Weekly Blog Post 10/24

In "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an Amerocan Slave", Douglass speaks about how when he learned from Mr. Hugh that literacy was the key to freedom. There are a few reasons why this is true. The first is that it proved that black people were equal to white people, which in turn made it harder to justify keeping them as slaves. One of the defenses of slavery was that black people were not as capable as white people, so keeping them as slaves actually benefitted them, but when it was made clear that they were just as intelligent, they could no longer be dehumanized. Also, literacy gave slaves a powerful connection to the outside world. Without being able to read and write, they could only communicate with and learn from people they could speak with in person, in other words, people near them. However, once they could read and write, they could educate themselves with books by people from all over the world and, though it would be very difficult to get them sent, write letters to anyone. Finally, literacy allowed slaves to read written works that argued against slavery, which in turn lead them to loathe it and be more passionate than ever about freedom. In short, being able to read and write had a strong connection to freedom for slaves during Douglass's time for many reasons, all of which had to do with the empowerment that came with it.

What was the reason for the harsh punishment of slaves for minor offenses?

In "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, we learned about the harsh punishments slaves recieved for small offenses. The question is, why is this the casse? Well, the easy answer would be that slave owners wanted to keep the slaves under control through fear. However, while I believe that was definitely a factor, I don't think it's a story. First, as Douglass pointed out, many slave owners were very cruel and just enjoyed giving out punishment. Also, there is another important factor he hints at. When he talks about his new master, he explains that even though at first she was very nice, soon, she became cruel. While he doesn't go into more detail, this makes it clear that many slave owners just gave out harsh punishment because they had the power to do so. Perhaps this points to a greater issue with humanity, but the point I really widh to make is that keeping slaves under control was not the sole reason for slave owners dealing out harsh punishment for minor offenses.

MFAH Romantic Art

I recently visited the MFAH to see paintings from the era I'm studying, the Romantic Era. The painting I chose to write about is "Coastal Scene with Shipping and Cattle" by Thomas Gainsborough. I feel it really represents the Romantic Era well. One big reason for that is that one of its central subjects is the cows. See, in the Romantic Era, big cities started to emerge. Therefore, people often reminisced about simple country life and nature. The cattle in the picture clearly represent this, because of course cattle farming is a simple lifestyle.

Weekly ELA Blog Week of 10/3

A Poison Tree

by William Blake

I was angry with my friend; 

I told my wrath, my wrath did end. 

I was angry with my foe: 

I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

And I waterd it in fears, 

Night & morning with my tears: 

And I sunned it with smiles, 

And with soft deceitful wiles. 

And it grew both day and night. 

Till it bore an apple bright. 

And my foe beheld it shine, 

And he knew that it was mine. 

And into my garden stole, 

When the night had veiled the pole; 

In the morning glad I see; 

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

"The Poison Tree" by William Blake is from the Romantic Era of poetry, which has a few central characteristics. The first is the common themes of emotion and imagination. This is reflected in the poem, as the main topic is anger, an emotion, and it stems from the imaginative idea of a tree sprouting from anger. The next characteristic is use of common or simple subjects as well as just vocabulary in general. That fits, as the main symbol in this poem is just an apple tree, and though it's a little odd for us in the twenty first century, the vocabulary of the poem is still noticeably pretty basic. The final characteristic I'll mention is that poems from the Romantic Era are often strongly opinionated and one sided. "The Poison Tree" clearly shows this, as the speaker clearly hates the foe and is glad to see him harmed by the poison apple.

ELA Blog Post Week of 9-26

I am analyzing the theme of "Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou. I believe the message she wishes to convey in this poem is that beauty is more than skin deep. She talks about "them", and how "they" wonder how she's so beautiful without being a perfect model of what is considered physically attractive. For example, when she says "Men themselves have wondered/ What they see in me" she's saying even she doesn't fit what men consider good looking, but they are still drawn to her by her other traits. These other traits that are mostly more than just what is traditionally considered attractive, and she lists them in the four lines after every line that says "I say,". Most aren't physical at all, like "The need for my care" and "The fire in my eyes". There are a few physical ones, like "The arch of my back" and "the curl of my lips", but they could also be results of a good attitude. Either way, I believe it's clear the theme of the poem is that true beauty is more than meets the eye.

Metaphors in The Young Man's Song

The author of The Young Man's Song uses metaphors to add meaning to the poem. He writes about how he's flipping a penny to decide whether he should fall in love. Of course, this is just a metaphor for his almost random decision that he is suddenly the right age to be in love. Of course, he ends up realizing love is a convoluted thing that wraps him up and confuses him. You can tell by the wording he uses when the subject of love comes up ("crooked", "shadows eaten the moon", etc.) that he has negative feelings about it. The penny is a metaphor for how randomly and uncontrollably the he's thrown into this scary thing called love. In short, the metaphor changes the meaning by showing how falling in love was not really an event within the speaker's control.

Recently I attended the “Out of the Amazon” exhibit at the HMNS. It was an exhibit on the cultures of the many people living within the Amazon. While there I learned lots from the artifacts that were there, the written information, the videos, and the docent. As I toured the exhibit and took in all sorts of information on things like the food sources, rituals, clothing, housing, and just culture in general of the Amazons,
though, I noticed something odd.
I first caught wind of it while the docent was showing us the chairs that shamans sat in, which were shaped like animals to capture their spirits and give their power to the shamans who sat in them. This was very interesting in itself, but as the docent answered a question from another student and I took a moment to take in the chairs, I noticed a photograph behind them. It seemed at first to be just a photo of an Amazonian man carrying a few baskets. Something else caught my eye, though. The man was very clearly wearing a watch and a pair of jeans. How odd. I asked the docent about it, who explained he had probably traded something with tourists or anthropologists for it. That's when it hit me. This man, with items from another culture, reminded me greatly of what I had read about in “Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes, the Anthropology of Museums” by Michael M. Ames. The specific term for what I was noticing is, I believe, cultural appropriation.

It became so clear now that this is in fact exactly what I saw. This man, from a completely different culture from mine, holding an artifact from United States culture. Just as in Ames’s book, I’m almost positive that there is very little, if any, representation of US culture down in the Amazon to explain to them the significance of the watch in our country and the ways time telling affect our society. Plus, it's very possible that a very unfair trade when down when the man came into ownership of the watch. He most likely traded off some item that they have plenty of in his tribe for something as significant as a watch, basically an embodiment of the American factory system we're based on. Plus, since he’s the one in touch with his tribe members and he understands the economic system there, he could potentially make a very unbalanced deal and his American trade partners would have no idea.

I think these next 2 pictures really demonstrate how unjust this system is. We trade off everyday objects like boats, which the Amazon people take and use for their own gain, and in doing so change their own culture to the point where traditions like Yākwa are affected, and then they turn around and give us their own everyday objects, like fishing nets, which start to appear in the lives of common people here by showing up in the museum exhibits the public sees, and so our culture which was previously untouched by Amazon culture is tainted by it.
In short, what I saw at the HMNS visit was evidence that many Amazonian people are appropriating our USA culture while at the same time filling our country with fragments of their own culture.