In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.
The book is a great tool used to open up hard racial conversations. Its historical accuracy makes it even more of a necessary read. Twain wrote Huck Finn to inform about racial issues through the eyes of an innocent child. Although the novel may use derogatory terms over and over again that is more of a reason as to why it should be read. Racism in America was pervasive during the time of the novel.
Right off the bat starting with Tom’s Gang, Twain satirizes these romanticist tropes relentlessly. Thus, by not following romanticism, Twain presents slavery and racism wholly, as it was without any rose-tinted glasses. This is a significant factor in the novel, and one of the reasons such controversy has stirred around this perceived issue. In the same sense, Twain embraces realism, attempting to give a true to life representation of the world Huck and Jim live in. Towards the end, plans to free Jim have been labeled by critics as a return to minstrelsy, but under the surface they represent the systematic oppression of freed slaves and African Americans.
Morrison takes her turn to denounce slavery and long for the freedom on behalf of all slaves.To show the historical truth that collective struggle is the only practical solution for African People, Morrison writes a historical novel, Beloved, which explores most oppressed period of slavery in the history of African people. The novel portrays successful development of the "black identity" in times when a black person was denied it. Morrison reveals the horror of slavery in explicit detail, elaborating upon the physical and mental abuses suffered by Sethe, Paul D, and the other Sweet Home slaves. Beloved not only speaks for the slaves whose voices were silenced, but also contributes to Morrison's critique of the aesthetics that has dominated American culture and its canon of literature. The novel is based on a newspaper clipping about a fugitive slave in Ohio who killed her own infant rather than sees her return to bondage in the South.
These conflicting emotions show that while Douglass is physically free, he is still a slave to fear, insecurity, loneliness, and the looming threat of being forced back into the arms of slavery. Douglass uses figurative language, diction, and repetition to emphasize the conflict between his emotions. Frederick Douglass’s story as told by himself in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is still relevant today. The book challenges readers to see slavery as a complex issue, an issue that impacts the oppressed and the oppressor, rather than a one-dimensional issue. Douglass goes beyond the physical impacts of slavery by choosing to recognize the tortured bodies of slaves along with their tortured souls, leading him to wonder what it takes for the soul to experience freedom.
At the turn of the twentieth century, American civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, “The problem of the century is the problem of the color line.” Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man examines the “problem” through the recurring use of symbolism. Ellison’s emphasis on the literal and figurative shackles of slavery represent society 's racist ideologies that bind African Americans despite the abolition of slavery. Correspondingly, the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement confirms that even in the twenty-first century, the “color line” problem remains. The narrator recognizes society’s progress but still fights for a better future.
Binish Iqbal Dr. Faiza Zaheer ENG-7201 1 July 2016 Identity is the most poignant and distressing theme in 20th century Afro American Novel. Justify. This does not come as a surprise to those, fairly acquainted with the mores of and motives behind the emergence of Afro American Novel, that it is well-informed and well-stocked with the historical struggles for identification on the part of Afro American community. No less important is the fact that, on the horizon of American Literature, it appeared in the wake of such political junctures as the formation of Jim Crow laws and anti-lynching movement; such social transmogrifications as Civil War and tactful disenfranchisement of most Blacks; and above all such literary rebellions as Racial Uplift Agenda and Harlem Renaissance. Hence, identity crisis was very much in the highlight.
His speech reflects the use of all the appeals which include Ethos, Pathos and Logos with Pathos being the dominant one. He emotionally persuade the audience by referring to the struggles black community faces “Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice". On another occasion he states, "The negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land." By the use of Pathos King tries to making his audience no longer hate Negroes and instead hate racism and wish for a new, better world. Not only emotional appeals, King also applied the use of logos and ethos to bring both the races together.
But comparing that to of “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X of the mid-20th century where slavery ended but racism is still America’s greatest threat. Comparing and contrasting will show how these two African-Americans spoke their perspective of their struggles for themselves and others as well. Living in slavery
The reader should feel directly inspired by the novel and its messages because of the direct correlation to the modern world. Racial prejudice, religious issues/ unity, and the bauty of the community bringing groups and populations together are main concepts throughout the story which he expresses through syntax and multiple means of parallelism of modern day and 1948. With each act of injustice is another ember added to the fire of the passion of hatred towards inequality. Cry, the Beloved Country demonstrates the fundamentals of mistreatment towards a person because of their race throughout time by developing a common problem that is seen throughout history. Gertrude and Absalom are faced with injustice, first hand, while joining a large population in the emigration into Johannesburg.