Cruel And Unusual Punishments In Nightjohn

In Chapter 4 of Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen, Sarny begins to tell about gruesome events that teach the reader about how rough slavery truly was. The first person Sarny mentions was Alice who wanders around without doing much more was caught near the whitehouse. She was then handcuffed and whipped, and when it was all set and done she had massive cuts on her back and all over her body. The next person she tells about was Jim who attempted to run away. That did not work out because Waller sent the dogs after him, and they tore his legs to shreds and left him on a tree to die. After Jim was Pawly who met with a girl every night, and one night while walking back after he fell asleep near the other plantation the dogs were sent after him and

---reading review of <<Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and a True Tale of Slavery>>

Slavery was an embarrassing time in America’s history. In 2016, slavery has become a distant memory. It’s easy for us to admit that slavery is wrong but, in Frederick Douglass’s time no one thought that it was. Frederick Douglass went on to write books and give speeches in hope that one day all slaves would be free. In the book called “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, he attempts to shine light on the American Slave system in the 1800’s.

This is an essay about NightJohn and how he needed to use Bravery, leadership, and freedom to gain control. NightJohn is a book about slavery and not just any slaves but NightJohn and Sarny.

In these two tales of brutal bondage, Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the modern reader can decipher two vastly different experiences from circumstances that were not altogether that dissimilar. Both narratives tell the story of a slave gaining his or her freedom from cruel masters, yes, but that is where the most prominent similarities end. Not only are they factually different, these stories are entirely distinct in their themes.

Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass both wrote narratives that detailed their lives as slaves in the antebellum era. Both of these former slaves managed to escape to the North and wanted to expose slavery for the evil thing it was. The accounts tell equally of depravity and ugliness though they are different views of the same rotten institution. Like most who managed to escape the shackles of slavery, these two authors share a common bond of tenacity and authenticity. Their voices are different—one is timid, quiet, and almost apologetic while the other one is loud, strong, and confident—but they are both authentic. They both also through out the course of their narratives explain their desires to be free from the horrible practice of slavery.

The young adult novel Nightjohn depicts the plight of enslaved African-Americans from the point-of-view of an adolescent so that readers can feel as well as learn about the difficulties experienced by slaves in the antebellum south. The book revolves around the prohibition of teaching slaves how to read. In the novel, a former escaped slave named John teaches a young girl named Sarney how to read. John or 'Nightjohn' as he is called, slips into the slave barracks at night when the whites of the plantation are sleeping, and attempts to spread empowering knowledge to his people. John could have remained safe in the north but he chose to return because of his belief in the power of the written word.

Night john was a book about a escaped slave. He went back into the south to help other slaves escape. He taught slaves to be able to read and write. The NightJohn book was published in 1993 and the movie was created in 1996. There was bravery and prejudice even the feeling of freedom in this book and movie. NightJohn was a brave man even with the risk of slavery over his head.

Slavery was a big problem in the south in the 1800’s. Slaves were whipped, shot, and tortured in every way possible. They were often auctioned off for money, so they had many different friends and families. Nightjohn was a free slave who had something no one could ever take from him. He had letters. He shared these letters with a female slave named Sarny for some tobacco. Slaves weren’t supposed to know letters, so they had to have private lessons and no one could know.

In the book titled The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South, author John Blassingame’s theme, focused on the history of African slave experience throughout the American South. After much research, the author said in the preface that most historians focused more on the planter instead of the slave. He also pointed out that most of the research on slaves by previous historians was based on stereotypes, and do not tell the real history of slave life and a slave’s inner self. Most of these historians, who focused on antebellum southern history, left out the African-American slave experience on purpose. Through much gathering of research, Blassingame hoped to correct this injustice to the history of African-American slaves, and show how slavery affected slaves, but also American life, culture, and thought.

In chapter 4 of Nightjohn, by Gary Paulsen, many terrifying events happened. Alice, a field hand that became a breeder, ran away after being forced to breed. She didn’t get far, so she was eaten up by Clel Waller’s dogs; she didn’t die, but she was cut up very bad. Sarny, a 12 year old narrator, recalls two slaves that ran away and what happened to them. Jim ran away and when he was caught the next morning, he got eaten up by the dogs and died there. Pawley was sneaking out to meet up with a female slave on a different plantation; when he was caught, he got bitten the by the dogs, and got a big cut from Waller, so he bled to death. The night Alice ran away, Sarny learned the second and third letter of the alphabet from Nightjohn. Nightjohn

Being raised as slaves; both Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass devoted their professional life for telling their true story based on their own experience. As a matter of fact, their works “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” (1861) and “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” (1845) are considered the most important works in the genre of slave narrative or of enslavement. Thus, this paper will compare and contrast between Jacobs and Douglass in terms of the aforementioned works.

Many Citizens in the United States don’t understand the true history of our country, so the true terror of slavery is often left untold. Nightjohn is a novel written by Gary Paulsen that tells the tale of a little girl that was enslaved named Sarney. In this novel, Gary Paulsen shows how horrific slavery was, and how slaves dealt with the cruelty of their treatment. Although Gary Paulsen’s novel, Nightjohn, is considered historical fiction, the descriptions of the harsh work conditions, the cruel punishments that they dealt with, and the bond between the slaves can be corroborated with multiple sources.

Nightjohn , that word might stick out to you. Nightjohn was a book and it was set back in time where you usually had slaves. But in this time period only slaves lived in the south. It was part of the cotton industry revolution in America. In this book is how slaves got treated and how it affected them. Nightjohn taught many lessons some being in that time period and that situation. This Book told a true story. Although in the time period it was right to do these things and you relate to some of them it taught us how much freedom we take for granted , equal right , and bravery. Some of the themes that we weaved into this book can be related to now.

Society wields the power to influence people’s ideas and personal beliefs by choosing a version of history. In Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, Marlow consoles Kurtz’s Intended by telling her that “the last word he pronounced was your name” to create an improved version of Kurtz so that his legacy can live with good memories, further demonstrating how the manipulation of one’s beliefs is easier than expected (Conrad 101). Sometimes it is necessary to spare one’s emotions, but manipulation of one's last words and writings forever alters how history presents Kurtz. The same philosophy also applies to Natasha Tretheway’s poem collection, Native Guard. In Tretheway’s history classes, she learned about the lives of slaves. In “Southern History” Tretheway’s history book presents the slaves as “happy...The slaves were clothed, fed and better off under a master’s care” when in reality this “happiness” could be no further from the truth (Tretheway 38). Slaves lived awful lives for their owners treated them as property. Yes, the book is not wrong when it states that they were “clothed” and “fed,” but their clothes were often rags, and the amount of food presented to the slaves was barely enough to survive (Tretheway 38). The school history textbooks present an alternate truth to society to give those they enslaved a cleaner legacy. In her poem “Scenes From A Documentary History of Mississippi” Trethewey portrays the alteration of history yet again. In King Cotton, 1997, a