blog #11

After the civil war, many whites blamed the African Americans for their hardships and many whites sought out lynching to deal with that.  Although many African Americans were innocently killed, many whites felt that it was appropriate to use the newly freed people as a scapegoat for their problems.  As I was reading, I kept thinking about what it would be like to be a slave for so long and finally have my freedom, but not fully be free.  African Americans were tortured for so long as slaves, but even as freed men and women, they still had to suffer through all the prejudice towards them.  I also thought about how frightening it much have been to walk through the streets of what is suppose to be your home, but still have to look over your shoulder because people were out looking for a reason to kill you.  In Claude McKay’s poem “If We Must Die’” he says “Haunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs (McKay, stanza 2, 3).”  With these stanzas, McKay allows readers to imagine what it would be like to be cornered by a mad mob of people that are accusing you of a crime and in turn are going to hang you without a fair trial. But McKay also writes, “Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!” to encourage the African Americans to not fall victims to the mobs of white people.  But instead to be brave and let the whites know that they are not going to be easily defeated. I never really knew the definition of lynching, but after learning its definition and reading the poems of Claude McKay, I can only imagine how the African Americans felt to see their family members innocently killed due to the extreme prejudice and hatred that the white Americans had towards them.

Blog 10

After reading Frances EW Harper’s poem, “Learning to Read” I realized how important learning to read and write was to slaves and to the newly freed African Americans. Throughout the poem, Harper talks about how the southerners hated the thought of African Americans learning to read because it was against their “rule” (Harper, 1) and how unhappy they were with northerners for coming down to the south to teach the newly freed people to read and write.  The poem also tells readers that slave masters tried to keep slaves from learning to read and write, but some slaves, like “Mr. Turner’s Bell, Who heard the children spell, and picked the words right up by heart, and learned to read ‘em well. (Harper, stanza 6), were fortunate enough to find creative ways around the system and acquire the skills needed to read.  This poem really helped me see the importance of reading and writing from a different perspective.  For most slaves and freed African Americans, reading and writing was a luxury and it was a privilege to have to opportunity to be taught these skills.    Today students feel burdened when teachers and professors assign reading assignments from a text book or ask us to write a paper on something we have recently read.  We tend to forget that not everyone has the ability to read and write and not everyone is fortunate enough to attend a school that has the resources to teach students the proper way to read and write.  What seems like a simple, daily task is a struggle for many people around the world today, even in the United States.  This poem really helped me see that my peers and I are truly privileged and that we should not take the ability to read and write for granted.  Instead we should encourage others to continue to read novels and write their own novels or poems, to ensure that the art will not die.

blog #9

After reading the introduction of American Literature from 1865-1914 I noticed a lot of connections from the entertainment people had during this time period to the entertainment people enjoy in today’s culture.  Besides having novels, poetry, and newspapers to read, people were introduced to magazines which “exploded, from 700 during the Civil War to 2400 in 1880 to roughly 3,500 at the turn of the century… (p.26). Today, people still read magazines religiously.  At every grocery store you can find a multitude of magazines ranging from politics to health guides to gossip magazines.  Magazines are even in the hair or beauty salons we go to or in the lobby of the car repair shop.  I found it interesting that some magazines have survived for over 125 years, specifically the magazine Good Housekeeping. The text also describes how people were “attracted by the colorful covers, lavish illustrations, and modest cost of magazines… (p.26)” when they first became popular in the late nineteen hundreds.  Today people are still drawn to purchase magazines due to the catchy titles of the articles on the cover or because of what celebrity is on the cover.  The illustrations in magazines are still a big influence on people buying magazines, but now the photos we see are professionally done by photographers and have most likely been altered to make the person being photographed look their best and their body shape has been “touched up” to make them look a little more tone or thin.  Illustrations in magazines also consist of a wide variety of advertisement and coupons for what is hot and trendy in our current culture, but the original influence is still present.  Although not all magazines are “modestly priced” today, I think the magazine is one of the biggest connections from the reading to our day and time.

Blog #8

After reading, I felt as though Jefferson Davis’ Inaugural Address and President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address were speaking to each other.  It seems as though President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address was a response to Jefferson Davis’ Inaugural Address, but he was not agreeing with Davis, but voicing ideas and opinions that were opposite of what Davis has said in his Address a few years earlier.

 In Davis’ Address he talks a lot about the rights that citizens were given in the Declaration of Independence and how the Union states were trying to take away those rights and end the original purpose for which the southern states were created.  Throughout his whole address it seems as though he is blaming the succession of the Southern states on the Union, by saying “We are doubly justified by the absence of wrong on our part, and by a wanton aggression on the parts of others (1360)”, Jefferson is putting confidence in southerners that there is nothing wrong with their way of life and that all the succeeding and revolting is a result of the northerners actions.  I think this speech is appealing to the southerners because Davis himself is a southern and he is defending the culture of the south.  He is defending slavery without actually saying anything about the topic but by talking about the “agricultural pursuits” of the south and that their “…policy is peace (1361)”.

In President Lincolns Address, he talks about the Civil War and the actions of the South that caused the Civil War to begin.  Lincoln states that “Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than it perish (1374)”. Without directly saying the north or the south, Lincoln’s readers or listeners understand that south is the cause of the war in his eyes.  He also says that “It may seem strange that any men should dare ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces (1375)”, with this statement he is calling out the Southerners on greatly benefiting from the slaves hard work while they sit around and do nothing.  This speech probably enraged Northerners more than they already were because they worked hard for what they earned and believed that slavery was wrong and inhumane.  Lincoln’s audience probably agreed with him blaming the act of war on the South and that the South was responsible for the devastation of the Civil War.

I think that both Davis and Lincoln were persuasive and did a good job of persuading their audience in their way of thinking because they both wrote in a way that was appealing to their audiences.  I think that Lincoln may have been more persuasive to an audience that extended into the south because there were some Southerners that felt that slavery was wrong and that it was against the will of God.