Author: beth nawoichik

After years of mistreatment of the Chicano people the United States saw the rise of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement in 1960—a time characterized by protest, student walkouts and the creation of activist art with the goal of achieving Mexican-American empowerment. Eleven years after the movement began, Tomás Rivera – a Chicano author, poet, and educator – published the novella “…And the Earth did not Devour Him”, with the intention of illustrating the “suffering and the strength and the beauty…[of] the migrant worker[s]” (Rivera). The novel – being deemed “a primary element of the new Mexican American literary history” (Ramón Saldívar) – is composed of a collection of fragmented short stories and vignettes that follow the lives of a community of migrant farmers. In his novel, Rivera illustrates an inescapable and unbroken circle of suffering for the Chicano people that ultimately becomes a powerful symbol of resilience. He does this through the events depicted in the sections entitled “The Little Burnt Victims” and “The Night Before Christmas” where he consistently illustrates hope transforming into despair and finally, in “When We Arrive”, where he fully converts this despair into a powerful sense of resilience.

In the section entitled “The Little Burnt Victims”, the audience is introduced to the García family – a family of five led by Don Efraín, who, after watching a movie about boxing, becomes infatuated by the idea that his children could “turn out good with the glove” (120). Encapsulated with hope for the future, Don Efraín is quick to begin training the children in the way that he had seen in the film – by bringing out the boxing gloves and rubbing alcohol on their chests. The aura of hope in this section is metamorphosed quickly to anguish when Don Efraín and his wife, Doña Chona, rush home from working in the field to find their home engulfed in flames and two of the three children “charred in the blaze” (121). It is revealed by unidentified commenters that the fire began in the kitchen, where the eldest child was cooking, and it quickly spread to the younger children whose chests were doused in alcohol while they were boxing. In a matter of sentences, Rivera creates a violent shift from joyful hope to painful anguish.  He goes even further to create a parallel between the words spoken by Doña Chona in the beginning of the section and an anonymous commenter at the close of it. While it is obvious that Doña Chona had doubts about allowing the children to box in the home, she is eventually convinced by Don Efraín, who assures her that there is hope for their children to become boxing champions and win thousands of dollars. She eventually admits, “you never know, right?” (120). Chillingly, similar words are spoken at the close of the section, where an unnamed commenter explains: “…they’re getting over the grief, although I don’t believe they’ll ever be able to forget it. What else can you do? I tell you, you never know when your turn’s up. My heart goes out to them. But you never know” (122). Through these parallel quotations, Rivera successfully connects the transition from hope to despair throughout the course of this section.

Rivera not only creates a sense of suffering through death for the Chicano people, but in other ways as well. In the section entitled “The Night Before Christmas”, Doña María is characterized as a selfless and devoted mother willing to do anything for her two children. After one of the children sadly explains: “[Santa Claus and the three Wisemen] always forget [about us]. They’ve never brought us anything, not on Christmas Eve, not on the day of the Three Kings”, Doña María is determined to buy toys for them despite both a previous traumatic experience of getting lost in the city and not having the funds to do so (130). Doña María – a woman who “very rarely left the home” (131) – decides to venture downtown alone to retrieve the gifts, a decision that eventually results in a crippling anxiety attack that causes her to lose consciousness. She is not able to return to the home with the stolen gifts before they are taken from her. The beginning of this section is riddled with hope resonating from a loving Doña María, who is evidently willing to push herself to her limits to make her children happy. In the end, however, she is devastated because she could not: she had been defeated by the anxiety that plagued her – the “insanity” that she could not understand (134). In this highly emotional and devastating section, Rivera yet again creates a drastic shift from hope to despair in a matter of paragraphs. Towards the beginning of the section, Rivera allows the audience to believe that Doña María is going to play the role of the hero—that she is going to be able to defeat her anxiety in order to provide for her children.  In an expected turn, however, Rivera creates tragedy out of beauty.

In the events depicted in the sections entitled “The Little Burnt Victims” and “The Night Before Christmas”, Rivera consistently illustrates hope transforming into despair, creating an overwhelming idea that the Chicano suffering is inescapable. While he successfully demonstrates the suffering of two individuals – Don Efraín and Doña María – he also subtly introduces a hidden sense of resilience from both these individuals and the Chicano community as a whole. It is evident that the cause of both transformations from hope to despair were caused, either directly or indirectly, by the fact that the two individuals belonged to the Chicano culture; they were both underpaid, overworked, and underrepresented migrant workers. Had the García family not have had to leave their young children alone, the chance of them losing their home and children in a house fire would have dramatically decreased. Likewise, had Doña María or her husband made a livable salary as migrant workers, the situation involving her anxiety most likely wouldn’t have happened. Not once, however, in either section does Rivera chose to allow the characters to blame their situation on their Chicano culture or their mistreatment, nor do they express any hatred towards it. In “The Little Burnt Victims”, the section leaves the reader knowing little about the aftermath of the García family except for that “they’re getting over their grief” (122), evidence in itself that they possess an incredible amount of resilience.

