Amazing Grace Sparknotes

Puritans and reformers of seventeenth century England have been given a bad name for their part in history. This is primarily because they were working against the grain and trying to create change in world that saw change as a threat. The time period was turbulent and there was bound to be resistance in a world that was dominated by Catholics and those that had reformed to abide by their King’s law. The puritans of the time were considered extreme and rubbed people the wrong way because they wanted a world that abided by their morals and ethical codes. For this, they took the blame for the misery that many suffered during this age, but as we see in Fire from Heaven, this is not a fair assessment. The Puritans of this time wanted to improve the lives of the people and society as a whole through morality and purity.

Many people take a stance and attempt to spread the word on the social injustices, such as slavery, that affect an abundance of people all around the world. These people, who want to see a change in the lives of several innocent people, use rhetoric techniques to influence the opinions of others in order to get the desired effect they want, which is to develop awareness related to the topic they are discussing. One effective rhetoric skill is ethos, the reliability of a source. In the movie Amazing Grace, William Wilberforce has a petition with signatures of people against the slave trade. Lord Charles Fox, who was in favor of slavery, switches sides and signs the petition in front of the Parliament.

Dorothy Allison’s essay, Panacea, recalls the fond childhood memories about her favorite dish, gravy. Allison uses vivid imagery to cook up a warm feeling about family meals to those who may be a poor family or a young mother. Appeal to the senses shows this warm feeling, along with a peaceful diction.

The poem I chose to do a close reading essay on was, “Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep” by Mary Elizabeth Frye. “Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004) is an American poet who remains known today for a single poem-a sonnet of just twelve lines-but it may be the most popular poem in the English language. “Do not stand at my grave and weep” is a consoling Holocaust poem and elegy with an interesting genesis, since it was written by a Baltimore housewife who lacked a formal education and had quite never written poetry before, and certainly none of note” (The HyperTexts). The tone of this poem is comforting and helps people find comfort with the view of death. This poem uses a lot of imagery, metaphors, and symbolism. Frye’s, “Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep,” is enlightening people how to handle a death of a loved one while using important parts of the theme such as tone, vocabulary, and overall meaning.

Chapters 2 and 3 continue with more depressing facts that chapter1 reveals. However, these are more detailed and more personal, and thereby more disturbing.Reading about these lives makes me think of people I see on the street everyday, of whom many are homeless. Being homeless used to seem like the worst existence imaginable, but after reading the first few chapters of Amazing Grace, living in Mott Haven sounds even worse to me. It is sad to think that a person without a home has more freedom than an entire community of people. Who decides that these people are expendable? Some may say that the politicians make that decision and that thereby our hands are clean. It is foolish to say that however, when we are the people who gave them that power. We do not want to admit that we often look away when we see someone in distress. Pretending nothing wrong is an easy way to go through life, regardless of how politically incorrect it may be. Ignoring the problems is simple if you are fortunate enough to be middle or upper class, but when you are poor there is nothing you can do to avoid them. People in need do not get to choose where they live. They live wherever they can afford to, or in some cases wherever they have been placed by government services. Many people in Mott Haven, the Washingtons for example, were indeed sent

The poem, “Gospel” by Philip Levine gives a vivid description of what the narrator sees around them. The narrator focuses their description on nature. They make many references to types of plants like lupine and thistles. Throughout the poem, nature can be seen as and abstract creature. Nature is giving and lively. The conflict in the poem is between the speaker and nature. The narrator tries to show how nature can give nice outdoor views and how the earth gives people a place to walk on while people give nothing back to nature. Levine’s speaker uses repetition and comparisons to show how nature is constantly pleading for the narrators attention yet they cannot offer anything to the relationship they have with nature. The poem slowly evolves

Even though the woods surrounding the magnificent southern plantations were often filled with the slaves’ songs, they did not sing because they were happy. They sang because of their sorrow. Douglass brings this sorrow to the mind’s eye by telling us, “If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul, -- and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because ‘there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.’” (Douglass, 51; quoting Cowper, The Task, book 2, line 8 (1785)). Douglass really makes his point

At first glance and after reading through Amazing Grace, it seems that Jonathan Kozol is going to take us on a journey through the lives of the underprivileged, but similar to the ones you read about, or hear in the news. However, this is not the case; the real underlying theme seems to be how the life and society they live in is very alike to a life in a prison, not because it talks explicitly about prison conditions in this area, but also because their lives are portrayed as being a prison. Kozol uses the views of children and adults throughout this book to emphasize this theme through their living conditions and personal lives, background and struggles.

