The Whipping By Robert Hayden

One night, the father struck the boy, and for the first time, he explained his reasoning for striking him. The father had struck the boy in the past without explanation, this is a well-implemented example of how the boy is mistreated by his

Could mild to severe forms abuse be thought of as just another part of growing up? Throughout childhood people are faced with situations of abusive families or school year bullies that could give them this dose of reality at a young age. In Ann-Marie MacDonald’s ‘Fall on Your Knees’ and Richard Wagamese’s ‘Indian Horse’, the characters face different traumas and forms of abuse. The abuse has different effects on the characters: Materia, Francis, Kathleen, and Saul.

This shows that adversity, such as being abused, can shape your character and make you a better

The poem begins with a painful memory from the speaker’s sixth grade classroom where he was slapped on the head and commanded to sit in the corner for not knowing the difference between

In stanza six, we see the end of visiting hour, and the persona’s loss of control as he is overran with emotion. The phrase, “black figure in her white cave” creates an image of an intruder in her sanctuary. The black and white contrast suggests he is a shadow of his former self and also that he is trying to detach himself. The phrase, “clumsily rises” gives connotations of his state as he is physically affected by his feeling of loss. Furthermore, “swimming waves of a bell” is a metaphor which has connotations of water. This is used to illustrate that he is drowning in the realisation that she is dying. Finally, “fruitless fruits” is an oxymoron used to reinforce that there is no hope or going back, for her.

Cullen utilizes imagery throughout the poem, to illuminate the racism African Americans endured and impact racism carries. The speaker in the poem is an eight year old in Baltimore. In the first stanza, Cullen describes the child as “heart-filled, head-filled with glee.” This image portrays the speaker as innocent and joyful. Then the speaker notices a boy staring at him, the speaker believes there’s little difference between them, that the kid “was no whit bigger.” The speaker gets a rude awakening after the boy “poked out his tongue.” A seemingly playful meaningless gesture is met with the boy calling the speaker “N****r.” Cullen contrasts these two experiences because it depicts how racism comes out of nowhere and effects those you wouldn’t expect. The last stanza, the speaker “saw the whole Baltimore. The image of seeing is not just visual, but a metaphor for the loss of innocence where the speaker now is exposed to the hate. Cullen masterfully uses imagery so that readers understand the incredible impact that words have, especially when used for hate.

With many resources and reasons, African slave experience numerous of punishment during their time period of slavery. As they crossed from Africa towards the West Indies their encounters experience of starvation, mistreated, beaten, sexual harassment and torments from Europeans slave’s dealers, owners, master and their own kind. Breaking the law or even working slow was a punishments. Especially for runaways slaves. Two primary sources advertisement that explained the hardship of slavery is document one. Documents one is an “advertisement come from New London (Connecticut) on March 30, 1764” and Documents 2 is a “Broadside advertisement that

This is a poem that is mainly directed to the violence that was often experienced by children with an African-American ethnicity. The violence was mainly experienced on the streets where a majority of these children lived.

For any small act of disobedience, there was an unimaginably larger punishment. In Kindred, the impact of these violence acts were accurately represented through Dana’s thoughts on them. She said “the whipping served its purpose as far as I was concerned. It scared me, made me wonder how long it would be before I made a mistake that would give someone a reason to whip me” (Butler 92). Through this quote from Dana, it is evident how Butler used the torturous beatings to showcase the harsh mental effects it had on the victims. Similarly, the whippings are a symbol of a slave’s life. Like a whipping session, a slave’s life was hard and stretched out, and with everyday they would break down more and more. Sometimes, the fear of getting whipped was a more powerful tool in preventing rebellions than the actual physical pain they caused. Because whippings were essential in controlling the slaves, it was vital for Butler to include them in the novel.

Violence has been interpreted in various way by authors as the centuries have gone by. In Candide, Voltaire paints a picture about violence in the 17th century as war that continues to rage over centuries between empires with the main protagonist Candide, and his fellow members being subjected to all kinds of hardships as they themselves become casualties of war. In the Dew Breaker, Danticat discusses the extent of the everlasting damage, both physical and psychological, that is caused by totalitarian regimes, such as the Duvalier’s in Haiti in the 1970s. The central character in this story, The Dew Breaker represents an individual that is the product of such regimes, with his cruel and sadistic past as a torturer epitomizing violence. On the

Employees or Students? When someone hears college sports, the first thing that comes to mind is tradition and school pride, not money for the players. College is supposed to be for learning for their future job not getting paid for playing a sport. The learning that students do in college will stay with them for the rest of their lives, and if they get injured or retired, then there is something to fall back on. When they earn a full scholarship, then that should be satisfying enough that the student athletes get to have their education for free while playing the sports that they love.

William Shakespeare displays how oppression can stem from a formerly unjust relationship in the play King Lear. While the character of King Lear descends into madness, his three daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia, all suffer from the dominance of their father as he begs for their love. During this time of power transition, the daughters turn their oppressing father into the oppressed. Through the use of juxtaposition in how Lear's three daughters oppress him, Shakespeare conveys how previously oppressed people can free themselves from the ill-treatment and inflict pain on the former oppressor, a concept that is prevalent in today's society with the increase of sexual assault victims speaking out and exposing their perpetrator.

"Never be Afraid to Stand Up for what's Right." This statement is very powerful. Throughout the book To Kill a Mockingbird, this theme has been portrayed many times. Atticus is a main example for this theme. In every circumstance, or problem that he faced he fought for what was right, even if it was against the crowd. In the court room the setting of the theme was portrayed because Atticus was standing up for Tom and equality. Not only was he not afraid, he stood up for what was right even knowing he'd be called things like "a disgrace to the family" (chapter 13) and "a N- lover"(chapter 9). Throughout the plot we see Atticus standing up for what he believed in. Not only with Tom, but at the end of the book he even wanted to take

The second stanza is almost like the first in the fact that it appeals to the same senses. It talks about the actions and the feelings of the child. It describes how the child would wake and wait for his father to call him. The second stanza also describes the mood of the house in the line, "fearing the chronic angers of that house." Perhaps that line is

The imagery in the poem, specifically natural imagery, helps use the reader’s senses to develop a vivid depiction of the speaker’s connection to nature and dissatisfaction with the surrounding reality. The speaker’s continued use of the “moon” reflects her attribution of feminine identity and idolistic character to the moon. As opposed to referencing herself and her personal insomnia, she uses the imagery of the moon “beyond sleep” to convey her internal struggles with insomnia and her reality. Throughout the poem, the speaker also refers to shining, reflective surfaces, such as “a body of water or a mirror”, to describe the inverted reality in which the speaker experiences reciprocated love. Reflective surfaces often invert the image that is projected into them, seemingly distorting the true nature and reality of the projected image. The speaker’s reference to this reflective imagery highlights her desire to escape the burden of a patriarchal society and assume an independent and free feminine identity. Specifically, the use of natural imagery from the references to the “moon” and “a body of water” convey the speaker’s desire to take refuge within the Earth or in the feminine identity of the Earth, Mother Earth. Feminine identities are often related and associated with aspects of nature due to the natural cycle of the menstrual period and the natural process of procreation. The speaker takes advantage of these connotations to suggest Earth and natural imagery as an escape from the man-made terrors of male dominated society. In the second stanza, the speaker uses extensive imagery to develop metaphors conveying the speaker’s experience of jealousy of the moon