Nightjohn Character Analysis

In addition, freedom had been achieved but the freed slaved couldn’t find or rightfully obtain basics necessities like food or protection. This could have been alleviated by setting up camps, with necessities such as food, water, shelter and eduction, to help African Americans more successfully transition from slavery to their newfound freedom.

During the 1840s, America saw increasingly attractive settlements forming between the North and the South. The government tried to keep the industrial north and the agricultural south happy, but eventually the issue of slavery became too big to handle, no matter how many treaties or compromises were formed. Slavery was a huge issue that unraveled throughout many years of American history and was one of the biggest contributors leading up to the Civil War (notes, Fall 2015). Many books have been written over the years about slavery and the brutality of the life that many people endured. In “A Slave No More”, David Blight tells the story about two men, John M. Washington (1838-1918) and Wallace Turnage (1846-1916), struggling during American slavery. Their escape to freedom happened during America’s bloodiest war among many political conflicts, which had been splitting the country apart for many decades. As Blight (2007) describes, “Throughout the Civil War, in thousands of different circumstances, under changing policies and redefinitions of their status, and in the face of social chaos…four million slaves helped to decide what time it would be in American History” (p. 5). Whether it was freedom from a master or overseer, freedom from living as both property and the object of another person’s will, or even freedom to make their own decisions and control their own life, slaves wanted a sense of independence. According to Blight (2007), “The war and the presence of Union armies

From the book “The Giver”, I have noticed an important message that the author wanted to tell us – The importance of freedom.

Are things ever truly black and white or is it a matter of perception? For example, when one hears the word war the mind automatically thinks of two or more parties fighting over a common cause with the use of some sort of weaponry. However, the truth is that battles are much more than some sort of physical altercation between groups of people that simply result in a win or loss. It effects every individual involved on a deep and personal level, both physically and emotionally. Soldiers in combat are internally conflicted with matters such as the difference between what is right and wrong or who/what are they fighting for. The novel A Midnight Clear by William Wharton, explores this topic in a tale of six young and highly intellectual U.S.

For a novel to be considered good it needs to have interesting themes to entice the reader to continue through to the end of the story. The novel night has many interesting themes. The main themes it holds are Elie’s struggle to keep his faith, the inhumane acts against man and silence. These three things are what make the novel night an interesting novel.

Night is a story that reveals some of the worst of the human race. It is a re-telling of a young Jewish boy, Ellie Wiesel, coming of age in the midst of the Holocaust. The book is quite short and very clearly written, but it is still a very hard book to read. The young boy who is also the author of the book makes us, the readers, accompany him through many in-human and near-death experiences. These are written in such detail that anybody taking the time to read the book will be left with an in-depth knowledge of what we as humans are unfortunately capable of and a desire to contribute in any way possible preventing this part of our history to ever repeat itself. This, I believe, is the authors goal, to teach us, make us aware through his own experience, and hence give us a reason to hopefully prevent it in the future.

Slavery is an evil seed, deeply rooted in our country’s history. Nowadays, many choose to ignore it or forget it, but one must admit to its existence and horror. This seed led to debates of fair vs. unfair, right vs. wrong, human vs. property. Consequently, one man sought out to express this horror and struggle that he had experienced first hand. Benjamin Banneker, the son of former slaves, writes to the framer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson in 1791. He speaks for “his brethren” and asks Jefferson to “wean yourself from those narrow prejudices which you have imbibed with respect to them [slaves].” This recommendation is supported by emotional appeals describing the extent of slavery, reflections of Jefferson’s

Nightjohn is a book about a slave who has gone through so much, he ran away from his plantation, made it all the way North and became free, but turned around and came back to teach other slaves how to read and write. He taught Sarny how to read and write for tobacco the first night he was at the plantation, and helped her get through tough times by reading, writing, and teaching her valuable lessons throughout the book. Although Nightjohn was trying to be a nice person and teach them how to read and write if they got caught the consequences would be horrible.

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.

Blackmon provides many stories in his book about what the slaves to forced laborers went through and how they felt about the new so called “freedom” they gained. The Black Americans prior to the Emancipation Proclamation have never seen the slightest clue to what freedom could even feel like. “Some of the old slaves said they too weren’t sure what “freedom” really was”

Nightjohn was a free slave that went North, but came back to free the rest of the slaves by teaching them to read and write. Slaves could use literacy to write about what the slaveowners did to them. If all the citizens knew how slaves were treated, they

Freedom-NightJohn teaching literacy would mean a lot. In the south literacy was a huge advantage. Most owners thought slaves being literate was a bad thing. NightJohn was very brave going back to the south.NightJohn gave people the last push they needed to be able to escape.

In 1993, Gary Paulsen wrote the book Nightjohn. Nightjohn is a book set in the 1850s, during slavery. It shows the thoughts and views of a twelve year old girl named Sarny. Sarny is a black slave girl, who is uneducated, malnourished, and living life the best she can. Suddenly, a man by the name of Nightjohn is brought to the plantation. Sarny traded tobacco for learning the alphabet from Nightjohn. Nightjohn ran away one night, and was thought to never return, but actually he created a hidden, underground school. Nightjohn could have been inspired by two interviews, Uncle Billy McCrea’s and Walter Calloway’s.

The text also illustrates how difficult it was for slaves to become free. According to law, a slave needed to have papers indicating they were free. Essentially, this was the only way they could

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: