Topic > Phillis Wheatley and Rita Dove: Prophets of Social Change

It can easily be argued that all creative writing efforts by African Americans are forms of protest. Understanding what a protest is in literature. By definition the practice within African American literature of making things right or righting wrongs. Protest literature contains many approaches, from early literary efforts to modern times. These include clearly expressing the unfortunate situations of enslaved people, challenging larger Caucasian communities to change their behavior towards those people, and providing specific points about the nature of the problems presented. In other words, the intention of protest literature was and still is to show the inequalities between races and between social and economic groups in America and to encourage a change in the society that causes such inequalities. For Phillis Wheatley one of the things that motivated her African American protest poetry began with her slavery. But Rita Dove dealt with issues of inequality and repression. Although she showed protest in her poetry less openly than Phillis Wheatley. Both knew they could bring the imagination to the poet's side and change society. The question was: how would they do it? Using their protest literature, they focused on issues such as race, religion, and politics and worked hard to correct them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayPhillis Wheatley was born in Senegal/Gambia around 1753. At the age of 8 she was kidnapped and taken to Boston on a slave ship. Upon his arrival, John Wheatley purchased the young girl as a servant for his wife Susanna. According to the family's instructions, Phillis was taken under Susanna's wing. Phillis's quick intelligence was impressive, and as a result, Susanna and her two children taught Phillis to read and encouraged her literary activities within the family. One of his favorite books to read was the Bible, as can be seen from his writings. With his newfound knowledge, he continued to write poems about race, politics, and religion. Rita Dove was born in 1952, in Akron Ohio. He developed a love of literature at an early age in a home that encouraged reading. She was honored as a Presidential Scholar, being ranked as one of the nation's top 100 high school students, and as a National Merit Scholar she attended Miami University in Ohio, graduating in 1973. She later studied abroad in Germany before returning to the United States and earning his MFA from the University of Iowa. Since graduating Rita has addressed a wide variety of themes in her works. In them, he tries to show the universal nature of the human being, and with this he tries to overcome the differences that divide people's race, politics and religion. For Phillis, the poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America" ​​was one of her most famous poems about race. Some view our black race with a scornful eye: "Their color is an evil die." Remember, Christians, blacks, blacks like Cain. This poem is about being brought to America on a slave ship, and phrases like "black race" and "evil death" highlight some of the racial issues in America during the seventeenth century that Phillis witnessed. Phillis also lets it be known what she thinks about the inequality between the black and white races in the poem. The poem implies that African Americans are seen as no better animals than "sable" and are to be treated only as commodities and nothing more. Being enslaved was one thing, but having white people callblacks an evil dye, suggesting that blacks are black because they are evil was something that struck Phillis enough to talk about it through her poetry. At the time he could only talk about it in his poetry because in the 17th century black people were seen but rarely heard. He continued to work hard on his poetry and for equality. In 1775 he wrote a poem called "To His Excellency, George Washington" where he praised his heroism and supported the Revolutionary War. In 1776 George Washington invited her to the White House for a private reading to thank her in person for the poem she had written. For Rita, the book "The Yellow House on the Corner" was one of her best-known books, full of racial themes. As a Black poet, Rita is extremely aware of Black history and how it has played a role in this world. So much so that one section in five of "The Yellow House on the Corner" is entirely devoted to poems about slavery and freedom. Rita shows both the willingness and ability to bring racing to the conscious minds of her readers. She managed to do this through her illustrations that bring out the psychological horrors of slavery. Within this book, he has proven to be very skilled at graphically recreating the idioms of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries bringing that era to life. The poem I found in his book is called "Rosa". How she sat there, the right time in such a wrong place for her to be ready. That elegant name with its dream of a bench to rest on. His practical coat. Doing nothing was doing: the clean flame of his gaze sculpted by the flash of a camera. While this poem does not directly address racism itself, it reminds readers of racial segregation and the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s in the South. There was no need for Rita to directly talk about race in this poem because Rosa Parks is so famous for her important role in the racial struggle of African Americans that she doesn't need to. Rita doesn't write many poems about race today, perhaps she is wary of what she perceives as a trap set by race for the black writer. Phillis Wheatley's poems and letters in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), encouraged hope and inspired political change in America. Phillis used the poem to imagine a fateful but failed connection between movements to end slavery. His poems on political aspects documented the main episodes of the American struggle for independence. The names of the colonial leaders who signed the attestation appeared in some copies of Poems on Various Subjects to authenticate and support his work: Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts; John Hancock; Andrew Oliver, lieutenant governor; James Bowdoin; and the Rev. Mather Byles. Another fervent supporter of Wheatley was Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. As for Rita Dove, 'Prezzemolo' is the last poem found in her book Museum; it is a great political poem for today's generation. (Rampersad p.55) Explain how Rita's overall goal was to depict violence and inequality against humanity in the Dominican Republic. In the poem, dictator Rafael Trujillo, “El General,” ordered his army to kill approximately 20,000 Haitian immigrants simply because of the color of their skin and the fact that they could not pronounce the “r” in the Spanish word for “parsley,” which is 'Perejil'. Rita successfully used several literary techniques in this work: a play on words, images and symbolism. Imagery and symbolism helped her better explain and comprehensively reinforce her point behind the poem. Religion played an important role in Phillis's poetry"