a decision of pure intention is not free from malice and harm.
Following the introductions, details about Eliza Suggs’s memories of slavery are expressed. It begins with telling the story of his birth and being auctioned off away from his twin brother when he was just three years old. Then Eliza Suggs continues telling her father’s story by discussing his time serving in the Union army and becoming a preacher. After describing her father’s experiences, Suggs describes her mother’s birth. She tells of the anxieties her mother felt when she was separated from her husband during the Civil War. Suggs also discusses her mother’s educational background and the treatment she endured as a slave. In the final section of her narrative, Eliza Suggs delineates the circumstance of her birth and struggles suffering with the rickets throughout her childhood. She also describes the portion of her life when her condition improves an...
On hearing this news “So vanished our hopes” (Jacobs 226). These hopes were hopes of freedom from slavery. She was now owned by Dr. and Mrs. Flints property and as the ended into their new homes they were greeted by cold looks, cold word and worse treatment. This is where Jacobs’s faith of life is going to change and the choices she made while going through her rough times. By this time her father had died as well this caused Jacob’s to rebel against God because he had taken away her mother, father mistress, and friend. But her grandmother was always there to comfort her as best as she can. Not only was she sad but she became miserable to the treatment slaves suffered on her new plantation. Little attention was paid to slave’s meal, also if the meals were not served at an exact time on a particular Sunday she would wait till it was served and spit in the kittle pans, and the slaves could get nothing more except what she choose to give them, these were the ways of her Mrs. Flint. As for Dr. Flint he made his cook tremble because if the food was not to his liking he would have her whipped or make her eat it by cramming it down her throat till she choked. As well as he would make her eat the dogs mush because the dog had not eaten it and Dr. Flint claimed it to be uncooked. “This poor woman endured many cruelties from her master and mistress; sometimes she
The novel showed a pivotal point prior to the Civil War and how these issues ultimately led to the fueling of quarrel between Americans. While such institutions of slavery no longer exist in the United States, the message resonates with the struggles many groups ostracized today who continue to face prejudice from those in higher
After a first reading of Marie Howe’s What the Living Do, many complicated feelings come out of my mind. In her poem, Marie Howe captures the human behavior that makes people obsessed with trivial issues until they overlook the important things that they could do to make their lives more enjoyable. Those situations actually have happened on most of us today. In most cases, people will procrastinate over simple chores and tasks instead of taking action and accomplishing these tasks. While many people will sulk over how unfortunate they are, they don't realize that they are in a better off than many other people. As technology affects every aspect of our lives in the modern world, it becomes extremely difficult to get off from the technological
The poem, “My Great-Grandfather’s Slaves” by Wendell Berry, illustrates the guilt felt for the sins of a man’s ancestors. The poem details the horror for the speaker’s ancestors involvement in slavery and transitions from sympathy for the slaves to feeling enslaved by his guilt. Berry uses anaphora, motif, and irony, to express the speaker’s guilt and provide a powerful atmosphere to the poem.
In Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, personal accounts that detail the ins-and-outs of the system of slavery show readers truly how monstrous and oppressive slavery is. Families are torn apart, lives are ruined, and slaves are tortured both physically and mentally. The white slaveholders of the South manipulate and take advantage of their slaves on every possible occasion. Nothing is left untouched by the gnarled claws of slavery; even God and religion become tainted. As Jacobs’ account reveals, whites control the religious institutions of the South, and in doing so, forge religion as a tool used to perpetuate slavery, the very system it ought to condemn.
One of the amazing things about the story is the level of description and imagery that Douglass uses to describe the suffering around him. The excerpt spans a mere three days, but most of the text focuses on his abuse and battle with Mr. Covey. Douglass skips over the common parts of his life to further his case against slavery. By doing this, the Northerners rea...
