Sydney's Blog

In the time period that, "Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglass" was written, black people did not have the same rights as white people. Going to school is a privilege, and black people did not get privileges. You get privileges when you have freedom. For white people going to school was normal, and they didn't think anything of it. However, if a black person went to school, they were EXTREMELY lucky and this was also very rare. Because they were slaves, they were working all the time, they didn't have time for school. That is why there were many adult slaves who didn't even know how to read or write, things nowadays the majority of people know how to do. The first Amendment is freedom of speech, and without an education, black people could not speak up about anything. They weren't thought of as people as much as they were thought of as tools. Tools did not need an education. This autobiography gave me a perspective on how lucky we are to get an educatio...

People who are white have always been free or had the ability to go to school and get an education. However, people of color have been slaves, which means that they were not free. During part of the 1900's, if you were a person of color you were a slave. If you were a slave you did not have the option to go to school, normally. If the children of color could not go to school, how were they going to learn how to read and write? They became adults who couldn’t read the newspapers they saw other people reading. They grew up and never even learned how to write their own name. If you are a free person, you have the opportunity to get an education on reading and writing. There was a time when people of color did not have that opportunity, and the lucky few who did never took advantage of it.

Slaves were treated very poorly and back then anything they did was bad, whether it was a major thing or a minor thing. For example, (in the beginning of chapter 3), slaves were never allowed to steal fruit from a garden. The master had a special garden where he grew all his fruits and any slave to tried to steal the fruit was whipped by the chief gardener. For the master to know if the slaves stole fruit, he covered his fences in tar. This made it so that if a slave tried to get any fruit, he would get tar on him and that showed that they were trying to steal fruit. Some masters were nice, and some of them were extremely rude and didn't care about their slaves at all what so ever. In this example, the master is really harsh and will punish the slaves harshly for minor things. Slaves were supposed to live in poverty, and be workers for the white people. They couldn't own things white people owned, they couldn't do things white people could do. When a black person did anyt...

When I went to the MFAH I took a photo of a painting by Auguste Renoir called Girl Reading. Auguste Renoir lived from 1841-1919, and he made this painting in 1890. This is a French piece. The Victorian era was following the Romantic Era, and some of the characteristics of this era were: Religious skepticism, whimsical imagery, etc. This was a time when England was at the peak of it’s power, because of Queen Victoria, which is why this era is called the Victorian Era. The painting I chose shows a young girl in a red dress sitting on a comfortable chair reading in a room with a very colorful background. This painting represents a little bit of feminism and the innocence of the little girl. It also showed the freshness and animation of the artist’s image and shows very warm, peaceful imagery. Although this painting wasn’t created in England, the Victorian Era also impacted it.

The Arrow and the Song By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882) I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell on earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song? Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend. Describe 3 major characteristics of the sub-genre that you chose and apply that knowledge to one of the poems in your sub-genre. The Victorian era poetry has many different characteristics. 3 of them are: This poetry was written when England was at its most powerful state. These poems were generally religious. These writers were generally known for their quirky wording, mystical interrogation, and verbal embellishment. This poem was written while England was in power....