Resilience of the Chicano people is seen heaviest in the section entitled “When We Arrive”, where a moment of despair is transformed. In this section, the audience enters the scene just as a truck carrying forty Chicano workers overheats in the early morning hours, forcing all those riding to be stranded until daybreak. Rivera uses the fragmented thoughts of various individuals to allow the audience to receive multiple perspectives. While some thoughts are positive, an overwhelming majority are negative; many are beginning to grow tired of their situation, comparing their treatment to that of cattle (143). The final perspective that Rivera presents is a man explaining “…I’m tired of arriving. Arriving and leaving, it’s the same thing because we no sooner arrive and…the real truth of the matter…I’m tired of arriving. I really should say when we don’t arrive because that’s the real truth. We never arrive” (145). With this closing remark, it appears that Rivera is creating a scenario in which the suffering is finally proving to be too great of a burden – that many Chicano individuals are finding that their mistreatment is no longer manageable. However, the section ends with the sun rising, “and the people were becoming people. They began getting out of the trailer and they huddled around and commenced to talk about what they would do when they arrived” (146). This is perhaps one of the strongest examples of resilience that Rivera has offered for the to characterize the Chicano people. Despite the suffering that they have evidently encountered, they have proven to be an unbreakable culture.

Throughout this influential novella, Rivera not only discusses in great detail the horrendous suffering that the Chicano individuals had to endure as migrant workers, but also, the incredible level of resilience that they possess despite it. In just fourteen short stories, Rivera was able to encapsulate what it meant to be a part of the Chicano culture, covering all aspects of life and offering the readers a chance to build a connection. In many ways, Rivera was able to create beauty from devastation and, over the course of his short novella, was successfully able to achieve his overall purpose: to illustrate the “suffering and the strength and the beauty…[of] the migrant worker[s]” (Rivera)

 

Novoa, Bruce. Chicano Authors: Inquiry by Interview. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980. Print.

Rivera, Tomas. …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him. Trans. Evangelina Vigil-Pinon. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1992. Print.

Saldívar, Ramón. “Tomás Rivera.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.

The Little Burnt Victims
––In an analysis of this section, university professor and founding publisher of the Hispanic literary journal The Americas Review Nicolás Kanellos focused on the durability of the boxing gloves as a symbolic metaphor for society’s values. He explains: “…the boxing gloves the kids were using to play with when they were at home, when they were alone, didn’t burn in the fire, but the little bodies burned. So one of these little anonymous voices says, ‘Well, they sure make boxing gloves durable these days, don’t they?’ So it questions the values of the society — materialism, you know, we make these kinds of things to last, but we can’t make kids last and aspirations and hopes last” (Nicolás Kanellos). It is also, however, perhaps an eye-opener for dozens of individuals who, at the time, didn’t understand the amount of suffering that the Chicano individuals faced.
—Rivera creates a deeply horrifying situation that is caused directly by the fact that the Chicano people are badly mistreated and overworked. Utilizing the death of children in order to invoke emotion from the audience, he follows with a string of quotations from evidently uneducated and naive individuals who do not focus on why the fire started, but instead on their sadness for the Garcias. This is a really powerful technique that Rivera uses because it can perhaps be an attempt to stir anger from the audience – the anger that should have been felt by these individuals who could not do enough to stand up for themselves.
—Rivera creates a mirrored thought process with Dona Chona and the anonymous commenter at the close of the section. In response to Don Efrain claiming that there is a possibility that the children could become boxing champions, Dona Chona admits “..you never know, right?” (121). A similar statement is also made at the end of section, where the commenter explains: “I tell you, you never know when your turn’s up. My heart goes out to them. But you never know” (122). Here, Rivera creates a devastating and emotional parallel. In the first quotation, the audience is introduced to an incredible sense of hope that diminishes quickly when the children burn in the fire as a direct result of this hope. He ties this chapter together through the use of the same quotation to describe both hope and despair.
—Rivera’s illustration of Don Efrain’s hope in the beginning of this section is devastating. Consistent with previous sections of the text, Rivera has created a subtle sense of dramatic irony – the idea that the audience, in the back of their mind, knows that something horrible is going to happen to this family simply because suffering is the only consistency that Rivera has built into this novella. Both Don Efrain’s and Dona Chona’s hope for their children to becoming boxing champions is heart wrenching and an incredible tool to evoke emotion from the audience. In the same instance, Dona Chona represents, in many ways, the defeated: while Don Efrain can see nothing but success in boxing, it is evident that Dona Chona has her doubts. Even after Don Efrain “convinces” her that there is a possibility, a hint of doubt still exists. This may have been a technique used by Rivera to demonstrate how the Chicano people’s tremendous suffering has caused them to grab onto anything that will offer hope, despite the truth that it may be unrealistic.
—The structural shift from third person narrative to quotations from various individuals on page 121 is an interesting technique employed by Rivera. Very rarely in this text has the audience actually experienced the emotions from those that are suffering from traumatic events. Instead, he chooses to allow the Chicano community to tell the story through their own words. He effectively separates the audience from the situation, pulling them out directly after tragedy has struck and before the characters themselves have a chance to respond. This is a strange technique that perhaps was incorporated to leave the audience asking questions: how do the characters react? What is going to happen to these characters? How are their lives going to change? Rivera is effective at creating a connection between the audience and the characters in a few simple paragraphs, which he abruptly severs in a time of crisis.  This was a successful technique employed by Rivera to captivate audience emotion and to create a deep level of sympathy.

