ENGLISH: Slave Narratives

1. DISCUSSION BOARD (200 WORDS)

READ:

Douglass: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1006-1022)

Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Preface and Books I, VII, X, XLI (914-942)

READ:

Recorded Memmories: In Their Own Voices

Digitally enhanced recordings originally made by folklorists in the 1930's of ex-slaves describing their memories. This is one of the more remarkable pieces of history you'll hear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWqVMNUawso

READ:

Frederick Douglass, the Poem

When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,
this man, superb in love and logic, this man
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues' rhetoric,
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.

By Robert Hayden

For an audio clip of the poet reading this piece, go here - http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175757

Discussion Question:

Excerpt from one of the most powerful speeches Frederick Douglass ever read in public - July 5, 1852:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the he constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

DB: How was it (is it?) possible for Americans to reconcile our rhetoric of "independence" and "liberty" with the bald facts of our history?

2. Weekly wiki (150 words). Mark page number please.

Students will choose a short excerpt / quote from one of the readings of that week, type it in, then add a short (150 words or so) explanation for your choice. Was your selection important because it:

• is an example of beautiful or striking language?
• exemplifies a particular theme or character?
• makes the reader think about something in a new way?
• is typically "American" in some way (and in what way)?
• was just something that you liked?

Try not to use the same quote that someone else already has; if you must, make sure that what you say about it is original.
For example:

"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." Thomas Paine.

I chose this quote because I think it is a good example of Enlightenment thought which was very popular during the late 1700's. Paine is rejecting formal ties to any specific country or any particular religion (humanist world view). He is focused on the here and now, not an afterlife, and this concern is evident in his writing about social and political systems that influenced the thinkers behind the American Revolution. The language is simple and straightforward.

3. Write responses for other three student's work. (Just simple reply around 50-75 words each will be fine)

First student:

Whitman's poem, "Song of Myself," embodies numerous examples Transcedental principles. As we learned earlier in the week, these prinicples do not center around the belief of a God, but the idea that individual withholds all the power and knowledge. A basic principal of transcedentalism is that individuals do not necessarily not believe in God, but life is can be better explained through mankind itslef. Whitman constantly references God in his poem, but not as higher power looking down and protecting everyone. Whitman states that God is everywhere that he looks, in every face, including his own, "I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass." It is evident that Whitman is spiritual and wants to become one with the world surrounding him. He wants to connect with every object and indivudual on a spiritual level and understand its purpose in the world. I would not consider transcedentalism as a religion. It can be considered more of a state of mind.

Second student:

His basic premise is to say he can see god everywhere in every letter "dropped on the street" tells me he doesn't believe in god as most religions see it. He puts himself squarely in the middle of the universe when he states that "who can be more wonderful than myself". This line comes off as very narcissistic especially when you think of telling someone else the world doesn't evolve around them. It also applies to Aristotle's principle of "know thyself". Another basic premise found in the poem that "nature is a living mystery" can be found when he says "I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go," basically saying it is a mystery for who each and every letter is for. He shows all the basic premises in this short poem. I believe these beliefs are kind of selfish and really try to make yourself more important than you really are.

Third student:

Walt Whitman's poem is very interesting because it seems that he is trying to explain that God is in everything and everyone, it all depeneds on how you express yourself. He is certain that there is such thing as God and it lies within each person, so in order to see what God is, you have to look deeply within someone or something. This coresponds with the Transcendent principals because it almost seems that what Whalt is trying to say is that everyone generates a certain symbol of God and everyone is unique. This coorelates with the transcendant principles becasue they state that evertyhing in nature is unique and symbollic.