African American Literature

Two of the voices discussed here were slaves, and their expression of the slave experience demonstrates clearly how human the selves really were, what effect the fact of slavery had upon them, and how severely the soul is tested by such adversity. Phyllis Wheatley was born in Gambia and then captured and brought to New England as a slave. Certainly, she was not free to express herself as would have been a free woman of the time, and for this reason her poetry was long misunderstood by other blacks who thought that she accepted slavery when in fact she made use of irony and metaphor to express her desire and yearning for freedom. Her soul was able to express itself even through the constraints placed upon it by the institution of slavery. The irony is apparent in her poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America," a poem which on the surface indicates thankfulness that she was

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mals and taking away their hope. Yet hope was always possible even in the worst circumstances, and the boy rekindled his hope when he challenged Mr. Covey and beat him. After that time, the boy felt that he was treated differently than he had been before: The battle with Mr. Covey was the turning-point in my career as a slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence, and inspired me again with a determination to be free. The gratification afforded by the triumph was a full compensation for whatever else might follow, even death itself (Douglass 2378). Both Douglass and Wheatley achieved some sense of empowerment and dignity by being able to challenge the white world that was enslaving them, Douglass more openly, Wheatley through the subtext of her poetry. They were able tin this way to get in touch with their respective souls and to hear what those entities said to them, and they then recorded this in their writing. Henry David Thoreau was a man who listened carefully to his own soul throughout his life. One of Thoreau's most famous experiments was the time he spent at Walden Pond communing with nature and learning about h
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1484
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)