An Indian's Looking-Glass... -William Apess

Book Quote:
“And you know as well as I that you are not indebted to a principal beneath a white skin for your religious services but to a colored one” - Apess

Online Quote:
“Apess contrasts whites’ savage treatment of non-whites with their professed Christianity… This concept of equality of all people under God made Christianity very appealing to Indian converts and to slaves.” –Cengage Learning

Summary:
This essay first describes the conditions for the people, mainly the women and children of Indian tribes. The white mans' usage of women and “rum.” Part of the reason it was like this because they lacked knowledge and were defenseless (reminds me of Douglass). But white men like these were professed Christians and to be looked up to though they were not like God for God was not white skinned. He reads passages of the bible to prove these men to be false. Men such as these are hurtful non-Christians.

Opinion:
These white people saw themselves so close to God and being so close, they could mistreat others; even though Christ wasn’t white. Some slaves and natives were encouraged or forced to convert to Christianity, part of the way to clean their souls that are to be damned for not being white. They also needed to be constantly punished, beaten to pay for their sins, for being non-white. It was just another tool to make non-whites fear the white man for he could influence God to let them in if he wanted to because he was so committed to him. The white man is a servant of God, the color man is a servant of the white man. Apess cracks that invented story having been one to convert to Christianity by his master. Apess saw “Christianity as incompatible with any form of race prejudice” as racism reeked in that time period.

Rip Van Winkle -W. Irving

Online Quote:
“…a man, a country who is longing to be free. Rip Van Winkle also depicts the life of a town before and after "liberty." Rip Van Winkle's character portrays the society of America as it was seen by England at the time, as lazy and unproductive, England is represented by Rip's wife, Dame Van Winkle, orderly and productive...” –Associated Content

Book Quote:
“the country had thrown off the yolk of old England-and that, instead of being a subject of his Majesty… he had got his neck out of the yolk of matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased.” –Irving (964)

Summary:
Rip Van Winkle was a good kind man who would help all his fellow townsmen and played with the children. He however did not act the family man that he should have been in his wife’s eyes. He didn’t farm, he didn’t work; he would leave the house everyday and hunt. When he was hunting he explored with his dog Wolf. He is out one day and it starts to rain but he helps a man asks him to bring a load to Kaatskill mountains. He spent a night there and returns to town to find out twenty years has passed. His home is gone and his family. He cannot find his friends but meets a group of people saying he is “a loyal subject of the king” to those who have had a revolution to end the kings’ power. Rip finds his daughter a good wife and mother; his son turned out as he did. He finds his wife dead to his relief, free at last.

Opinion:
Rip Van Winkle represented the colonists who were rebelling against the king. His wife was seen as the king who demanded order and obedience. Rip wants to be free to do as he pleases; his wife wants him to be a farmer that is the suitable job for him and other colonists. Colonists were to farm and send their crop to England after all. Rip is comforted to learn that his wife has died as the people are happy to have liberties. When he hears of the matters the people are discussing he is at lost. What are they thinking? Is there such thing as having freedom? Something the people couldn’t imagine could happen has happened and Rip is just as surprised because it isn’t his time and his time would never hear of such a thing. Excommunicating the king would be high treason and the people loved their king no matter what. Yes Irving was freed from commitment to his fiancé and responsibilities to work in the family firm. He did use marriage to show the need of responsibilities and commitments that held Rip. He is free when his wife dies and his children are grown. The whole point of the story was “freedom.”

Resistance to Civil Government - Henry D. Thoreau

Book Quote:
“There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing”
– Thoreau (1860)

Online Quote:
“he believed his truest identity would be found in differentiating himself from the common herd of humanity, which he saw as mediocre, morally lazy, and cowardly. He was an individualist; he held that each person’s responsibility is to follow the highest leadings of personal conscience”
- Enotes.com

Summary:
Thoreau’s essay is about our government’s disadvantages to us the people. Our government is “but a tradition, though a recent one.” The corruption and in just in the government is not the idea when creating the Constitution but has over taken its purpose. It is a nuisance for the people and does not intend to improve on its own unless the people demand it, you must speak. War is not the answer. The Mexican War was a root to the civil war and was taken place during the creation of this essay. Thoreau did not support the war and did not pay the poll tax for it and goes to jail for a day willingly. He was the nonconformist that others were afraid to be. Everyone else felt they needed to follow as none of them could think for themselves as they should.

