Enslaved People In Nightjohn

First of all, Nightjohn had escaped the terrors of slavery before, yet he came back, so that he could teach children to read and write. Nightjohn felt that knowledge was power. Slave owners didn’t want their slaves learning anything due to the fact that they didn’t want them to be smart, they worried that the slaves could outsmart them. Waller was included in this opinion. While explaining why they weren’t supposed to read Nightjohn mentioned, “ ‘Cause to know things, for us to know things, is bad for them. We get to wanting and when we get to wanting it’s bad for them. They thinks we want what they got.” (page 39). Sarny then mentioned that she wanted what they had. Nightjohn was trying to help Sarny get a life that she deserved. He continued to push forward, moving closer and closer to teaching Sarny how to read and write. His determination helped Sarny continue to work to get to a place that she was happy with.

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.

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.

Throughout American history, minority groups were victims of American governmental policies, and these policies made them vulnerable to barbaric and inhumane treatment at the hands of white Americans. American slavery is a telling example of a government sanctioned institution that victimized and oppressed a race of people by indoctrinating and encouraging enslavement, racism and abuse. This institution is injurious to slaves and slave holders alike because American society, especially in the south, underwent a dehumanization process in order to implement the harsh and inhumane doctrine. In the episodic autobiography Narrative of the

Nightjohn was influenced by real slave interviews. One of the interviews in the archive is an interview from Uncle Billy McCrea. McCrea said,”...they’d take them, hang them up by his thumb.” In the story Nightjohn, one

My paper is an attempt to analyze the entire era of slavery and its later effects upon the lives of Africans who were brought forcefully to America as slaves and even after its abolition were treated inhumanly. My major attempt is to get an in depth insight of the struggles of these people for their survival in such an environment and the predicament of black women who were doubly oppressed; were the victims of both the whites and black men; and treated as naked savages and beasts, with Alice Walker’ masterpiece and Pulitzer prize winning The Color Purple. I have taken this project with my keen interest because the novel touched me deeply and I wanted to analyze it thoroughly.

Slavery is a contradictory subject in American history because “one hears…of the staid and gentle patriarchy, the wide and sleepy plantations with lord and retainers, ease and happiness; [while] on the other hand on hears of barbarous cruelty and unbridles power and wide oppression of men” (Dubois 2). Dubois’s The Negro in the United States is an autoethnographic text which is a representation “that the so-defined others

Nightjohn, a novel written by Gary Paulsen is set in the south during the time of slavery and tells about a young slave girl, Sarny, who is taught to read by another slave, Nightjohn. Nightjohn has escaped to the North where he became taught to examine, however, he maintains coming back to the south to in addition train the slaves of the plantations. Nightjohn meets Sarny and convinces her that she have to discover ways to study, understanding the effects. Nightjohn makes Sarny promise that she will never say or write the letters that he is coaching her. Sarny is a slave that is curious, willing to learn and she came out weird.

The atrocities of slavery know no bounds. Its devices leave lives ruined families pulled apart and countless people dead. Yet many looked away or accepted it as a necessary part of society, even claiming it was beneficial to all. The only way this logic works is if the slaves are seen as less than human, people who cannot be trusted to take care of themselves. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved the consequences of a lifetime of slavery are examined. Paul D and seethe, two former slaves have experienced the worst slavery has to offer. Under their original master, Mr. Garner the slaves were treated like humans. They were encouraged to think for themselves and make their own decisions. However, upon the death of Mr. Garner all of that changes. Under

Ch.1 Most of us re aware of the African-American history containing much violence, oppression and belittling. However, grasping all the details of what they experienced is difficult Even upon receiving their “freedom” they were greeted with another era of beatings, humility, shame and, worst of all, lynching. When, quite literally, the shackles came off, they believed a better life awaited them in the near distance. Instead, they were shoved back into a state of fear and shame for those who lived in the south.

this puts more facts to support that night John was a factual novel considering that there is multiple accounts of slaves mentioning pit schools. The slaves it really made a system where they went to learn to read and write these pit schools are more detailed in Night

For Frederick Douglass and all other slaves, the singing of songs and religion were more of an affirmation of the joy in life rather than a rejection of worldly pleasures and temptations. They spoke out against the perils of bondage and asserted their right to be free. Despite the success of African Americans to develop a subculture, which afforded them an escape from their hardcore reality, pain and struggle persisted. There are many similarities, which can be drawn from the experiences of slavery as described by Frederick Douglass and the analogy to a Nazi prison camp included in the Stanley Elkins Thesis. Elkins asserted that slavery in the United States was similar to the conditions of a Nazi concentration camp because both exerted total physical and psychological control over its subordinates. In both cases, the subordinates were not allowed any personal freedoms, which included education, leisure, or any other personal allowance. Thomas Auld, the master of Frederick Douglass in Baltimore, said A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master-to do as he is told to do. (pg. 57) He was referring to the wrongfulness of his wife 's attempt to educate Frederick Douglass. Implicitly, this was the view held by most whites toward African Americans. Consequently, other adjectives such as: lazy, irresponsible, childlike, and simple-minded, were used by whites to describe the African American

Even though freedom has been our nation’s identity for its entire existence, our nation has suffered “dark ages” when the freedoms of African Americans were repressed. During the period of slavery, African Americans were forced to labor under often cruel and gruesome conditions, for their white masters. Solomon Northup, a free man forcefully made a slave, describes his thoughts on slavery in his 12 Years a Slave:

Prior to the publication of any slave narrative, African Americans had been represented by early historians’ interpretations of their race, culture, and situation along with contemporary authors’ fictionalized depictions. Their persona was often “characterized as infantile, incompetent, and...incapable of achievement” (Hunter-Willis 11) while the actions of slaveholders were justified with the arguments that slavery would maintain a cheap labor force and a guarantee that their suffering did not differ to the toils of the rest of the “struggling world” (Hunter-Willis 12). The emergence of the slave narratives created a new voice that discredited all former allegations of inferiority and produced a new perception of resilience and ingenuity.

The study of African American history has grown phenomenally over the last few decades and the debate over the relationship between slavery and racial prejudice has generated tremendous amounts of scholarship. There’s a renewed sense of interest in the academia with a new emphasis on studies and discussions pertaining to complicated relationships slavery as an institution has with racism. It is more so when the potential for recovering additional knowledge seems to be limitless. Even in the fields of cultural and literary studies, there is a huge emphasis upon uncovering aspects of the past that would lead one towards a better understanding of the genesis of certain institutionalized systems. A careful discussion of the history of slavery