The fictionalized portrait he penned in “The Heroic Slave” is similar to the personal experience related in his autobiographical work. Both works illustrate the cruel and inhumane treatment of slaves by their masters. Physical abuse, in the form of beatings and inadequate nourishment, is a common prevalence as was mental abuse, in the forms of derogatory language and the separation of family units. The pursuit of freedom from slavery is a shared theme of these two compositions. Douglass felt his pursuit was best served by an education. Madison used his innate intelligence, bravery and perseverance to secure his freedom. Slavery’s direct conflict with fundamental Christian values is illustrated in several places in each work. Abuse of any kind is oppositional to the Christian values of kindness and charity and the subjects of these works endured many instances of abuse. Douglass’s own eloquence is apparent in “The Heroic Slave” in his word choice. Phrases such as “made merchandise of my body” (B: 1263) and “children of a common Creator” (B: 1272) masterfully articulates the inhumane act of owning other humans. The passage describing how a snake would not “stop to take my blows” (B: 1256) illustrates the further degradation of humanity when mandatory compliance is coupled with the cruelty of physical abuse
Slavery consisted of numerous inhumane horrors completed to make its victims feel desolated and helpless. Many inescapable of these horrors of slavery are conveyed in the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. The entire prospect of the duration of the story is to plan an escape from the excruciating conditions awaiting Douglass as a slave. When his escape is finally executed, unpredictable emotions and thoughts overwhelm him. Within the conclusion of his narrative (shown in the given passage), Frederick Douglass uses figurative language, diction, and syntax to portray such states of mind he felt after escaping slavery: relief, loneliness, and paranoia.
The argument of slavery portrayed as a “slow poison” can be seen throughout the three narratives that are the basis for this paper. The “slow poison” being that slavery is a slow poison that effects not only blacks and whites but everyone around and subjected to slavery. The most obvious people that are effected by slavery are the slaves but there are many examples of whites and their families being effected by slavery also. The Epps family from Twelve Years a Slave is a good example of how slavery can tear apart a family. Mr. and Mrs. Epps were happily married until their marriage became challenged by Mr. Epp’s liking to a slave girl named Patsey. Mrs. Epps became jealous over their relationship and over time their marriage became broken and Mr. Epps became an alcoholic to deal with his marriage and his near constant whipping of his slaves. Mrs. Epp’s jealousy and hatred for Patsey c...
His work is filled with grammatical errors that often times distract the reader from the strong and essential message of the literature. One of his most fatal flaws is refusal to disclose his escape from slavery. He only briefly mentions his departure and states it was a long and hard journey. He refuses to explain his escape to cause slaveholders to suffer from a lack of knowledge of their weaknesses and inadequacies. He also does not want to prevent the freeing of other slaves by disclosing of their method of escape to their masters. His reasoning is understandable, yet it also takes away from the suspense that was built by waiting for his great escape to freedom. He also abruptly mentions his fiancée once he arrives in New York. The reader does not receive any warning or knowledge about her until their union. He informs the reader that she was a free woman from Baltimore, which raises questions about how they meet and communicated through his life as a slave. Overall, his few confusions and errors do not diminish the effectiveness of his
This excerpt of Working Cures by Sharla M. Fett discussed the practice of conjuration, also known as “hoodo” or “rootwork”, affected people’s perception of illness and how conflicts within communities of enslaved people were dealt with. Conjuration was also used to resolve conflicts between slaves and their slaveholders, but its relation to conflicts within communities of enslaved people was discussed in more detail in this reading. The reading opened with the tale of an enslaved woman who died of an illness. Her overseer wrote an account blaming her demise on the consumption, but the enslaved community surrounding her believed it was due to a conflict between her and a man she was refusing to marry. It was believed that the man had “tricked”
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the physical burdens of slavery that he faced on a daily basis, it was the psychological effects that caused him the greatest amount of detriment during his twenty-year enslavement. In the same regard, Douglass is able to profess that it was not only the slaves who incurred the damaging effects of slavery, but also the slaveholders. Slavery, in essence, is a destructive force that collectively corrupts the minds of slaveholders and weakens slaves’ intellects.
Edward Taylor’s poem “The Preface” consist of questions as to how the world was created. The purpose of this poem is to reveal God's sovereign authority over creation and life itself. No sooner do you understand one paradox that he changes to a different set that gets a little confusing. The need to understand the next set of metaphors and picture it and then to put all together to get the message that Taylor was trying to give.
Throughout literature’s history, female authors have been hardly recognized for their groundbreaking and eye-opening accounts of what it means to be a woman of society. In most cases of early literature, women are portrayed as weak and unintelligent characters who rely solely on their male counterparts. Also during this time period, it would be shocking to have women character in some stories, especially since their purpose is only secondary to that of the male protagonist. But, in the late 17th to early 18th century, a crop of courageous women began publishing their works, beginning the literary feminist movement. Together, Aphra Behn, Charlotte Smith, Fanny Burney, and Mary Wollstonecraft challenge the status quo of what it means to be a