The Night Before Christmas
—The day of the Magi, or Three King’s Day, is a holiday celebrated throughout Latin America, Spain, and in Hispanic communities that marks the biblical adoration of baby Jesus by the three kings. According to a bilingual newspaper, “[Three King’s Day] is the Epiphany of the church calendar, the 12th day after Christmas, when the Magi arrived bearing gifts for baby Jesus. Traditionally, children receive gifts on this day, brought by the three kings, Melchor, Gaspar and Baltazar. In Latin America, January 6th, and not necessarily Christmas, is the day that children receive their gifts”.
—The beginning of this chapter is devastating. Rivera has, once again, used children to invoke an emotional response from the audience. This time, however, he is playing on their innocence and naivety through sadness over not receiving Christmas presents. Throughout this novella, Rivera has done a successful job welcoming the audience into personal experiences and allowing them to feel the same raw emotions as the characters themselves do. In this emotional scene, it is evident that the children are too young to understand the situation. Already, Rivera is setting the reader up for an emotional chapter.
—The power of a mother’s love is illustrated in a beautifully tragic way in this section. Although the family  is struggling financially, Dona Maria is still determined to provide for her children who claim that Santa Claus and the Three Wisemen “always forget” about them (130). There is a large parallel between this family and the Garcia family introduced in the section entitled “The Little Burnt Victims”. Don Efrain, like Dona Maria, was determined to make the lives of his children better. Unfortunately, both attempts made my Don Efrain and Dona Maria ended in an overwhelming sense of failure.
—While Dona Maria’s failure to return with Christmas presents was heart-breaking, it can also be seen as an incredible switch in focus made by Rivera. It is easy to say that this novella is riddled with suffering. Up until this point, a large majority of the suffering was a direct result of being a Chicano individual who, at the time, faced incredible levels of discrimination and was subjected to harsh working conditions. Dona Maria’s struggle, however, did not happen because she is a Chicano woman, but because she is human. With the inclusion of a character plagued with crippling anxiety, Rivera has lead a shift from sympathy to empathy and with millions of individuals struggling daily with anxiety, it is easy to relate to Dona Maria. This is a really interesting transition made by Rivera.
—Not only is there a transition from Chicano suffering to human suffering, but Rivera also makes various transitions throughout the novella from first-person thought to third person commenter, like that seen in the section entitled “The Little Burnt Victims”. The use of allowing the audience to experience the thought process alongside of Dona Maria allows for a greater understanding of the anxiety that she is facing.
—When Dona Maria is caught stealing, it is really bringing to light the stereotype that is mentioned on 133 –  that the Chicano people are “always stealing something”. This is not the first time that this has been brought up in the novella, but it truly provides a backstory and a reason as to why these Chicano individuals are known for stealing: they are underpaid and need to provide for their families. In a humorous newspaper column entitled “¡Ask a Mexican!”, Gustavo Arellano light-heartedly explains this stereotype, claiming: “Poor people tend to commit more burglaries than the rich or middle class, and many Mexicans in los Estados Unidos are a missed paycheck away from the welfare cheese…Theft is no more an innate trait amongst Mexicans than it is amongst other ethnic groups — gabachos only think it is, thanks to centuries of stereotypes perpetuated by American-made caricatures ranging from the Frito Bandito to Carlos Mencia” (Gustavo Arellano)
—Both this section and the previous section, “The Little Burnt Victims” are incorporated into this text to offer the invoke a sense of sympathy/empathy from the readers. Both use childhood characters to do so and there are a variety of parallels between them.

