Essay on Out of the Silence - 1445 Words

The slave narrative genre is an important part of American history. These stories are not only portraits of individual history, but also of American history. By reading the stories of the past we can better determine the path of the future. The personal stories of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs are two excellent examples of the slave narrative genre in American literature. To be sure, bondage and oppression had a lasting and profound effect on both genders; however, men and women experienced slavery in different ways. By comparing and contrasting â€Å"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave† and â€Å"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,† we gain very different insights into the truth about slavery from the vantage†¦show more content†¦His target audience was the upper and middle class men of American society, the powerful politicians in control of American law. With that in mind, Frederick Douglass used writing tactics that res emble argumentative essays or speeches to show his audience the effects of slavery on all people who were slaves. Mr. Douglass relied mostly on the logos appeal with ethos as support. The following passage is a good example of this. . . . nevertheless plain that a very different-looking class of people are springing up at the south, and are now held in slavery, from those originally brought to this country from Africa: and if their increase will do no other good, it will do away the force of the argument, that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right. . . for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who, like myself, owe their existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own masters (Douglass 877). In this manner, Douglass used the logos appeal to attack the justifications of American slavery. Equally important, he used the ethos appeal to call attention to the character of the white men who rape slave women and sell their own children. Frederick Douglass used that strategy because he knew that the lawmakers were men who respected logic. In effect, Douglass used logic to gently force those lawmakers to reexamine their own ethicsShow MoreRelatedSurrendering to the Menacing Darkness of Silence, Fear and Inaction in Manjula Padmanabhan’s Lights Out2901 Words   |  12 Pages consumption of violence and the associated fear, deliberately and subtly illustrated by the elements of silence and darkness in Manjula Padmanabhan’s play Lights Out. Violence in India is multifaceted: not merely physical, it is more often mental and emotional, subtle and indirect, most often insidious and difficult to recognize. Lights Out is based on a true incident, an eye-witness account. The incident took place in Santa Cruz, Bombay, 1982, Read More The Virtue Of Silence Essay990 Words   |  4 Pages THE VIRTUE OF SILENCE nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Of all the virtues that most men and women disregard, it is silence. People go about in their everyday lives not even noticing the beauty of ones quot;inner silence.quot; Try an experiment: Close your eyes. Tune out the sounds from everything thats surrounding you, and focus on what is going on inside you. Take a deep breath and just listen. How many inner voices did you hear? Most people do not even realize the amount of noise that is carriedRead MoreSilence By William Shakespeare s Krapp s Last Tape Essay1591 Words   |  7 Pages Silence as a Character in Krapp’s Last Tape Krapp, a cantankerous old man attempting to relive his â€Å"best years† by listening to a tape he recorded on his thirty-ninth birthday in Beckett’s â€Å"Krapp’s Last Tape†, constantly pauses and allows silence to overwhelm him and his thoughts. 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As the onlyRead MoreSilence : A Twelfth Century French Romance1276 Words   |  6 Pages Silence: a Thirteenth Century French Romance, was translated from the original Le Roman de Silence written in thirteenth century medieval Europe by a man known as Heldris de Cornwall. The actual name of the author remains unknown. The original manuscript for the poem was discovered in 1911 in Nottingham, translated, edited in 1960, and finally published in 1972 to be read by the public. This version of Silence is a facing page translation containing both the French and th e English by Sarah Roche-MahdiRead MoreA Sermon On Judges 19927 Words   |  4 Pagesspoke of the unfortunate rape, abuse, and dismemberment of a concubine. Reading this made me stop and think; what was the purpose of this horrifying story within the Bible? What is our silence saying? Judges 19 is a text of silence. What is our silence saying? God is not speaking in this text perhaps his silence is most notable. 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