Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Different Perspectives within American Literature (African Americans…

- - - - As a young girl, Harriet Jacobs had no idea she was a slave. She found this out when her mother died and she learned that she was working for her mothers mistress. Her mistress taught her how to read and write. When she was sent to new owners, she found they did not treat her well. Jacob fell in love with a man but, her master did not allow it. Jacobs was sick of having no control so, : : she hid away in a small den until she could escape to the north. Her story ends with freedom but, not in the way that white women get their freedom --> through marriage
        
        "A gentleman near me said, 'It's true; I have seen the bill of sale.' 'The bill of sale!' Those words struck me like a blow. So I was sold at last! A human being being sold in the free city of New York! (898).
  - - - The Fourth of July is a joyful celebration for white people in American but, for slaves and former slaves, it is a reminder of their loss of liberty. They are promising freedom and equality for everyone, expect African Americans.
        
        "Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon the bring our humble offering to national alter, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings, resulting from your independence to us? (1066).
  - - - This is a novella about the revolt on a Spanish slave ship captained by Benito Cereno.
        
        “This slavery breeds ugly passions in man.”
  - - - This poem is about how African Americans are also apart of American. They may have a darker complexion, but their skin is still beautiful. In the past they are told to eat alone in the kitchen but, soon they will eat at the table and no one will say anything about it.
        
        "Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am and be Ashamed -- I, too, am America" (1038).
    - - This poem is about a soul that is as deep as a river. The rivers mentioned are the ones from early civilization in Africa and Egypt. It shows how people of color have been around since well before they surrounded the Mississippi. It shows that white people are not the only ones who have history and show that they are not superior.
        
        "My soul has grown deep like the rivers" (1037).
  - - - Hurston is showing how proud she is of her African roots in this reading.
        
        "Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me" (960).
      - Zora Neale Hurston is openly stating that she is colored and that she has no desire to claim a different identity such as, Native American. It is important to note that she describes people as different colored bags full of different things that make up life.
        
        "I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an indian chief" (958).
  - - - This is a 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington. It describes his personal experience of having to work to rise up from being a slave child.
        
        "As a rule, I believe in universal, free suffrage, but I believe that in the South we are confronted with peculiar conditions that justify the protection of the ballot in many of the states, for a while at least, either by an educational test, a property test, or by both combined; but whatever tests are required, they should be made to apply with equal and exact justice to both races (479).
  - - - The narrator of the story discovers from a newspaper stand that his younger brother, Sonny, was arrested for selling and using heroin. The narrator writes to his brother when his young daughter Gracie dies. When Sonny gets out of jail, his brother is there for him. Sonny has a love for music and his brother finally sees his struggle while he is playing music.
        
        "For me, then, as they began to play again, it glowed and shook above my brothers head like the very cup of trembling" (1365).
- - - - William Appes explores color prejudice, better known as Racism. The "looking-glass" = a way for Native Americans to see white hypocrisy.
        
        "Now let me ask you, white man, if it is a disgrace for to eat, drink and sleep with the image of God, or sit, or walk and talk with them" (546).
  - - - Black Hawk signs a treaty with the white settlers but, he is not aware that he is signing away his whole village. Black Hawk and village leave to hunt and they come back to find that the white people have not left yet. Black Hawk refused to leave, arguing that land cannot be bought. According to Native Americans, you can only take land if the people living there before voluntarily leave. They send their complaints to the Great Chief but the white people can make right look like wrong and vice versa.
        
        "My object is holding this council, was to get the opinion of these two chiefs, as to the best course for me to pursue" (635).
  - - - "We now look with earnest expectation to you honorable bodies for redress, and that our national existence may not be extinguished before a prompt and effectual interposition is afforded in our behalf" (647).
  - - - A historical novel set in the time of the French and Indian War.
        
        "If unsatisfied by the philosophy of his companion, the Indian was far too dignified to betray his unbelief" (533).
- - - - This is a novella about the revolt on a Spanish slave ship captained by Benito Cereno.
        