When We Arrive
—The structure of this section is really interesting in the way that Rivera is allowing the audience to receive different perspectives about the situation. This reiterates the idea of perception and its importance in handling various hardships. Interestingly enough, this is also one of the few sections that actually has characters who express anger and frustration towards their situations.
—The use of different perspectives may have also been a strategy implemented by Rivera in order to create a connection between the reader and the individuals who are making the trip. There are dozens of personalities incorporated into this small section – from individuals who are angry about the situation to those who are taking advantage of the situation to look at the beauty of the night. The audience is presented with thirteen drastically different individuals in this section, making it incredibly easy for the to connect with at least one individual. It, in some ways, makes the reader ask themselves who they would most likely empathize with had they have been in the situation themselves. This is a great and effective tool by Rivera.
—In this short section, Rivera makes it an evident point to underline the selflessness of many of these individuals. A handful of people are heard claiming things like: “When we get there I’m gonna see about getting a good bed for my vieja” (145) and  “I’m still going to try my bed to help [my viejo] out. At least along his row so he won’t feel overworked. Even if it’s just for short whiles” (144). It is an interesting technique, but is consistent with his original purpose: to show the beauty of the migrant workers.
—This chapter possesses an incredible amount of beauty in it. When the trailer breaks down, it appears that there is an equal amount of both positive and negative thoughts until one of the final thoughts that the audience reads, which claims: “…I’m tired of arriving. Arriving and leaving, it’s the same thing because we no sooner arrive and…the real truth of the matter…I’m tired of arriving. I really should say when we don’t arrive because that’s the real truth. We never arrive” (145). However, the final paragraph closes by claiming that the individuals “began getting out of the trailer and they huddled around and commenced to talk about what they would do when they arrived” (146). This is a beautiful portrayal of resilience and one of the few sections that does not end in tragedy. 

In his narrative entitled “My Neighbor’s Faith: The Heroes I Was Looking For”, Eboo Patel explores a variety of themes. One of the most prominent ones, however, is the theme of discovery. When the narrative opens, the audience is introduced to the character of Patel – a college student engulfed in a passion to change the world. Believing that “a broken world needed more than flimsy tape” (My Neighbor’s Faith, Patel), Patel found himself at St. Jude’s Catholic Worker house – a community for individuals of all ethnicities, races, social standings, etc. It was after reading the work of activist Dorothy Day that the theme of discovery is first seen, when Patel states: “[Day’s writing] made more sense to me than anything my Marxist professors lectured on, or my prelaw friends dreamed about, or my rock ‘n’ roll records drove at” (My Neighbor’s Faith, Patel). It is here that Patel discovers an individual who he can familiarize with – a woman that he begins to idolize and, in many ways, builds a sense of community with. Patel explores the theme of discovery once again after visiting India and realizing that his grandmother, who was sheltering abused women,  resembles the Islamic version of Dorothy Day. While Patel had spent many years searching for a “faith home” in other religions (My Neighbor’s Faith, Patel), he finally discovered that the religion in which he was brought up was the one that he in which he belonged to, claiming “I found full nourishment in Islam for ideas I initially encountered in other traditions. I am a Muslim whose first faith hero was Dorothy Day” (My Neighbor’s Faith, Patel).

Throughout the narrative, Patel uses various techniques to convey his spiritual journey, one including the use of a problem-solution format. Opening the narrative, Patel explains: “When I went to college at the University of Illinois in Champaign, I saw the other America — homeless Vietnam vets drinking mouthwash for the alcohol, minority students shunted to the back of overfull classrooms, battered women unable to find space at too-small shelters. I knew that America saw these shadows but chose not to call them. I did not want that disease” (My Neighbor’s Faith, Patel). It is this direct thought that lead him to St. Jude’s Catholic Worker house, where he hoped to find others eager to change the corruption in the world. This would eventually help him to discover his “faith home” in Islam. The use of a problem-solution format allows the reader to understand and sympathize with Patel and in some ways, encourages others to make a change as well. It also creates a deeper meaning to the narrative: the narrator is not just on a journey to find a spiritual home, but he is attempting to change the corruption in the world as well. This makes the narrative not necessarily a religious one and creates a wider range of potential audience.

