¶ … Imagery: "Reapers"
Response to Imagery in Jean Toomer's Poem "Reapers"
In the "Reapers" (p. 737), the poet Jean Toomer describes many image that affected me strongly, and that disturb me. These involve cutting, chopping, death, and monotony.
First is cutting. The whole poem has strong images, but for me field rat that is killed in blades of mower was worst one. The field rat "startled, squealing bleeds (Line 6). This is very cruel and stark image, and this emphasizes the impersonal way mower is just for working and not stopping, no matter what, or no matter if something lives or die.
Other images remind me strongly of death and monotony, and make me feel depressed. For example, black horses (line 5) often are use at funeral, for transporting casket of deceased persons. In the poem, these black horses pull along a mowing machine with sharp blades that killed the field rat. The "Black reapers" (line 1) are human, but seem so mechanical they seem dead, numb from always working the same way every day.
Most monotonous (but threatening) images, to me, are "sharpening scythes" (line 2); "a thing that's done" (line 3) and "continue cutting weeds and shade" (line 8). These images make me feel numbness (from repetition); despair, futility. This is because effect is like no difference exists at all between machines and humans.
Other memorable images in "Reapers" make me picture sharpness and cutting, and being injured and in pain. The feeling I get from these images, then, is being scared and vulnerable. Images of sharpness, for example the "sharpening scythes" (p. 1); "blade" (line 7), and "cutting" (line 8) make me feel powerless, almost identifying with field rat.
In this poem, "Reapers," Jean Toomer's images of death, monotony, and cutting are very depressing and also make me feel a mood of hopelessness, fright, and despair, maybe like the black reapers themselves, or field rat that is killed by the mower.
He uses alliteration and repetition to continue his argument throughout. While doing this his word choice is very intellectual with words containing more than two syllables. He uses this word choice to convey the power of language. He does this because as a Black man, he wants the white world to see different context is possible. In this respect, he establishes his argument by applying a strong tone along
Black Picket Fences Sharlene looked at me with her big, watery brown eyes. "No," she said emphatically, with a definite doleful tone in her voice. "I have never felt like I fit in here." Sharlene, who is 31 years old and has two children, is a black woman that falls into what Mary Patillo-McCoy calls the "black middle class." However, unlike the men, women, and children that Patillo-McCoy interviews for her
African-American Vernacular English can be described as an assortment of American English that is mostly used by urban-working class and mostly bi-dialectical middle-class black Americans. The language is also commonly known as Black Vernacular English or Black English. In some cases, particularly outside the academic community, it is referred to as Ebonics given its distinctive features and similarities with other non-standard English varieties. The similarities with other varieties are evident
Once they arrived, they were brought to a slave market and usually auctioned off to the highest bidder just as cattle and horses were auctioned off. The slaves then spent their lives of servitude helping white farm and plantation owners in their agricultural operations. The slaves weren't typically compensated and lived in deplorable conditions. Slavery helped many white land owners become rich, and the southern colonies, which turned into
Regardless of age, the desire for freedom remained. It is known that older slaves sometimes aided younger slaves to escape. Some of the aged also escaped to freedom. In some instances masters did not pursue older slaves because of their lower economic value. However, this was not always the case, as some older escaped slaves were still valued, and were advertised in the newspapers. Some owners granted their older slaves
A appreciate the fact that this English course also included sections on writing effective narrative papers. I found narrative papers to be fun to write because they involve storytelling and rich descriptive language. I feel more creative writing narrative papers, which is why I prefer writing them, as opposed to research papers. When we write narrative papers, I can draw from personal experience, which makes the writing process easier than