Bradstreet, Sargent Murray, and Wheatley

I am inclined to believe that Anna Bradstreet was a firm believer of her Puritan traditions. Some of her poems reflect her beliefs. Most likely she believed that a woman’s place was at home attending to her husband and children. In short, she believed that the role of the women was domestic. The Puritan doctrine and the society of her time reinforced this belief. Women were considered inferior and did
not have the same rights as men did.

Given these facts, it is an irony that Bradstreet was well educated and wrote poetry. This seems contrary to the domestic role of women.

What was Bradstreet purpose in writing poetry? Did she have a point to make like Judith Sargent Murray?

In a sense, Bradstreet was reinforcing her religious and social beliefs when she wrote in reference to religion, her husband, children and grandchildren. Her writing is clearly reinforcing the women’s domestic role. I can see how this influenced the women who read her poetry.

However, I firmly believe that the purpose for writings was also to challenge the mindset of the men who thought that women were inferior to them. She is without a doubt breaking the social status quo of her time. It is clearly that she was not a feminist, but her writings advocate respect and dignity for women. Her poem “In Honor of that High and Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth of Happy Memory” praises women. Bradstreet advocated for women’s rights in a very subtle way.

I read that in Bradstreet’s Puritan culture, the love between husband and wife was supposed to be slightly repressed, so not to distract one from the devotion to God. Yet she publically expressed her love for her husband in the poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband.” This poem challenged the Puritan ideas.

Unlike Bradstreet Judith Sargent Murray was very outspoken about women’s writers. She was not subtle but bold for her times. She was an early advocate of women’s progress. I would say that she was one of the earliest American feminist. Her poem, “On the Equality of the Sexes” was a probably shocking to the clergy men. I believe that her poem is still relevant today.

Phillis Wheatley, early American poet and African American slave, is a great example of Sargent Murray’s arguments. Bradstreet, Sargent Murray, and Wheatley are three extra ordinary women in our history. Unfortunately, they are not as well known as some of their contemporary men.

Olaudah Equiano and Frederick Douglass

I have enjoyed reading Olaudah Equiano and Frederic Douglass. While both narratives are about slavery, I find the difference interesting.

I read Equiano, I felt that he was taking me though a very thorough odyssey. He starts at the very beginning (before he was enslaved) and moved to the very end (when he is freed in Montserrat).

Unlike Douglass’ narrative, Equiano’s is more about his experiences as a slave and less about slavery. The main thrust of the story is how he was abducted and enslaved; what he saw and what he learned; how he survived; what he experienced, and how he bought his freedom. For the most part, the story is about his experience and not so much about the theory of slavery. Without a doubt, he was a slave, but he was not born as one. From the time of his abduction, he is always thinking of regaining his freedom. He keeps his hopes high and thinks that his slavery is only temporal. In some way, his narrative is similar to Mary Rowlanson’s because she writes about her experience in captivity, and in this, her narrative is similar to Equiano’s.

Equiano writes about what he saw in his voyages, and this is what I mostly appreciate about his narrative. He writes about the suffering of slaves in the cargo ships, and the way he writes about their suffering is appalling. Equiano calls my attention to slavery outside the South of the U.S., and makes me more conscious of the evils of slavery.

Douglass writes from home.

He was born into slavery and he did not necessarily grow up thinking that his slavery was a temporary state. In this respect Douglass’ narrative is very different from Equiano’s. Douglass’ narrative does not become about himself. It becomes about the lives of the slaves working in the plantations or in their masters’ houses. His narrative concerns slaves, their masters, and their overseers. Douglass in not on a voyage like Equiano; he is at home in the plantation.

Although the experience of Douglass is different from Equiano’s, they both bring to light the evil deeds of slavery; they both give a voice to the voiceless; and they both do this in a way that makes you witness slavery.

“Nobody can make a slave out of you if you do not think like slave,” said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I think that this was the message of both Equiano and Douglass.

Thomas Paine

Reading Thomas Paine gave me a sense of déjà vu. I had the sense I had read his work before, but in reality I had not. The illusion came from having read John Winthrop. They both have an eloquent style that appeals to the whole human experience. They write in different time periods, but both speak from the circumstances of their times which have striking similarities. Winthrop is establishing a settlement; Paine is dealing with the conflicts that arose when the settlements became colonies.

They, however, differ on the topic of religion. In Winthrop’s case, he uses the Bible as the foundation for a cohesive settlement, but Paine walks away from religious foundations preferring scientific research and religious diversity. Both accounts have a historical approach and can be appreciated as such, but what impressed me was their eloquence in speech and the aesthetics of style.

Winthrop intertwines Biblical text in a very effective manner to convince people of his ideas. These Biblical examples flow in a free style and are contextualize in a social method. By the time he is done citing all the Biblical examples, he seems to have a written a constitution. The manner in which Winthrop uses Scripture beautifies his literary work.

Paine is different in that he does not cite the Bible. Instead, he uses social examples to appeal to people’s reasoning rather than their faith. In the introduction of Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs, he opens by saying, “I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.” My interpretation of this is that his work is easily read and understood, but his style of not simple, nor plain. Throughout his writings, he uses a lot of illustrative language such as, “Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms…, and a government of our own is our natural light.” Paine appeals to people’s sentiment and reason in a thought provocative style. The beauty of his literary works comes from the simple yet sophisticated use of language.

I find John Winthrop and Thomas Paine to be talented leaders, convincing politicians, and gifted writers.