     In his novella, “…And the Earth did not Devour Him”, Tomás Rivera aimed to portray the “suffering and the strength and the beauty…[of] the migrant worker[s]”. Through multiple heart-wrenching sections, he manages to do this perfectly. The section entitled “The Night Before Christmas” tells the story of a Dona Maria, a selfless and loving woman who, after one of her children sadly explains: “[Santa Claus and the three Wisemen] always forget. They’ve never brought us anything, not on Christmas Eve, not on the day of the Three Kings” (Rivera, 130), is determined to get toys for them despite a crippling anxiety and not having the funds to do so. In this section, Rivera employs multiple techniques to convey his desire to portray the suffering, strength, and beauty of the migrant workers. One of the most effective techniques used by Rivera is his attempt to evoke emotion from the reader. Consistent with a technique that he uses throughout the novella, Rivera first uses children to emphasize the emotional appeal, illustrating that Dona Maria’s children do not understand how much the family lives in poverty and are continuously disappointed that Santa Claus has forgotten about them. While their father, Don Chon, is quick to admit that the “[the children] don’t need anything” (Rivera, 131), Dona Maria is committed to providing toys for them. These initial paragraphs mildly introduce the idea of migrant suffering – of the fact that many families were forced to live in extreme poverty.
     Perhaps even more apparent in this section is Rivera’s portrayal of the beauty and strength of migrant workers. It is revealed that Dona Maria – a character who “very rarely left home” (Rivera, 131) – suffers from crippling anxiety and, despite this, decides to go downtown on her own to buy gifts for the children. Not only does this portion of the text show the mental strength of Dona Maria, but of the incredible selflessness and overwhelming sense of motherly nature that she possesses. Rivera’s use of emotional appeal generates a deep level of sympathy from the audience, who cannot help but sympathize with the loving mother who is, evidently, willing to do anything to make her children happy. This technique of employing deeply emotional and relatable scenes is completely an effective tool in reaching his readers. These types of scenes and characters such as Dona Maria allow the audience to build a sense of connection and sympathy. The use of emotion in the text also allows for a more drastic message. The failure of Dona Maria to successfully provide gifts for her children after her experience was devastating to the reader. Within the reader, this emphasizes the level of suffering that the migrant workers encountered. Adding emotion enhances Rivera’s original goal of portraying the “suffering and the strength and the beauty…[of] the migrant worker[s]”.  

Throughout the poem Howl, Allen Ginsberg illustrates a multitude of themes that can be seen throughout all three sections of his work. One of the biggest themes in the poem is corruption which can be seen most notably in section II, where Ginsberg first introduces the fictitious character of Moloch.  Ginsberg explores this theme in an interesting way by personifying society’s corruption in the form of Moloch who, in many ways, represents all that is wrong with society (including war, unjust government, poverty, etc). It is interesting in the way that Ginsberg does not blame any individuals for this heavy corruption (that seemingly covers all aspects of life), but instead blames Moloch, a nonhuman “heavy judger of men” (Howl, Ginsberg). Ginsberg credits Moloch as being the “sphinx of cement and aluminum [that] bashed open [society’s] skulls and ate up their brains and imagination”; the one who “frightened [Ginsberg] out of [his] natural ecstasy” (Howl, Ginsberg). Here, he makes the bold claim that Moloch is the cause for his loss of innocence and naivety – that the corruption of society  has resulted in a lack of imagination and happiness (something he also alludes to in the opening statement of this poem, where he claims “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…” (Howl, Ginsberg)). Ginsberg goes on further to discuss how this corruption of government (“skeletal treasuries! blind capitals!”) and society as a whole (“spectral nations! invincible mad houses!”) has caused all hope for the American people and future to be lost, explaining “Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!” (Howl, Ginsberg).

Throughout his poem, though most notably in section II, Ginsberg uses the literary technique of sentimentalism, in which he excessively expresses feelings of sadness in order to evoke emotion from the reader. When introducing Moloch – the one who is to blame for the corruption of society – Ginsberg attempts to provoke a feeling of sympathy from the reader by demonstrating the results of this corruption: “Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!”(Howl, Ginsberg). Even more apparent is Ginsberg’s use of heavy personification and dense metaphorical language to emphasize the beast that Moloch is. In Section II, he describes him as “Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!” (Howl, Ginsberg). This section is riddled with both metaphorical language that aids in the personification of Moloch and with sentimentalism that aids in building a level of sympathy from the reader.

In the 1800s, the debate over slavery plagued the United States. Millions of passionate politicians, authors, and activists who saw slavery as a violation of human rights used the power of their words to try and persuade society to see the moral injustices of it. In 1852, author Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a controversial novel that Abraham Lincoln would refer to as the “book that started the Civil War” (historynet). In it, Stowe illustrates the lives of various slaves and the cruelty that they endure and also emphasizes the role of religion in the lives of slaves and slaveowners alike. Chapter ten illustrates a deeply religious protagonist in the novel, Uncle Tom, who uses religion to maintain hope as he begins his involvement in the slave trade. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s illustration of the events leading up to Tom being taken away from the Shelby family demonstrates not only Tom’s utilization of religion to maintain hope, but her characterization of Tom as a depiction of God himself. She does this by emphasizing Tom’s undying devotion to his religion, his self-sacrificing attitude, and his ability to forgive and sympathize with those who have wronged him.

