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Jan Toomer's Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

773 Words4 Pages

“The Southern Landscape served as Umbilical cord to the African Americans albeit the hardships in their real or fictionalized life”
The journey of the African Americans from their homeland to New World is riddled with hardship, pain and inhumane treatment meted out by their masters. Being treated as slaves; chained and violently treated they landed in the Southern part of US with hopes of building a new life, new future. They continued to struggle in their new land only to be transported from one hell to the other. Yet for the African Americans the South held their hopes and dreams. For them the South itself served as their very own identity, source of wisdom and spirituality. Here one must appreciate the adaptability of African Americans to …show more content…

2 In his “Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass” (Page 4 of unit 3) who himself was a slave breaks the myth that slaves were happy and treated well. Their singing was mistaken for happiness but it was only out of sorrow and pain only to be relieved by tears. To many of us singing is certainly taken as a sign of happiness.
In his narrative of short story “Blood-Burning Moon” (Page 4 of unit 3) Jan Toomer mentions of the sounds of wail by the African Americans on witnessing public lynching, the sounds only to fall on deaf ears to be echoed back. African American writers were both critical and appreciative of American South in their narratives. They not only reflected on the hardships but also on the new opportunities being created for them. “Southern Songs” (Page 4 of unit 3) poem by Margaret Walker to me appealed most where she reflects that no matter the hardship, emotions, she always wants to be connected with the southern landscape and be reborn in the same earth. 3 However Alice Walker chose to state the South as a “site of hope” and the spirit to never give up hope and tomorrow is a better

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