“The Things They Carried” is a text that focuses on writing as a form of coping with trauma and discusses how exaggeration is sometimes needed in a story to convey the message that the story-teller is trying to get at. An example of this is when the author talks about how for Rat Kiley “facts were formed by sensation” (89). Kiley is described as telling his stories as though they are intended to be tragedies, even the funny parts. This is because there is an underlying sadness to every war story, even though humor can be found in them. Part of this may be attributed to the ‘education’ each soldier received when they first went off to the war.
Bryan Calderon 4/9/2012 Wrt 310 Response Paper Frederick Douglass vs. Martin Luther King Jr Frederick Douglass was one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement which he fought to the end of slavery within the United States in the decades prior the Civil War. He was a brilliant speaker that was able to hold the full attention of his audiences with his charisma and past horrible experiences as a slave. He won world fame when his autobiography “The Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave” -F. Douglass 1845. Frederick Douglass suffered first-hand how brutal and vicious slave owners treated their property. The slave dealers and owners would dehumanize the slaves to the point that they had no say so in their lives or any freedom what so ever.
In Frederick Douglass's essay, "Learning to Read and Write", he describes the various teachers that assisted him in becoming literate during the era of slavery. The essay is rich with well-executed and potent literary tools that serve to both relay the struggle he endured in learning to read and write, as well as to further prove Douglass's distinguished accomplishments and ability against seemingly insurmountable odds. It is a very personal recount of a troubling time in his life, but it also correctly depicts Douglass as a capable writer with profoundly coherent thoughts. Through the use of irony, unique syntax, verbose diction, and intelligent metaphors, Frederick Douglass exhibits his ability to eloquently express himself and his personal strife. Irony is ever-present in this essay as Douglass describes his prior teaching situations.
“Her arms were stretched up at their full length, so that she stood upon the ends of her toes….he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood came dripping to the floor.” In this quote Aunt Hester is being whipped for disobeying Captain Anthony’s orders. He told her not to go out at night, and not to let him catch her in the company of other men that were paying attention to her. The violence against slaves was very gory. There are many instances where people kill slaves and nothing is done about it. “Mr.
When they laugh at her warnings and she gets upset, Minerva says, "Come on, Dede. Think how sorry you'd be if something should happen to us and you didn't say goodbye." But before they leave, she cries out her real fear: "I don't want to have to live without you." The reader knows that is her fate exactly: to live after her sisters die as martyrs, and thus to tell their story. Another instance of foreshadowing occurs after Tio Pepe reports what Trujillo said at the gathering at the mayor's house.
I became a trusted slave my all the members of the family and ran errands some which affected this family directly. I took care of his son, whom the judge in this court has conquered that is lazy and needs a whip of determination to wake him up. I never complained of his diminishing and disrespectful actions towards the blacks and his father’s slaves. My master and his sons have not
O’Brien writes “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing-these were intangibles, but intangibles has their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” (108) Death changes a solder. Cross’s solders all told jokes after the death of Ted Lavender. This was their way of making themselves deal with the loss of a close friend and soldier. “Zapped while zipping” (107) is what they all said because Lavender died while returning from going to the bathroom.
Douglass told his story in a chronological way and using a maturity tone. While Equiano’s experience taking place on the sea –Caribbean –he tell his story in such a confused way, making reader had to wonder what had happened in the stories. It also making the reader had to read several times to get what really is going on in the story. He also telling his story in such a naïve and innocent tones, believing he will be okay of being a slave as long as his master treated him well. This lead up to how both stories of Douglass and Equiano show how and what make slavery brutal cruelty, but overall Douglass’s story and experience is more strong and easier to understand, while Equiano’s story appear weak and harder to understand.
Knowledge Is Power Knowledge, as we know, can be powerful and because of this, the changes yielded by knowledge can be distinguish. The book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, is a story about a man who uses knowledge to make a change: Douglass escaped from slavery to become a leading abolitionist and one of the most important writers. It is from Hugh Auld that Douglass learns this notion that the power of knowledge can lead to the way of freedom, as Auld forbids his wife to teach Douglass how to read and write because education ruins slaves. Douglass presents his literacy as the primary way that he is able to free himself, and as his greatest tool to work for the freedom of all slaves. Throughout reading, many readers might think Douglass’s battle with Mr.
Irony is embodied largely in the justification of slavery through religion, as well as in the obliviousness of the slaveholders to the same, if not harsher, oppression they motivated after having fought against it in the American Revolution only decades before. Douglass’ diction is important to the readers understanding of the events in the story and the severity surrounding them. It also makes the whole engagement more enticing not only because it elucidates and canonizes emotions in the novel, but also because it helps to create imagery in the readers mind. He is also able to use diction and imagery to construct eloquent passages that are at the same time punctual and yet have deep emotional tolls on the reader. One such example is embodied on page in the text, “Mr.