        “This slavery breeds ugly passions in man.”
  - - - The narrator goes to visit a childhood friend and finds that his house is rotting and decaying. The family he is visiting has an off lineage of incest and have never flourished. When the narrator arrives, his friend Roderick looks pale and very ill. His sister Madeline is also very ill. They believe that she is dead so, they bury her. It turned out that they had buried her alive. Once she gets pulled from the grave alive, the narrator flees the house. As he leaves, the whole house crumbles to the ground. The death of the Usher line means that the house can not survive it without its inhabitants.
        
        “an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn—a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued” (751).
  - - - A women and her husband move into a home. The women is told she has hysteria by her husband and brother. She was put into a room with yellow wallpaper and as time goes on she begins to see a women trapped behind bars in the wallpaper. She asks her husband if they can leave but, her husband refused. This women becomes so obsessed with the yellow wallpaper that she starts to tear it off the walls. Her husband passes out from the sight of the bedroom.
        
        "He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me (516).
- - - - Whitman divides the narrator into three different characters: "I" (everyday person), "Me Myself (inner self) and "soul" (connected to everything universally). The speaker explains how much he loves the world and nature. He believes that people should learn the world through their own experiences and not by the teachings of other people.
        
        "I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass" (1088).
  - - - This writing focuses on finding oneself within the city. He advices his readers not to conform to social expectations and to listen to their own voice rather than the masses. He tells his readers to be honest in their relationship. They should focus on their progress as an individual rather than the progress of society.
        
        "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be a goodness (598).
  - - - Thoreau moves out to Walden to learn more about human nature through living in nature itself. He believes that his soul thrives in nature rather than in the cities. He takes time to observe animals and plants. He writes this to show that people should thrive where they are happy and where their souls are free.
        
        "Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence with Nature herself (966).
- - - - Winterbourne is bored with his life so, he goes to Europe where he is having an affair with an older woman in Geneva. Then, he meets a young girl named Daisy Miller. She is traveling from NY with a behavior not expected from a women. She plays hard to get. Eventually, Daisy becomes sick and dies. Winterbourne returns to his affair in Geneva.
        
        "It was a beautiful summer morning, and in whatever fashion the young American looked at things, they must have seemed to him charming. He had come from Geneva the day before, by the little steamer, to see his aunt, what staying at the hotel" (343-344).
  - - - "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection"
  - - - "It is not enough to have expelled the barbarians who have bloodied our land for two centuries; it is not enough to have restrained those ever-evolving factions that one after another mocked the specter of liberty that France dangled before you"
- - - - This is a letter from Christopher Columbus to the King and Queen of Spain. He describes new land he found is great detail. He is hoping to gain more money from Spain to continue his explorations.
        
        "The people of this island, and of all the other islands which I have found and of which I have information, all go naked, men and women, as their mothers bore them, although some women cover a single place with the leaf of a plant or with a net of cotton which they make for the purpose" (47).
  - - - "To My Dear and Loving Husband"
        
        "If ever two were one, then surely we" (124).
- - - - "Sorry, I ain't Sorry"
  - - - While reading “Inventory,” it was clear that Machado was giving off serious girl boss vibes. The main character lists off her sexual encounters to the reader in detail. This is something that is acceptable when men are speaking with their friends. However, When a women does this it is seen as slutty or promiscuous. She is breaking this mold and having endless sex.
  - - - A women and her husband move into a home. The women is told she has hysteria by her husband and brother. She was put into a room with yellow wallpaper and as time goes on she begins to see a women trapped behind bars in the wallpaper. She asks her husband if they can leave but, her husband refused. This women becomes so obsessed with the yellow wallpaper that she starts to tear it off the walls. Her husband passes out from the sight of the bedroom.
        
        "He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me (516).
  - - - Zora Neale Hurston is openly stating that she is colored and that she has no desire to claim a different identity such as, Native American. It is important to note that she describes people as different colored bags full of different things that make up life.
        
        "I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an indian chief" (958).
  - - - As a young girl, Harriet Jacobs had no idea she was a slave. She found this out when her mother died and she learned that she was working for her mothers mistress. Her mistress taught her how to read and write. When she was sent to new owners, she found they did not treat her well. Jacob fell in love with a man but, her master did not allow it. Jacobs was sick of having no control so, : : she hid away in a small den until she could escape to the north. Her story ends with freedom but, not in the way that white women get their freedom --> through marriage