Opinion:
I truly get Thoreau’s thoughts about everyone, including myself, being the cowards of the government. Too afraid to be seen as a traitor should we speak against it. War should not be the answer to anything and that is what this essay is mainly about as he wanted to write about his imprisonment for not paying the war tax the “poll tax.” Everyone has an opinion but doesn’t go farther than that because they are cowards and can’t see themselves making a difference to anything so stay in the dark. As this happens you leave the government to make the decisions for you, which you will go along because again, you see yourself as too small. Though this describes the government in Thoreau’s time, eighteen forty-nine, we still have these issues in two-thousand and nine. War is our answer, we don’t see our selves making a difference so we just go as far as making opinions. Of course the middle class is still taxed the most, “the institution which makes him rich.” Of course the government is going to be looking out for themselves and put away their consciences.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl -Jacobs

Book Quote:
“When they told me my new-born babe was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own” (Jacobs 1820). –Norton Anthology: American Literature

Internet Quote:
“a unique perspective on the complex plight of the black woman as slave and as writer. In a story that merges the conventions of the slave narrative with the techniques of the sentimental novel, Harriet Jacobs describes her efforts to fight off the advances of her master, her eventual liaison with another white man (the father of two of her children), and her ultimately successful struggle for freedom” –Oxford University Press

Summary:
A born slave, Linda Brent (Harriet Jacobs) is not aware that her future has been decided since she was born. When she is six years old she becomes possession but is not treated as a slave until she is twelve years old. Her first mistress was close to her mother and taught Linda to read and spell. When she moves to her new master’s Mr. and Mrs. Flint, she is talked down to and is of interest to Mr. Flint. Falling in love with a colored free born, is forbidden to marry and that is when Mr. Flint starts to show his interest in her and abusing. Afraid of giving Flint satisfaction, she gives her innocence to a white-man named Mr. Sands. Unmarried as he was didn’t seem so bad, giving Sands two children one a boy and one girl (the one who will suffer greatly as her mother did). She decides to hide in her grandmother’s attic for seven years as slave catchers would surely catch her. Runs to the north with her daughter as her son hides in California. She learns she legally has a new master who is set in getting their property back, her. Running away she is informed she has been purchased by her friend Mrs. Bruce. She dislikes this notion but accepts her friends’ kindness and returns to her in New York. She is freed from Mrs. Bruce as she purchased her to have to power to do so.

Opinion:
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl exposed more than other writers did at this time, exposing her shame as others wouldn’t. Women were to be pure, no matter what your status was. She had to share her story, hoping others to see what she went through and making the necessary changes for others. Of course there were scholars that have said it is fiction. Make it seem that there is no truth; otherwise people would want to end slavery. Men suffering in slavery are mentioned very little because they have been exposed enough by other writers, someone needs to remember the women slaves who have additional tasks than the field worker, such as warming the bed with her master. Causing problems could result in the separation of her family as it had happened to her grandmother who she was close to hers. Jacobs didn’t want peity but want us the reader to feel her pain and to know her feelings as to feel enough to try to abolish slavery.

Narrative Of The Life -Douglass

Book Quote:

“if you teach a n----r… there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of not value to his master…. I now understood … the white man’s power to enslave the black man” (Douglass 2086).

Internet Quote:

“he realizes that the ability of powerful whites to control slaves comes not so much from physical control as it does from mental domination. As long as whites can keep slaves ignorant, they can control them” by Yahoo Education Cliff Notes

Brief Summary:

Frederick Douglass, a born slave, taken from his mother early in the story, is unaware of who is his father and shares their awful treatment, their punishments, and the unfairness. He is sold to another farm before he goes to Baltimore. It is when he is about eight is when he is sent to Baltimore, as a slave to start working as one, that he sees the light, the hope of another life rather than forever be a slave. When he arrives at Baltimore, his mistress, not knowing how to act as a slave owner, starts to teach him how to read. Though this is soon stopped, it was what triggered him to continue, knowing the possibility of it leading him to his freedom. He was not badly treated there but was forbidden to learn. However whenever he had a chance he was reading newspapers, books, practicing writing with people in a tricky manner. He is however sent back Colonel Lloyd’s plantation that he works as a slave does, and is broken by it. He final however fights back, restoring his confidence that he can find a way to get his freedom. Later he makes a plan to runaway but is caught with others but is sent to back to Baltimore, works a while until he finally makes his second attempt to runaway and succeeds. Throughout this story he is around Christian people who are preached to beat their slaves and torment them, making it seem they are doing the lords work in doing so.

Your Ideas:

Born a slave, never believing there was hope in becoming free, he was kept ignorant of how he could rebel from this slavery future. They were meant to know nothing only to work. By reading they would know what was going on, try to have an impute in the world, leading to them just as knowledgeable as white men, making them seem equal. The white folks would also see their jobs given to cheaper black men to do the same job (sort of like now with work going overseas). Not to mention if they knew how to write then slaves could write a free pass for themselves as Frederick did. The south were going to lose their slaves, meaning their fortune like Colonel Lloyd would because of his cheap labor. Education was the key to freedom and possibly to the end of slavery (since it wouldn’t work when everyone is educated, giving them a chance for a better life). It amazes me how they were kept in the dark, never having a actual thought on how the slave-owners kept them under control, at least Frederick didn’t until Mr. Auld discusses it with his wife in front of him. Slaves just accepted that they were meant for that life and no way to escape it except to die, as many did choose to. If only they knew there was the north, a place that they could run to for freedom, they could at least die trying instead of just giving up but ignorant as they were they probably didn’t even know which way was north nor did they know that is what any different than the south.