The chapter opens on the day that Tom is going to be sold; while the children are sleeping and Aunt Chloe is preparing for Mr. Haley’s arrival, Tom is sitting quietly, “with his Testament open on his knee, and his head leaning upon his hand” (Stowe, Chapter X).  When Aunt Chloe finds herself no longer able to hide her pain towards the impending situation, she “lifted up her voice and wept” (interestingly enough, Stowe subtly references biblical text by inserting this quotation from Genesis 21:16). In response, Tom explains to her: “there’ll be the same God there, Chloe, that there is here.” (Stowe, Chapter X). In this interaction, Stowe is underlining Tom’s devotion to his religion, emphasizing that he has put his complete and utter trust in God. The beginning of this chapter is riddled with Tom’s involvement in practicing religion and in many ways, this technique helps him to maintain hope where it could have easily been lost.  In this chapter, Stowe creates an overwhelmingly dismal atmosphere by expressing sadness  from a variety of characters – from Aunt Chloe and their children to Mrs. Shelby and Master George. Not once, however, does Stowe represent Tom in this manner.  Instead, she is able to portray his undying devotion to religion – to the idea that God will help him survive.  Not only is Stowe utilizing this passage to demonstrate this fact, but she is also creating a parallel between Tom and God, who both are known for their faithfulness (Corinthians 1:9).

Aunt Chloe, who finds herself doubting her religion (as many slaves did), is quick to refute Tom’s claim that God will protect him, expressing the truth that “de [sic] Lord lets drefful [sic] things happen” (Stowe, Chapter X). Tom, however, responds to this with selflessness and a self-sacrificing attitude, explaining “I’m in the Lord’s hands…nothin’ can go no furder [sic] than he lets it;—and thar’s [sic] one thing I can thank him for. It’s me that’s sold and going down, and not you nur [sic] the chil’en. Here you’re safe;–what comes will come only on me; and the Lord, he’ll help me,—I know he will” (Stowe, Chapter X). Again, Stowe is emphasizing both Tom’s  faithfulness towards his religion and his incredible practice of self-sacrifice. In the passage, Stowe even breaks herself free of the unbiased narrator position to express her admiration for the selfless Tom, claiming: “Ah, brave, manly heart,—smothering thine own sorrow, to comfort thy beloved ones!” (Stowe, Chapter X). Not only has Stowe allowed the audience to understand the critical role of religion in Tom’s life, but she has also created the Tom character to resemble God himself – a selfless individual who has given his life to protect those his loved ones.

Perhaps the most shocking characteristic of Tom arises during his conversation with Chloe about the immorality of slavery. When she begins to put the blame on Mr. Shelby, who, she explains, owed Tom his freedom years ago, Tom is quick to defend him, claiming “…it’s natur [sic] I should think a heap of him. And he couldn’t be spected [sic] to think so much of poor Tom….And he never would have let this yer come on me, if he could have seed it aforehand [sic]. I know he wouldn’t” (Stowe, Chapter X). Tom’s defense for Mr. Shelby does not end there. After being taken from the Shelby plantation by Mr. Haley, Tom has a brief encounter with George, who is devastated about the situation. After he threatens his father, Mr. Shelby, Tom is quick to defend him once again, exclaiming to George: “ye mustn’t talk so ’bout yer father!” (Stowe, Chapter X). Using Tom’s defense for Mr. Shelby despite the absolute truth that he is to blame for this dire situation, Stowe puts an emphasis on Tom’s Godlike forgiveness. In Daniel 9:9, it is stated that “The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him”. This biblical passage demonstrates an incredible parallel between God and Tom, as if to express that he is God and that the slave owners are the common humans who are rebelling against him.

Throughout the controversial novel, Stowe not only explores the morality of slavery, but also uses religion to provoke the readers’ emotions. In many ways, she took an unlikely character, Uncle Tom, and created parallels between him and God, most notably seen when he is being taken from the Shelby Plantation and his family. This strategic technique implemented by Stowe allows for a deeper sense of emotional connection between the audience and Uncle Tom. Although it was written over one hundred years ago, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin “remains one of the most important activist texts in the nation’s literature” (Norton, Preface to the Text).