He highlights how slave owners deceive themselves in order to justify their actions and maintain a peaceful state of mind. This ultimately strips the slave owners of reason and or religious purpose and thus makes them live a life of dissimulation. An example of this would illustrated through Sophia Auld, the wife of his slave master. Upon his arrival, he treated him as she treated her own. She was “a women of the the kindest heart and finest feelings.” She had never had a slave of her own and after being taught the proper ways of slavery from Hugh who believed “it was unlawful..to teach a slave to read.” She went from “that angelic face to that of a demon.” Douglass shows how her transition was terrible not only for him in experience but also for him to watch as he saw her as much of a victim as he saw himself. He depicts her as a victim of not only slavery but also of being a women as women aren’t usually responsible for slaves and are never properly educated on how slavery is suppose to work. Although traumatizing, this experience teaches him a lot. He now understands that the dehumanization of slaves by lack of power is achieved by not keeping the slaves educated. Due to the out lash of his master, he now understands that his only way to freedom will be the education of

William Wilberforce, a member of British Parliament, led a battle against Parliament to put and end to the slave trade, a brutal and inhumane business. It was not an easy feat to accomplish, lasting close to 20 years and there were many obstacles faced throughout the period. With persistence and perseverance, he and others that he worked with, were able to outlaw the slave trade of Britain. Not only did he affect his time period, but had a lasting affect on other societies, starting a movement of abolishing slavery.

Majority of African American women get judged on the day to day basis. When scrolling through social media there will be large amounts of individuals who will bully or even belittle a colored female because of the natural kinks of her hair, her sense of fashion, the full shaped curves of her body, and the color of her skin . The poem “Still I Rise” by the well-known poet, Maya Angelou, specifically describes the reasons why she had so much confidence; even if she were to be judged by her appearances and mindset. This poem is about embracing females, but it mainly introduces similar life situations that many African American women have experienced. The symbols and point of view that Angelou specifically added in her poem made her readers realize that there are many meanings to this poem.

What the average person does not know about slavery is all of the inhumane behavior that was tolerated. To describe these acts as cruel would be an understatement, Douglass does not hold back on the tragedies he witnessed and he does not hold back on sharing them with the world. For so many years slave owners comforted themselves in the thought of the romantic image of slavery, claiming it was God’s will to let these people suffer, claiming that it was not an extreme environment. The only

In his poem "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace," published in 1968, Richard Brautigan places the reader in a future realm: a sparkling utopia "where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony" (1). He draws us in by juxtaposing images of nature, man and machine that challenge us to imagine this new world. In essence, Brautigan's poem is a supplication for that dream world, but to the modern reader it can be a land of irony.

In the 1950’s the melodrama genre came to age and there is no better example than Douglas Sirk’s All that Heaven Allows. The melodrama followed some basic characteristics which can be identified in the film. First and foremost the narrative of the melodrama focused on the family. All that Heaven Allows follows the narrative of the typical melodrama but at the same time also challenges the social conventions. While Sirk follows many of the key themes he does so in a more detached fashion. The protagonist Cary is bound to her community by her social class. Change was occurring in society and the melodrama displayed people’s restraint to this. In All that Heaven Allows Sirk began his focus on the female and her desires in contrast to the more conservative male focused melodrama. As with the melodrama the legibility of the story, displayed through the plot, is simple and easy to follow. “Our engagement with the story depends on our understanding of the pattern of change and stability, cause and effect, time and space” (Bordwell and Thompson, 2008). The linear time flow of the film allows for it’s simple understanding. This is added to by the expressiveness of the melodrama, where everything is brought into the open and nothing is left unsaid. The expressiveness of the melodrama is also represented in the highly expressive mise-en-scene. Sirks use of colour, the human figure, camera work, lighting and music allow him to portray suppressed meaning and significance.

Amazing Grace is not a good movie, it is a great movie. Films on History can be lengthy and tedious, but that sure is not the case in this fascinating movie about the famous abolitionist William Wilberforce, who was responsible for steering anti-slave trade legislation through the British parliament. Contrary to what its title suggests, “Amazing Grace” isn’t really about the inauguration of the Christian hymn. Set in the 18th century England, it focuses on William’s political career to abolish the slave trade by arguing against it on the floor of the House of Commons, which placed him at odds with some of the most powerful men of the time. William is a motivated man with one purpose; endeavoring to terminate slavery in the empire.