The Fall of the House of Usher -Poe

Book Quote:
“The result was discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had molded the destinies of his family, and which made him what I now saw him—what he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none.”

Online Quote:
“[Poe would] create powerful emotional responses in his fiction through the use of language. Several of his stories depicted psychologically unstable characters” –enotes.com

Summary:
The story begins with a narrator, also known as the friend, speaking of his history with Roderick Usher as he journeys to visit him. The friend was requested by Roderick after so many years, as they were child hood friends, and speaks urgently as he desperately needs him. He arrives at the Usher mansion, a most depressing place from the looks of it and only to see his friend the same way. Roderick had a sister, a twin, who had died recently, who he sees as a ghost and the narrator stays with him hoping Usher will get his sanity back. Finally putting Madeline into a proper resting place only later does she raise from the dead in a storm and takes her other half of her, her brother.

Opinion:
This story seems to be about insanity. How do we become insane and how you could cure it. We are shown the different ways to become insane in this story. The gloomy, traditional mansion, extremely quiet, and the marriages within the same blood line. Poe liked looking at the unstable people and think what thoughts they might have as well.

"The Minister's Black Veil " -Hawthorne

Online Quote:
“Other scholars have found that the focus of the story is not on what motivates Hooper to wear the veil, but the effect the covering has on the minister and his congregation”- enotes.com

Book Quote:
“’Why do you tremble at me alone?’ cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators. ‘Tremble also at each other… I look around me, and lo! on every visage a black veil!’”

Summary:
The Minister’s Black Veil takes place in Milford, Massachusetts during the time of the first puritans. Reverend Mr. Hooper has a reputation of being a great minister and enters into Milford. The story starts on his arrival and the people start their uproars and gossiping on the meaning of the black veil. There is soon a funeral of a young lady, leading rumors that he had loved this woman which would be obvious that he loved her and would mourn for her death. There is a couple that marry soon later and the veil is seen as “evil” as it is black, make everyone scared for the couple. After the wedding he sees his reflection causing him to leave. His fiancé, Elizabeth, too is disturbed by the veil and its meaning and leaves him. After many years had passed he is near death. They wish to take off his veil but he finally brings us some understanding for the veil. As the people fear him because the veil is symbolized as sin and at this time you would avoid sin, even if they have done it themselves. They have all sinned, not just him, “every visage a black veil!”

Opinion:
We have all sinned one way or another; he chooses to punish himself by
covering his sinful face. The puritans see him as a monster, not normal. Others travel far to see him because they believe him to be a god fearing man who has sinned as they have but think it ridiculous to punish himself instead of waiting for judgment day as they all are. He wants to do the good works before being judged and so is a minister and covers his face to show he knows he has done wrong and wishes to be forgiven. Hooper wears an actual black veil to hide his sinful face but the people around the community can’t or won’t see why. They have sinned and wear a black veil though they don’t constantly remember themselves having it (having sinned) and why (and how they have sinned).

Book Quote:
“I want you to come down and look at this Wolfe, standing there among the lowest of his kind…remember the heavy years he has groped through as a boy and man…There is no hope that it will ever end” –Davis, 2605

Online Quote:
“This was Rebecca Harding's vision of industrial Appalachia, and it was an incendiary one—reminding the country that Appalachia was not a foreign land, but a vital American crossroads of immigrant groups, blacks, and courageous women, all of whom were playing a significant role in our nation's industrial saga.”

-Jeff Biggers, The Atlantic

Summary:
Davis tells us these hard labors environment conditions and how no one will attempt to fix them and their situations. There are men who claim that they cannot afford to help, actually keeping their superior status instead. There are those who claim to be not so wealthy as they appear to be and others who openly state their opinions on the less fortunate as they do not see their benefit in helping those less fortunate. Deborah, a woman who can never be seen as beautiful in Wolfe’s eyes as he has an eye for it, try’s to gain his love by stealing the money needed to start a new life, away from such conditions. Attempting to return the money, Wolfe is caught while deciding what he will do, with or without the money. He is caught and sentenced the max of time “but it was for ‘xample’s sake”. Cell neighbor, Deborah, sees the symptoms of his soon to be death, “the gray shadow”. He would have slept with the mud and ash as he did when alive but is taken to a peaceful hill.

Opinion:
Davis’s Life in the Iron-Mills main focus is these immigrated hard labor workers and their chances of rising. They live in such terrible conditions and cannot see themselves rising from them. It is even likely it will pass on to the next generation as they were born a part of. There is no help in rising from the mud and ashes. These women like Deborah worked to death and lose their face in society as they become deformed from the long hours of labor. These meaningless creatures are given a choice to continue hard labor work in factories, their death sentences, or escape it by taking from the rich.