In her text entitled “The School Days of an American Indian Girl”, Zitkala-sa illustrates her life as a young Native American girl who is faced with forced assimilation. The text opens to a scene in which Zitkala-sa and seven other American Indian children are on a train headed to “the Red Apple Country” – a place in which they “dreamt of roaming as freely and happily as [they] had chased the cloud shadows on the Dakota plains” (The School Days of an American Indian Girl, Zitkala-sa). However, Zitkala-sa expresses immediate embarrassment as both children and adults alike stare at her and point at her American Indian attire. At the close of this passage, she admits that although she has arrived “in the wonderful land of rosy skies”, she is unhappy. In this passage, Zitkala-sa is expressing the true reality of what it means to be a child who is being introduced to both discrimination and forced assimilation—that it is a painful experience for children. She goes about making this point in a variety of ways, though it is most notably seen in her appeal to the audience’s emotion. The audience is presented with a young and innocent child who is quickly introduced to the painful reality of her situation. She is torn away from her family and, at the end of the passage, she explains: “I had arrived in the wonderful land of rosy skies, but I was not happy, as I had thought I should be…I fell asleep, heaving deep, tired sobs. My tears were left to dry themselves in streaks, because neither my aunt nor my mother was near to wipe them away” (The School Days of an American Indian Girl, Zitkala-sa). Zitkala-sa makes this passage incredibly heartbreaking and, in many ways, forces the audience to sympathize with her.  She consistently uses her own childhood innocence to appeal to the audience’s emotion and aid in building a strong sense of sympathy for the child.

Later in the text, when Zitkala-sa returns home after spending three years in the school, she explains that she struggles to find a place for herself, even in nature. She is misunderstood by both her brother, who is ten years older than her, and her mother, who is illiterate. In this passage, Zitkala-sa is signifying the alienation that resulted from her time at the school, explaining that: “I was neither a wee girl nor a tall one; neither a wild Indian nor a tame one. This deplorable situation was the effect of my brief course in the East, and the unsatisfactory “teenth” in a girl’s years” (The School Days of an American Indian Girl, Zitkala-sa). In many ways, Zitkala-sa, again, uses emotions to truly make this point understood to the audience. What she is going through, in many ways, is a typical part of the human experience, though there are many added layers of depth to her experience. A large majority of individuals have felt a similar sense of alienation at around the same time in their lives and it’s incredibly easy to empathize with her. However, there is a deeper level of pain associated with Zitkala-sa’s circumstance because there is a deep sense of disconnect caused directly by this school. Also emphasized in this section is Zitkala-sa’s yearning to be like one of the “civilized” girls but also, at the same time, like the American Indian that she was brought up. This further builds a layer of depth to her situation and aids in building the audience’s sympathy for her.

          In his essay entitled “Resistance to Civil Government”, Henry David Thoreau provides evidence demonstrating the existence of a flawed government. In the first paragraph of his essay, Thoreau introduces his views towards the government by quoting Thomas Jefferson’s “that government is best that governs the least” (Thoreau, paragraph 1). In this opening paragraph, he focuses on the main point that there needs to be a reform in the government – that the best type of government governs minimally or not at all. He explains that the sole reason that the government is in existence is because it is the way in which “the people have chosen to execute their will” (Thoreau, paragraph 1). However, he explains also that it is likely to be abused and provides the example of how the Mexican War was a result of few individuals doing just that. There are various ways in which Thoreau  goes about making these points. On two different occasions, he alludes to the words of Thomas Jefferson (once in the form of a quote and once in reference to the Declaration of Independence). This is a crucial addition to the essay as it builds a sense of credibility for Thoreau, proving that he is both educated on the topic and perhaps more importantly, that he is not the only well-known individual who supports these views. He also establishes a sense of superiority early on in this paragraph by explaining that the government can be amended “when men are prepared for it” (Thoreau, paragraph 1); he is, in many ways, characterizing himself as someone who knows how to fix the problem, which is setting up for the remainder of the essay.

          Paragraph 11 is also an incredibly important part of Thoreau’s argument towards resisting civil government. In this paragraph, he is putting emphasis on the idea that if an individual feels strongly about what is right, they must do – for voting for what is right is not enough. This is largely summed up by his statement claiming “I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail….a wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail though the power of the majority” (Thoreau, paragraph 11). The main point Thoreau is trying to convey in this paragraph is that man must not leave decisions up to the majority – that if they believe something is right, they need to do something about it. Simply voting will not suffice. Again, Thoreau uses various techniques to convey his ideas. He opens this paragraph with a simile: “all voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, which a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it” (Thoreau, paragraph 11). This provides a means of relatability for the audience. Similar to the the opening paragraph,also, he utilizes his sense of superiority to demonstrate how he believes that the system could be made better. He, in a way, manipulates the audience by explaining that although they think they are doing all that they can to address the problems (voting), they can be (and should be) doing more.

