Fredrick Douglas was a very interesting guy. After escaping from slavery he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, a writer and a statesmen. He wrote several autobiographies sharing his experiences with slavery. Douglas was also a firm believer of equality. Fredrick was a product of a rape. His mother was the slave of his fathers plantation. Fredrick did not hide the fact that his father was white and his mother was black. I find this interesting because he was not afraid to stand up for something and speak the truth even if the truth was looked down upon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass
After reading all of the poems, my favorite was Bury Me in a Free Land. It caught my eye because the author was very descriptive and I could imagine what the place looked like. I noticed that the poem was dark. The narrator was so against being buried anywhere near where slaves walked. The narrator wants to be buried in a Free Land. The land with slaves is dark and sad. It is harsh. The narrator wants to be buried in a calm grave and where no one around him is a slave. The author really got the point across when writing this poem that the slavery time was a sad, scary time. I wonder if the author intended for the narrator to be a boy or a girl. I also wonder if the narrator is slowly dying and thinking about where he wants to be buried. The word fearful in my opinion was the most important word in the poem. It showed that the slaves were scared and the land they walked was a scary place, They lived in fear and terror. After studying the word fearful, I found several interesting facts. I thought that it was interesting that in the 1300's, even though fearful meant the same thing, they spelled it many different ways. It wasn't until 1694 that the spelling was changed to what it is today. Fearful comes from the verb fear. To inspire with fear or to frighten. The suffix ful is then added to the end and meaning having or characterized by.
My sentence:
Billy's large, blue eyes were fearful as he was standing outside watching his neighbors house being burned to the ground.
I really enjoyed your paragraphs and thoughts! I liked your opinions on the poem you chose and the background behind it. Good job!
ReplyDeleteHey Jill! Your last paragraph was wonderful. I noticed that you kept refering to the author as a "him", I thought that you might want to know that Frances E. W. Harper was a woman. However, I really enjoyed the hosu\tory on the word fearful. That word is commonly used, but I have really never given a thought about how much history such a common word has. Great job!
ReplyDeleteHey Jill! I also read the poem Bury Me in a Free Land. I love the way you described the poem as this dark piece of writing, because I thought the same thing as I read the poem. Overall good job on your paragraphs!
ReplyDeleteHey Jill, I think that's very interesting that fearful had different spellings before. I also loved reading Bury me in a Fee Land, I thought this poem was very powerful and thought that it was neat that the character in the poem wanted to make sure wherever it was, he or she, were to be buried is in a land where every man and woman has the ability to walk freely.
ReplyDeleteHi Jill. I think Jack Russell's are cute little dogs. They always seem to make me laugh even when they attempt to do nothing at all. The only downside to them for me is that most of the time, they are so full of energy I have trouble keeping up with them.
ReplyDeleteI, agree with you about Fredrick Douglass, there seemed to be times within his writing that while he understood the gravity of his birth; him telling people that his first wife was the same color as his mother and him wanting his second wife to be the same color as his dad I felt that he was poking fun at a matter that was very much known but not very widely admitted to during that time. Shack value at it's finest.