southern history natasha trethewey literary devices

Posted on October 8th, 2020

"When one thinks about the significance of these events, the dynastic wars of England and the bombing of Japan in the second World War, it is an injustice to trivialize these events.

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. The author describes how apathetic she, as well as her classmates, were in being forced fed the “true account” of slavery when African Americans were,” clothed, fed, and better off under a master’s care.” This depiction is what Natasha described as,” a lie my teacher guarded,”with her constantly remarking in penitent belief that she never batted an eye against it. Her mother, who was black, majored in theater in college. One instance that made the narrator aware of her racial identity is in the line “three hours of watching Gone with the Wind. The poem communicates these extreme lengths with multiple ridiculous euphemisms such as the bombing of Japan was just dropping “one tiny atom on Japan.” Furthermore, the diction of the poem is also euphemistic, using phrases such as “was really just” “was nothing more” to downplay the intensity of the events which are euphemized. However, the innocence was already being destroyed as the children fought and bullied others on the playground in between classes, and the use of the word “torment” displays this. For example, a teacher in today’s time would never know the true atrocities of slavery because they were not around during the time in which slavery was a part of life. Each grade you go through is forced to teach you one subject and complete that for a deadline.

The first poem changes the realities of history in a way that is easier for people to swallow and in a way that no one will challenge because it is too difficult to face the harsh reality of the truth. In a sense, the censored version of history which is described in the two poems can easily become the “true” version of history, because it is the version that is known and told. History being taught from a bias standpoint rather than a textbook prevents the future generations from having a full understanding of the major events in history and their importance. This results in the students not realizing the seriousness of their own actions, which is shown by the imagery of bullying on the playground. The authors in both of the poems talk about how history is majority lied about in school and does not receive the justice it deserves.

Schools are taught to ‘dumb down’ history in a way that make the atrocities less horrid. The teachers in both the poems find a way to lie about how the history came to be. The authors depict in both poems that history is taught to have been gentler and faultless while in real life this was not the case. But I do recall the inequalities of life in Tupelo in the 1950s and ’60s. Despite its respect for the constraints of a traditional form, “Graveyard Blues” deviates slightly from a conventional Shakespearean rhyme scheme, as Trethewey opts for a rhyme scheme of aaa/bbb/ccc/ddd/ee.

The major events in history that were mentioned in both of the poems were wrongfully taught to the students. There is a cynical tone throughout, with the comment that Gone with the Wind is a “true account of how things were back then”. In the following poems, both authors tell a story about two history teachers teaching their students about history of our world. The poem states that slaves were 'happy' and 'clothed, fed, and better off under a master’s care.' For readers who take the time to savor these poems, Trethewey offers powerful insights into our nation’s complicated racial history. When teachers teach history, they become concerned with the impact the emotions will have on students, leading them to downgrade historical events. As a middle-class white kid in Tupelo, I went to segregated schools and a segregated church and swam at a segregated pool. This whole poem deals with the attitude of the speaker witch in general could be described as naive. Natasha Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, the daughter of poet, professor, and Canadian emigrant Eric Trethewey and social worker Gwendolyn Ann Turnbough. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account.

People will grow up deprived of an objective view of history with beliefs that possibly are just a product of another’s agenda. In collins poem he states how schools these days try to protect the innocence of the youth and simply make all the nastier events of history simply look rather quaint and meaningless. In Billy Collins The History Teacher, history only exists to educate students with insignificant knowledge.

In the second poem entitled, “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins, the teacher talks about different events in history that were major events and the teacher makes them seem that there were nothing.

The speaker of the poem knows that this teaching is a lie, yet goes along with it anyways to believe what is easier. Such as how the author describes the "ice age" as the "chilly age." This creates the lesson that it is okay to lie and cheat in the world.

Teaching history is difficult however because it is a recollection of past events and therefore, it is hard to be taught when it is not from a primary source.

Like a lot of towns in the Deep South, there was a white side of town, which was relatively prosperous, and a black side of town, which was not. One of those experiences was the shadow of the Civil War, which was ever-present in Tupelo because of several skirmishes fought nearby and a major Civil War battle, Shiloh, fought some miles north in Tennessee. Each of the the poems use language to create a vivid scene for the readers, causing old memories of long lectures and uninteresting textbooks to resurface in their minds, and giving a rise to a negative connotation that matches to the negative commentary in both poems. History is often taught from a bias standpoint instead of from the textbook and what actually happened. The authors show both teachers as being more laissez-faire than anything: In “Southern History,” the teacher uses a film to convey his lesson and in “The History Teacher,” the teacher avoids teaching the ugliness of history by removing the responsibility to stay true to the facts. A literary technique that shows the significance of this action in  this poem is diction in the line “Heart-filled, head-filled with glee” this is the start of the poem before the shift in tone so he has a more happy outlook on how his trip may turn out to be. The authors (or their characters) clearly were sentient children, and even in school, knew what they were talking about and were aware that greater atrocities occurred and have the potential to occur in the future. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. This comment has been removed by the author. However to underscore the significance of these events, or to bias them in anyway is dangerous and arbitrary to the collective good. Both authors use timelines to demonstrate the fallacies of the manner in which history is thought. How they lie in order to maintain their pride and not make their state's involvement in the confederacy look like a mistake. In her review of Native Guard, poet Carrie Shipers writes that the poems in the first section of Native Guard “ask what home means after we have left, as well as what happens when our home leaves us or refuses to acknowledge our claim to it.” This is a perceptive observation.
As students as well as citizens of the world people around the world must realise that history as well as anything can be fraught with bias.

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