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How violence is used as a tool in literature
How violence is used as a tool in literature
How violence is used as a tool in literature
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The Importance of Violence in Literature
American Literature is affected by many different ideas and topics which can greatly influence a reader’s perception of the literature. One of the most prevalent and vital topics to understand American Literature is violence. Violence is displayed in many different ways, conflicts, and problems; however, nearly every piece of literature includes a type of violent conflict. Violence can convey emotion to the reader and reveal conflict, stress, or evil between the characters. The meaning of violence in literature is studied in the novel by Stephen Foster called How To Read Literature Like A Professor. This novel by Foster includes complex assumptions as to what meaning an act of violence may have in a
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piece of literature. Violence is vital to literature, affects the reader’s perception, changes the mood of the story, and causes emotional involvement. Violence, which Frederick Douglass witnessed and experienced and later recorded in his autobiography: The Life Of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, greatly impacted the mood of Douglass’s work.
In his literature, violence is very prominent, and cruel acts are carried out on slaves throughout the entire book. These acts demonstrate the importance of including violence in literature. In this case, the cruelty allows the reader to understand the harsh living conditions that slaves were forced to endure. The author, Frederick Douglass, stated in his work, “It was a most terrible spectacle; I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it (Douglass 18).” In this quote, Douglass is discussing the horrible acts of cruelty and whipping fellow slaves were undergoing. This instance from his novel greatly assists in proving the importance of violence in literature, by using emotion to influence the reader’s …show more content…
feelings. While violence in literature is extremely important in influencing the reader’s emotion, there are other uses of violence that affect the plot of a story. Displaying violence in a work can also reveal disagreement between characters and assist in carrying along the plot and reaching a climax. An example of this is shown in The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller. In The Crucible, tensions are high as a group of girls are spotted in the woods performing a Satanic ritual dance. The townspeople begin to hurl accusations at each other and hang innocent people. It is written on page 30 in the play, “I’ll whip the devil out of you! [With whip he reaches out for her.]” Proctor, who was threatening to whip Abigail in the quote, reveals his anger and hatred towards Abigail. Violence is vital to helping the reader understand the hatred between characters in the quote. Proctor hates Abigail for attempting to seduce him, and by threatening violence, the severeness of his anger is demonstrated. Discord between characters is essential to understand conflict in literary works, and violence is an excellent way to display the disagreement. Another way authors use violence to affect literary works is changing the mood.
Violence can change the mood of a story very quickly, and many authors use this tactic to further develop the plot of their works. An example of a mood change, from The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, would be the darkening of the characters after Myrtle Wilson was struck by a car and killed. This act of violence occurs in chapter 7,”Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingled her thick black blood with the dust (Fitzgerald 137).” This quote helps the reader to visualize the violent hit-and-run that was performed on Mrs. Wilson. After the death of Myrtle, the plot of the novel is very depressing and dark. No more positivity is apparent for the remainder of the story. This is because the mood was changed by the violent act. Many authors use violence to affect the mood and complete the
plot. In How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster discusses the meaning of violence in literature deeply. He states in his book, “Violence is one of the most personal and even intimate acts between human beings, but it can also be cultural and societal in its deeper meanings (Foster 49).” This quote shows the deeper importance of violence in literature, and its ability to reveal societal problems, which can influence a reader’s perception of the work. In conclusion, violence is very important to understanding and interpreting literature. Violence helps to clarify mood, show drama between characters, and withdraw emotion from the reader.
It’s important to literature because if the reader didn’t have the perspective of an actual slave, nobody would know what slavery actually did. Literature is written in many ways and styles. During his time, Frederick Douglass’s works and speeches attracted many people’s attention. With the amount of works and speeches Douglass has given, it has influenced many other writers to express themselves more freely. Though Douglass lived a rigorous childhood, he still made it the best that he could, with the guidance and teaching of one of his slave owner’s wife he was able to read and write, thus allowing him to share his life stories and experiences.
A staunch abolitionist, Douglass would take the country by storm through the power of his words and writings. His narrative was unique in regards to how it was written and the content it holds. Unlike most biographies of freed slaves, Douglass would write his own story and with his own words. His narrative would attempt to understand the effects slavery was having on not just the slaves, but the slaveholders as well. The success of his biography, however, did not rest on the amount of horror in it but from the unmistakable authenticity it provided. His narrative would compel his readers to take action with graphic accounts of the lashes slaves would receive as punishment, “the loude...
Douglass, Frederick. The Heroic Slave. In Violence In the Black Imagination. Ed, Ronald T. Takaki. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
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...
