Virginia Hamilton's Excerpt Of Her Folktale, The People Could Fly

For hundreds of years, slaves in America were separated from their families to be sold off like livestock to their slave owners, then forced to work and live in unimaginable conditions, and viciously beaten for something as little as a task not fully being met. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by the self-taught, abolitionist himself, Douglass shares some light on the inhumane treatment and hardships slaves were forced to overcome in his journey to free himself both mentally and physically from slavery. Douglass appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos in order to truly open his reader's eyes to the horrors of slavery, conveying his message that slavery must be abolished.

Slavery is a disappointing example of inhuman behavior, a dark past in our history books. Two stories demonstrate the cruelty of slavery while living on a plantation. “Harriet Tubman” and “The People Could Fly” give two different encounters on the topic of slavery. “Harriet Tubman” is a biography and “The People Could Fly” is a historical fiction. Both would make one wonder, what is there to live for when freedom does not exist in your life? The two different genres of books are able to give readers an understanding of how heart-wrenching and depressing life of a slave was. Both show the family of slaves taking care of one another. They show the family bonds even though the slaves are going through harsh conditions

Douglass tells the reader, “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man” (1211). As simple as this statement may seem, it is absolutely dripping with meaning, and it would not be a great

Moans of anguish fill the air, a man has fallen down from intense labor and is getting whipped to get back up. The man tries to get up, desperately pushing himself off the ground, yet the whip lashing into his body gives him no such opportunity. Eventually he falls flat, never to get up again. The person who was whipping him shrugged, “He was a waste of food anyways.” This was the life for a slave in the South before the Civil War. Destined to work in chains until they weren’t of use to the owner. In this essay I will prove that the North learning of the harsh treatment of slaves through the Fugitive Slave

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.

Injustice is a prevailing theme in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Tubman, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, Spider Woman 's Web by Susan Hazen-Hammond and Great Speeches by Native Americans by Bob Blaisdell; the diligence of several characters have made it possible for them to preserve and overcome injustices. America has not always been a land of the free for colored people; white settlers destroyed the meaning of freedom when they robbed the land from the indigenous people. Freedom was also destroyed when slaves in America were not treated as full human beings. Despite of many obstacles the oppressed faced, their thirst for freedom and determination helped them in reaching their goals.

“The People Could Fly” by Virginia Hamilton is a folk tale that originated among people held captive as slaves. Before African people were captured and enslaved  they had this unique ability in which majority of the people in Africa could fly. Those numbers began to shrink since there was not enough room on the slave ship to have large delicate wings and since there was no space they had to shed their wings and slowly forgot about their magical powers. On the Plantation there was a woman by the name of Sarah. Sarah is working in the fields with her baby on her back. Sarah's child is emotionally beaten down and starts crying loud enough for it to draw attention. The driver slashes the Sarah and the baby until she collapses on the hot humid

To the African American, references to flight almost always exclusively represent freedom. Whether these references are in the form of novels, short stories, poetry, or music, the history of the African's brought to America to serve as slaves is primarily based on the idea of freedom. Just as it is stated in Course Objective 1a, forced participation was brought about by the acquisition of slaves. They did not choose to leave their native home of Africa, nor did they choose to live out their lives as slaves in a foreign country among foreign white people who showed little compassion for their plight. This left slaves feeling trapped and bound, spiritually, and often times physically, therefore "flight is frequently exercised as a means of escape for African Americans from their position of oppression

Starting from a slave’s birth, this cruel process leads to a continuous cycle of abuse, neglect, and inhumane treatment. To some extent, slave holders succeed because they keep most slaves so concerned with survival that they have no time or energy to consider freedom. This is particularly true for plantation slaves where the conditions of slave life are the most difficult and challenging. However, slave holders fail to realize the damage they inadvertently inflict on themselves by upholding slavery and enforcing these austere laws and attitudes.

Can you imagine living a life filled with hunger, abuse, and injustice with an almost impossible chance of escaping? In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass writes about his life and experiences as a slave in the 1800's. With this book, Douglass attempts to change his reader's beliefs about what it means to be dedicated to the American idea that "All men are created equal" by revealing the injustices and awful living conditions found in slavery.

Narratives by fugitive slaves before the Civil war are necessary to help our understanding of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of American history and literature. These slave narratives acted as sources, telling of the experiences from the point of view of those who lived through slavery as slaves themselves. Written primarily in the 1840s and 1850s, slave narratives revealed the struggles that southern slaves faced such as poor living conditions, working conditions, and excessive punishment and abuse. Two former slaves that addressed these concerns in their narratives were Frederick Douglass and Mary Prince. In their narratives, they share the hardships faced as well as the effect they had on their physical and emotional well-beings.

A slave’s life is one of poverty, no privacy, severe punishments, and cruel working conditions. A slave’s home life on the plantation consisted long hours of hard work, and harsh punishments if they were to make a mistake. According to a source titled On the Plantation, it states, “She say [slaves] didn’t need nothing to eat. They just like animals, not like other folks. She whip me, many time with a cowhide, till I was black and blue.” Some challenges a slave faced during escape was having to travel hundreds of miles to freedom, and having to be very cautious of being caught by slave hunters. According to a source titled Escape!, it states, “Robert Brown rode another 40 miles through the mud roads. When the courageous horse gave out, Robert tied him to a fencepost, and walked on. For two days, he dared not talk to anyone for fear of being arrested.” Reaching safety affected a slave because they still had to be very careful about being caught, since slave hunters were looking for the missing slaves. According to a source titled Reaching Safety, it states, “Anyone who refused to aid in the capture of a fugitive, interfered with the arrest of a slave, or tried to free a slave already in custody was subject to a heavy fine and imprisonment.” Therefore, freedom impacts a slave because they have a chance to help other slaves reach

In the folktale “The People Could Fly,” by Virginia Hamilton, the intended audience are the slaves that are being whipped by the cruel rulers of the plantations that were, of the 1800s.

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.

This folktale can show many reasons why the message is about freedom for instance, in paragraph 1 it states,” Long ago in Africa, some of the people knew magic... And they flew like blackbirds over the fields.” This explains that before they were enslaved they had