Emancipation: A Life Fable '

The book Honky is a memoir of a privileged white boy, Dalton Conley, who grows up in the projects on the lower east side of New York, where the majority residents are African American and Latinos. It’s a detailed memoir of the child’s point of view in his eyes of the environment that surrounds him: school, parks, buses, etc. Conley’s has two working parents, mother is a writer and father is a struggling artist who at one point was living on food stamps while raising the family in the projects. However, even while growing up in the projects, the mother stereotype and tries to “protect” her son from the “bad” things that happen within the projects.

“I am self-propelled; fueled from within. I appreciate people’s opinions, but I am not attached to them. I learned a long time ago that if I give them the power to feed me, I also give them the power to starve me.” -Dr. Steve Maraboli. When I read this quote I thought he was describing that no one can hold him back and he is going to be free. My question is what does it mean to be free? Does it mean not caring what others think about you? Or is it being free to accomplish your dreams with no regrets and nothing holding you back? Being free means different things to different people. In the poem “Caged Bird,” by Maya Angelou, she talks about two types of people one being caged and one being free. In his poem “Mother to Son,” Langston Hughes talks about there will bumps in the road of life, but you have to forge your path to be free. In the poem, “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost discusses the two roads a person can take, either you can be free and not care about other's opinions, or you can be trapped by everyone’s thoughts about you. You can be free by not caring about others opinion’s on you, but by making your own path. So will you choose to be free or will you choose to be dragged down by other’s opinions about you?

The second theme is: there is always Hope. In spite of all the terrible events in Ishmael’s life, he finds a way to overcome everything and find love again and meaning to his existence again.

“The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave” revolves around the life of Esteban Montejo: who once set his life is the Caribbean island of Cuba; in which this story provides readers with another distinctive approach to teaching the lives of slavery. As the narration progresses through this writing, readers consequently have many opportunities to annotate how the abolition of slavery played a great role in his personal life. Evidently, whether it is intentional or unintentional, the narrator frequently mentions the ending of slavery, as he substantially detailed “…till slavery left Cuba,” (Barnet 38); “… I got to know all these people better after slavery was abolished,” (Barnet 58); and “It was after Abolition that the term ‘effeminate’ came into

In The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States, Berlin draws attention to various parts of anti-slavery resistance that often escape consideration. He emphasizes the efforts of African Americans themselves. Berlin brings together main ideas, events, and people who made slave emancipation in the U.S. possible and that American freedom as a complex, disputed process. The author is not focused on speeches, written arguments, and petitions against slavery but with how slaves and free blacks took steps to permanently pull apart forced servitude in the face of crushing hostility. Author Glenn David Brasher of The Peninsula Campaign and the Necessity of Emancipation: African Americans and the Fight for Freedom zooms in and focuses

In 1776, Jefferson unsuccessfully drafted the Virginian constitution to include a provision that prevented new slaves from entering the territory. This, to Jefferson, was a pragmatic and early attempt that sought to prevent the growth of slavery while simultaneously satisfying the current Virginian slaveholders. Two years later, Jefferson again pushed for a similar bill that disallowed the entrance of African slaves into American territories. Jefferson’s initial attempts at emancipationist legislation reflect his commitment for pragmatic methods of ending slavery. Jefferson did not pursue bills that would eradicate the institution entirely, but laws that would regulate slavery and slow its growth in America. However, Jefferson failed to

The American Civil War was a chaotic and bloody conflict for the United States. While the Civil War was not strictly fought over slavery, it was a central factor. At the outbreak of the war, there were approximately four million slaves in the Union. With Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, those slaves were declared free men. However a large majority of those slaves were located in territory held by the Confederacy, and it was not until the end of the conflict that that these men and women actually saw their freedom. Lincoln had put serious consideration into how to go about ending slavery, but had not fully developed the logistical aspect of what would happen to these men and women after the war. It was not until 1865 that the Union

The American Civil War and the ending of slavery through issuing the Emancipation Proclamation are the two crucial events of U.S. history. Perhaps the war would not have occurred if slavery did not exist because it is one of the main reasons that the southerners and northerners got into conflict. However, if there was no Civil War and Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation declaring the freedom of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America, then slavery and liberation would not have taken the same course. Thus, the Emancipation Proclamation was a momentous event that many historians have been discussed its significance in U.S. history and that a lot of people now are still

I have two themes that I think are extremely important, the raise from rags to riches and storytelling. For the rag to riches we look at how in Aladdin' s Lamp although Aladdin didn't have a lot at first throughout the story he has nothing but his mother and even though the magician traps him in the cave he manages to get out with the help of a genie. The genie gave Aladdin riches, a lot of the stories told follow this format as well. The character has little to start out with but in the end gets prosperity. Storytelling is important to this because it is how the wife reaches the king. Without her storytelling she wouldn't have been able to live as long as she did, he probably would have killed him by then. She uses storytelling as a way to

Contrastingly, this theme was developed through the dialogues of the two primary characters, Jesse and Rene. Furthermore, there are many similarities and differences in how the two authors develop the themes in each text. In the first excerpt, “The Count of Monte Cristo” the central idea was that there is always a ray of hope in the worst circumstances. This theme portrayed a prisoner who had “resolved to die,” but was full of hope by the end of the excerpt.

Theme is an integral part of this story and is mostly presented through the narrator. One of the major themes of the story is conscience, in which many of the conflicts in the

I think trust is the big theme out of those three, it really goes with this story. I believe trust is the main theme because in the story the the boy tried to take Mrs. Jones pocketbook shortly after that she took the boy to her house. When she did Mrs. Jones shows how she trusted the boy in the text it says “The woman did not watch the boy to see if he was to run now, nor did she watch her purse which she left behind her on the day-bed.” This show how Mrs. Jones trusted the boy not to do anything to make her not trust him. I feel as the

| The theme of this story is that there is beauty and hope in anything and everything as long as you work for it. This story

The theme in a short story is the message about life or human nature that is “the focus” in the story that the writer tells (Glossary...3) In Desiree’s baby one of the themes in the story was about family love.”Marriage, and later the birth of his son had softened Armand Aubigny’s imperious and exacting nature greatly” This quote elaborates how familial love transforms Armand into a man with love and happiness in his heart and feelings towards the slaves. He had a different mind set towards his slaves, he was very cruel to his slaves. Until he met Desiree and fell in love with her and in the process of their love they brought into the world a baby boy. And Armand being the husband and father loved his child like so and took care of him. That

Whenever Abraham Lincoln heard “anyone arguing for slavery” he would “feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally”. Experiencing slavery first hand would definitely give someone an opposing view towards slavery. Despite the quick fix for slavery this option offers, it is not one of the more humane or reasonable choices. Slavery has a long history as something that will ruin a person’s life. One of the most horrific outcomes of human nature, slavery becomes recognizable not only as an outward and physical bondage, but as something that controls people’s emotions and financial statuses. Enslaved people are often pitied, and treated as if they have no control over the matter. Several notable works, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston focus on varying aspects of slavery. The main characters in these books all undergo some form of slavery. Whether enslaved physically, economically, or mentally, perseverance, knowledge, and a mind open to change will most often result in freedom from one’s bondages.