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, depicts a vivid reality of the hardships endured by the African American culture in the period of slavery. One of the many things shown in Frederick's narrative is how slaves, in their own personal way, resisted their masters authority. Another is how slaves were able to create their own autonomous culture within the brutal system in which they were bound. There are many examples in the narrative where Frederick tries to show the resistance of the slaves. The resistors did not go unpunished though, they were punished to the severity of death. Fredrick tells of these instances with a startling sense of casualness, which seems rather odd when comprehending the content of them. He does this though, not out of desensitization, but to show that these were very commonplace things that happened all over the South at the time.
“The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected”. This quote comes from Fredrick Douglas’ book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written in 1845. Fredrick Douglas who was born into slavery in 1818 had no understanding of freedom. However, his words shed light on the state of our country from the time he made this statement, but can be traced back fifty-eight years earlier to when the Constitution was drafted and debated over by fifty-five delegates in an attempt to create a document to found the laws of a new country upon. However, to eradicate the antiquated and barbaric system of slaver would be a bold step to set the nation apart, but it would take a strong argument and a courageous move by someone or a group to abolish what had enslaved thousands of innocent people within the borders of America for centuries. There was an opportunity for the law to be written within the Constitution, which would support this freedom Fredrick Douglas alluded to. However, the power, which controlled this law, would as Douglas stated, “make that law respected”.
The issue of slavery in antebellum America was not black and white. Generally people in the North opposed slavery, while inhabitants of the South promoted it. However, many people were indifferent. Citizens in the North may have seen slavery as neither good nor bad, but just a fact of Southern life. Frederick Douglass, knowing the North was home to many abolitionists, wrote his narrative in order to persuade these indifferent Northern residents to see slavery as a degrading practice. Douglass focuses on dehumanization and freedom in order to get his point across.
In, “The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass”, readers get a first person perspective on slavery in the South before the Civil War. The author, Frederick Douglass, taught himself how to read and write, and was able to share his story to show the evils of slavery, not only in regard to the slaves, but with regard to masters, as well. Throughout Douglass’ autobiography, he shares his disgust with how slavery would corrupt people and change their whole entire persona. He uses ethos, logos, and pathos to help establish his credibility, and enlighten his readers about what changes needed to be made.
America in the mid to early nineteenth century saw the torture of many African Americans in slavery. Plantation owners did not care whether they were young or old, girl or boy, to them all slaves were there to work. One slave in particular, Frederick Douglass, documented his journey through slavery in his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Through the use of various rhetorical devices and strategies, Douglass conveys the dehumanizing and corrupting effect of slavery, in order to show the overall need for American abolition. His use of devices such as parallelism, asyndeton, simile, antithesis, juxtaposition and use of irony, not only establish ethos but also show the negative effects of slavery on slaves, masters and
Many of his vivid descriptions of how the slaves were treated and talked are clearly aimed to hit a soft spot. Mr. Alud called Douglass awful names and spoke of him like he was property. “Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him” (Douglass page 30). If a slave got lucky there new mistress would be nice but more times than not she was mean. Another story about Douglass’ life that he put in the book to make the reader’s sympathies, was the cruel mistress Mrs. Hamilton. “The girls seldom passed her without her saying, “Move faster, you black gip!” at the same time giving them a blow with the cowskin over the head or shoulders, often drawing the blood”(Douglass 31). Many things in Douglass’ narrative supported pathos and how it appealed to the
Deviating from his typically autobiographical and abolitionist literatures, Frederick Douglass pens his first work of fiction, “The Heroic Slave,” the imagined backstory of famed ex-slave Madison Washington, best known for his leadership in a slave rebellion aboard about the slave ship Creole. An interesting plot and Douglass’ word choice provide a powerful portrait of slavery and the people affected by it.
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 tone established in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is unusual in that from the beginning to the end the focus has been shifted. In the beginning of the narrative Douglass seems to fulfill every stereotypical slavery theme. He is a young black slave who at first cannot read and is very naïve in understanding his situation. As a child put into slavery Douglass does not have the knowledge to know about his surroundings and the world outside of slavery. In Douglass’ narrative the tone is first set as that of an observer, however finishing with his own personal accounts.
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.
Frederick Douglass’ landmark narrative describes the dehumanization of African-American slaves, while simultaneously humanizing them through his moving prose. Douglass shows the dehumanization of slaves through depictions of violence, deindividuation, and the broken justice system. However, Douglass’ pursuit of an education, moving rhetoric, and critique of his own masters demonstrates to the reader that African-Americans are just as intelligent as white people, thus proving their humanity.