In her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe attempted to persuade the public that both slavery and the slave trade were wrong. There were various passages in the text that intended to do just that. When  introducing the character of George Harris, Stowe explains that, after being sent to work in a bagging factory, George thrived – he was quickly declared the first hand and a general favorite in the factory and had even invented a machine for cleaning hemp. When his owner learned about this, he began to feel a sense of inferiority and, as Stowe explains, “George was taken home, and put to the meanest drudgery of the farm. He had been able to repress every disrespectful word; but the flashing eye, the gloomy and troubled brow, were part of a natural language that could not be repressed,—indubitable signs, which showed too plainly that the man could not become a thing (Chapter II)”. Here, Stowe puts an incredible emphasis on counteracting a popular pro-slavery argument  of the time: that African Americans were not humans, but objects that were meant to be enslaved. Not only does this passage illustrate that he, too, was as much a man as any white owner, but it also demonstrates his talents and ingenuity despite his lack of formal education. Stowe also creates, in this scene, an incredible emotional connection between the audience and George’s character. She is essentially proving that no matter how hard George tries to be non-human –  no matter how hard he tries to ignore the hateful words from his master – there are certain parts of the human’s “a natural language” that he could not repress because he is, in fact, human. This is an incredibly powerful perspective to include because it truly proves to the audience that men, regardless of color, cannot be reduced down to objects. It also reflects George’s resilience.
A second major attempt of Stowe to persuade society that the slave trade and slavery was wrong was when Mr. and Mrs. Bird were debating the passing of a new law that prevented individuals from helping runaway slaves. When her senator husband explained the necessity of creating such a law, Mrs. Bird responded with “…I don’t know anything about politics, but I can read my Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow” (chapter IX). In this excerpt, as in many others in the text, Stowe raises the topic of religion, something that was incredibly important and prevalent in society. This is an incredibly powerful perspective to offer in the text because in a way, Stowe is manipulating her audience into being unable to find an argument to counteract the ideology of Mrs. Bird, a strongly religious woman. At the time, the Bible was a crucial part of life and Stowe is presenting the idea that this text does not support slavery; she is indirectly making the claim that individuals who truly believe in religion should not believe in slavery. Her inclusion of religion in the anti-slavery movement is an incredible persuasion mechanism, if not one of the most important and effective ones.

There were various major themes that were common throughout the Benjamin Franklin blog posts. A first major theme identified, illustrated by an overwhelming majority of students, was humility. Many students who chose the value of humility highlighted Franklin’s creation of the library in order to demonstrate his practice of this value. In her blog post, Rachel summed up this idea by explaining that “[Franklin] exemplifies humility through perseverance in establishing the public library in lieu of struggle and initial lack of popularity”, going on to provide the example of Franklin accrediting a number of friends for the creation of the library thus “allowing the popularity of his own idea be dismissed from his name” (Blog Post 1: Ben Franklin). It is also interesting to note that others made the point that while Franklin saw this as a key value in gaining success, he did not actually truly acquire it. In her blog post, Aaron addressed Franklin’s hypocritical nature by claiming “In both readings Franklin thinks very highly of himself and his works. He then turns around and stresses the importance of humility. Contrary to his narcissistic attitude he openly admits that he practices humility because people listen to him and like him more because he portrays himself as humble” (asimmons).

Two other majors themes that were present, though less commonly than humility, were the qualities of being hard working/industrious and frugal. Angeles pointed out the idea that “There is a conception that in the United States you can climb up the economic latter [sic] regardless of your social class because if you work hard then opportunities will present themselves. Benjamin Franklin put a lot of emphasis on the idea that in order to succeed people had to be hard workers” (Mr. Franklin). This is a concept that many other students discussed in their own blogs as well, with many citing a proverb of Solomon that Franklin presented in chapter 8 of his Autobiography. In regards to frugality, Dalton explains, “In both texts Benjamin Franklin mentions America as economically mobile. Americans are not just frugal with money but their time and food. This is because the ideal American should be hard working and dedicated (industrious) to their family” (Blog Post 1). While only few students chose the topic of frugality, their messages were similar: for Benjamin Franklin, frugality is directly related to self-reliance and success.

When describing the techniques that Franklin used to persuade his audience to adopt his values/qualities, a majority of students referenced his use of humor/satire (most notably in The Way to Wealth through the creation of characters Poor Richard and Father Abraham). Oscar underlined the significance of this by explaining that “…Franklin’s rhetorical strategy is providing means to lighten his message to the readers which allows them to absorb the message in a more relaxed way. His overall message is strong and true although placed in a comical form of explanation” (Blog Post 1-Ben Franklin). Other students drew attention to Franklin’s use of emotion and personal experience as a persuasive technique.