Summary Of Bury Me In A Free Land

In this poem there is a lot of figurative language. One of the biggest types of figurative language used in this poem is irony. The irony in this poem is how the mother wouldn't let her child go to march because she feared her child would get hurt. Instead she sent her child to church because she believed it was a safe and sacred place but ironically the church ended up being bombed. Another piece of figurative language that is very effective in this poem is imagery. The way the poem is written helps me create images in my head for example, "She raced through the streets of Birmingham." I can imagine her running around desperately, looking for her child. The metaphors and hyperboles in this poem also help with the imagery, for example, "...night dark hair," and "…rose-petal sweet." These metaphors make me think of the girls smoothly combed black hair and her fresh and beautiful rosy smell. A hyperbole that had a huge effect on the tone was, "But that smile was the last smile to ever come upon her face." This hyperbole really helps me understand the effect of a tragic moment like this and how it can completely ruin

Secondly, the speaker of the poem can be described as underprivileged, and this is shown throughout the entire poem. For example, line 1 of the poem it states "some are teethed on a silver spoon” and line 5 it states "some are swaddled in silk and down”. This shows that the speaker is not the same as the person who is teethed on a silver spoon or cared for very carefully. This inclusion also shows that the speaker was not born into a wealthy family and so the speaker must fight for what they need pertaining to themselves and the family.

In her address, she used pathos to grab the attention of the audience, by talking about happiness being achieved only by doing things that benefited others and that enslaving another is no different from dehumanizing them. The structure of her address shows the passion she had for the freedom of her people as well as the urge to unite women to join her cause. In her essay, she wants to inspire women to connect their maternal instincts to the abolitionist movement and give sympathy to the slaves as if they were their own flesh and blood.

Alliteration and metaphors are two major elements of this poem. The repetition of consonant sounds and alliteration occurs throughout the poem. All of the lines strongly use the repetition of consonants and alliteration except for lines two and seven. In addition to that, the controlling figure of speech in this poem is a metaphor. It is strongly articulated in the first line, and as the one continues to read, it is amplified and extended throughout the rest of the poem. The metaphor compares mask of Line 1 to the fabricated emotive facades that African-Americans had made use of in order to avert provoking their oppressors.

This glaring contrast between imagination and reality—between the imagined world of the song and the horrifying world of the slave—evokes an overwhelming sense of horror. How can one not recognize the desperation in these escapist songs? The dichotomy between freedom and imagined freedom is the very reason why the slave song cannot be a “happy” one.

Cullen uses auditory imagery to draw his readers in to hear what he hears. The meaning of this poem is to take the reader on a journey of what the negro felt about

Those help you to start to imagine half of what the slaves have to go through on a daily basis. She also uses details such as the ways that the crowd reacted to her speech such as “[a yell from the mob without the building]” (Angelina Grimke Weld). Which shows that even though there was quite a large number of people who did not agree with what she had to say on the matter of slavery she did not care and she continued to preach about it. There were people who were throwing bricks at the windows and shouting during her speech and she still continued to try and get the people to side with her.

Now this story talks about the feeling’s blacks or colored and how they still remember slavery. In both poems they use some form of

Written in the first half of the 20th century, “Let America Be America” is a poem that documents and responds to the oppressed state of the United States, in both the past and present. The poem is a plea for a return to the original principles of freedom that our country has seemingly forgotten. Additionally, the speaker sees America as the broken home to oppressed people who have lost sight of the ultimate goal of freedom and happiness. Although America is often perceived as the “land of the free,” Langston Hughes’s poem contradicts this ideology by not only painting a vivid picture of oppression in America but also by providing a desperate hope for the future.

They vividly depict the gruesome image of lynching and set the tone. “An example of this is ‘ Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh, then the sudden smell of burnin’ flesh’ the image of one moment, smelling the sweet flowers as you were outside, then the horrid smell of burning flesh instantly enters your mind. Juxtaposition also helps with this” (Strange Fruit). Juxatopostion helps get the image across revealing its message. The poem’s tone is dark and dull, and when the speaker reads it they have a serious tone. This relates to the theme of the poem because the theme is protest. When you talk about protest against something you are serious about the point you want to get across and that is what this poem is doing, trying to get its idea across seriously. This poem relates to history because it has to do with racism. “The key players of this story were all drastically affected by racism in America” (Meaning). Racism goes back many years before Meeropol wrote the poem. This poem was a global news flash on how far racism was being taken because of deep and clear he creates a picture in your mind using

Under the line, "I've been a victim" the speaker says, "The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. / They lynch me still in Mississippi." These lines demonstrate that obviously the speaker is symbolic of the black race, and is not just one person. However, the author wrote them as if it were one person and that proves to be very effective, especially in this stanza. The use of the first person voice allows the author to illustrate suffering in a very personal way, while simultaneously making the statement that each person carries with them the suffering, if not the experience, of past generations.

The main observation readers could take from this poem is that the “lower” individual has to take care of and pick up after the white man. It is even hinted at that the poems the mother chant rival the alleged master of poetry’s own works.

When delving into the song and trying to grasp the meaning, it can be understood that the author really desires to be free and go back home to where he belongs and desires. The author or writer of the song does not like the idea of slavery, nor does he like being a slave himself, his perspective on the topic shows that he is not happy about the current situation and no one should because of how cruel slavery is. The author also uses certain rhetorical strategies, one of them being metaphors. They can be used to explain his sadness and other feelings he has about the topic of slavery. An example of this is,

Ever since I was young, I’ve been taught that you must treat everyone equally. No matter how they look or act. I was always told not to judge others or treat them as they were inferior than me. To put the wellbeing of others before me. It sickens me, whenever I see someone being mistreated. I could somehow feel what the person is feeling, because I have been mistreated too.

There is a distinct contrast between appearance and reality, which works to reinforce the idea of confining individualistic behaviours to retain the ‘pattern’ of society. In stanza two, she says that “tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes/ (there is) not a softness anywhere about (her)” (lines 16 and 17) when she’s wearing “only whalebone and brocade” (line 18.) The term ‘whalebone’ refers to a whalebone corset, which is a very hard material that is restrictive to movement. By describing her actions as ‘tripping,’ a modern day feminist reader is reinforced that she is not coping in her current lifestyle where she is limited to living in a strict manner. In the next stanza, she says that “underneath (her) stiffened gown/ Is the softness of a woman” (lines 32 and 33.) This develops the idea that the way she dresses is a deceiving appearance, because she is not as stiff and stable on the inside as she comes across on the outside. Deep down she is soft and sad, in mourning of the loss of her lover, yet she cannot express these emotions due to the expectations and restrictions of women during the Victorian era.