Phillis Wheatley Analysis

Phillis Wheatley was a black slave who was brought to Boston in 1761. While in her Christian home, Wheatley’s talent and specialty was recognized by her owners. Although she still had duties around the house as a slave, she was treated like a part of the family. John and Susanna Wheatley, her owners, gave her an unprecedented education and by the time she was 12, she could read and write English, Greek, and Latin. With this knowledge and education, she was quickly reading difficult passages out of the Bible. This emersion in the Christian faith is reflected through Wheatley's poems that were mostly written in the elegiac poetry style, focusing on moral and religious subjects. Some critics have even argued Wheatley praises slavery because it brought her to America and therefore to Christianity.

William J. Scheick’s “Phillis Wheatley’s Appropriation of Isaiah” analyses Wheatley’s poem

Scheick says that “Wheatley initially seems to defer to scriptural authority, then transforms this legitimation into a form of artistic self-empowerment, and finally appropriates this biblical authority through an interpreting ministerial voice” (Scheick, 137). This summary is correct because at the start of the poem, Wheatley does not start “preaching” to the whites. She appreciatively says that it was by the grace of God that she was brought out Africa to come to Boston. She is appreciative of this because she did not have the experience that many laves did because of her small and weak physical stature. So when she was brought to America, she went to home in the north instead of the fields in the South. After saying thank you, and therefore having a happy audience, she proceeds to give credit to her Savior for bringing her out of the “Pagan land”. Then, towards the ending the poem, she switches her voice to ministerial by telling the Christians that the Negros are equal to them in the eyes of the