Reading chapters 4-10 of Persepolis was just as interesting as the first 3. The emotion the author was able to portray through simple dialogue and black-and-white drawings is extremely impressive. In past readings I’ve done it usually takes a while for me to develop an emotional connection to the characters but Persepolis is the opposite. I immediately felt a connection to the story and quite frankly, it’s hard not to when seeing everything she went through at such a young age. It was also interesting to see her grow up throughout the story and mature. Being in that environment, she was forced to grow up much faster than a normal child which is sad but also impressive.
Author: Nicholas Gunn Page 2 of 3
One thing I noticed about telling a story in a graphic format is that the author has control of the visualization of the story. When just reading a text, different people are going to envision the story in different ways. However, by having those pictures the author can portray the story in whatever way they like. Additionally, this graphic format allows authors to convey a deeper meaning of the story through the style they use. Through different styles, the author can evoke different emotions in the reader which provides another aspect of conveying information besides the text and pictures themselves. In Persepolis, for example, the black and white pictures along with the style contribute to the seriousness of the story.
One thing I noticed about how the author tells her story is the language she uses. It’s simple and understandable which, in turn, makes her story more digestible. A complex story such as the author’s could be difficult to convey entirely to readers but through the language she used, it’s easy to follow. The language in combination with the pictures tells such a rich story in a simplistic way.
I found it interesting how the slave jail was so close to the main house and hotel/tavern. It seems almost psychopathic for people to be enjoying themselves at the tavern or relaxing in the house knowing the horrible conditions the slaves are living in only a few feet away. How could the white slave owners not have a shred of humanity even as the slaves were suffering in Lumpkin’s Jail? The more we learn about Richmond’s history and the history of slavery in this country, the more I’m starting to see that slavery was not just a system to provide labor. It was a system for white people to express their complete hatred for black people.
Question:
- For the first prompt, are there any parameters for what we can say we learned through writing? Does it have to be something we learned about writing itself or can it be anything?
- How long should our essays be?
This class with Nick Dease, the film and humanities librarian, was very helpful. He went through a plethora of resources that are available to us which I otherwise would never have known about. He first went through the processes of interlibrary loan, holding for pick up, and the online chat with a librarian. He also explained the UR One Search and showed us the best ways to search the database and find what we need. He described to us the variety of resources available, such as books, magazines, journals, and films. He also touched on the importance of learning the unique language of your topic to better be able to research and find resources about it.
He then went on to describe evaluating the sources we find based on their relevance, reliability, and legitimacy. He emphasized going through each source and tracing back different claims and quotes. After this, he talked about the different formats of citing a source such as APA, MLA, and Chicago, and went through the different benefits and drawbacks of each as well as different use cases. He also talked about the importance of giving credit where it’s due to avoid plagiarism, even if it is accidental. Not only does giving credit avoid plagiarism, but it also contributes to scholarly conversation.
He then finished up with some additional methods to narrow down search engine results such as placing quotes around text or explicitly stating “Not” to avoid certain results.
P.S. Sorry for the late response, I didn’t realize I was the responder for this class until I was looking ahead at the weekly schedule
When I began writing my annotated bibliography, I was very conflicted between two different sources. In the text, Campbell references a speech given by Frederick Douglass, and within that speech, Douglass touches on a text written by an Episcopalian Bishop named William Meade. Meade’s views on slavery were shocking and immediately caught my attention and sparked the question I am looking to answer which is how Christian leaders of the early 19th century could justify the system of slavery. I was unsure if it would be better to look at Douglass’ speech with Meade’s included or just the text from Meade. Eventually, I decided to do Douglass’ speech because it was very difficult to find a good source for Meade’s text. Writing the annotated bibliography was a little challenging and I am honestly still not completely certain that I did it correctly so hopefully working on it in class will help.
The first source I have decided to use for my annotated bibliography is found on page 93 and is source number 209. The excerpt comes from Frederick Douglass who gave a speech titled “Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country” in which he begins by giving a quote from William Meade, the Bishop of Virginia Episcopalians in 1841. In this page-long quote, Bishop Meade talks about how slaves should view their masters as God’s overseers and therefore should be obedient and complete all work given to them as if they were doing it for God himself. He even references God as “your great Master in Heaven”. He then goes on and talks about how slaves should fully accept any punishment their master gives them because, “It is your duty, and Almighty God requires that you bear it patiently.”
I found this section extremely interesting because it perfectly demonstrates how slave owners of the 19th century used any means necessary to justify slavery. Coming from a religious upbringing myself, it’s hard to imagine how a bishop, a man supposedly of faith, can try to justify the enslavement of others through religion. This book is filled with slave owners trying to justify slavery and not accept how horrific it truly was.
I found the entire text of Frederick Douglass’ speech “Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country” with the quote from William Meade online and saved it as a bookmark. It would be interesting to read more into both Meade and Douglass to get a better overall understanding of their beliefs.
In terms of the reading on how to make an annotated bibliography, I was a little worried because I have never done one before but the source did a good job of explaining it. It seems fairly easy and I definitely see the benefit in having an annotated bibliography instead of just the typical MLA formatted Works Cited. The annotated bibliography forces you to dive deeper into the source and get an overall better understanding of it instead of throwing your sources on the Works Cited page without much attention like in MLA.
One thing that immediately struck my attention was the picture on page 128 of Daniel Trattles of the 19th Michigan Infantry after he was released from Belle Isle in Richmond. I think this really impacted me because of how deathly skinny he looks. By just looking at his shoulders and chest, I almost would not be able to guess he’s human because there’s just nothing there besides skin and bone. I never knew Belle Isle existed and it’s hard to believe that a prison like that existed in the US. I almost have this notion that yeah, things like this happen, and it’s awful but it seems so foreign, like it could never happen in America.
It also was crazy to read about the countless ways that people tried to continue suppressing black people after slavery was abolished. The school system especially focused entirely on targeting black people, expelling them from schools, and attempting to replace African-American school teachers with white teachers. Urban development was another way that white people attempted to continue to suppress black people. The text talks about the decision to extend 7th Street in Richmond so that it cut directly through Richmond’s historic black cemetery where many famous slaves were buried. Later on in the reading, chapter 8 talks about how highways were developed, splitting historically black communities and displacing residents who would eventually be reconcentrated back into public housing courts. It’s even crazier to think that all of this happened so recently.
The section about education and how white students were told a distorted, watered-down version of history was also interesting. The author talks about a specific textbook that was required for all 4th-grade students. This textbook spent two paragraphs out of 328 pages talking about slavery in the context of the Civil War. To top it all off, the textbook also says, “Some of the Negro servants left the plantation because they heard that President Lincoln was going to set them free. But most of the Negroes stayed on the plantations and went on with their work. Some of them risked their lives to protect the white people they loved,” (Campbell 147). This also reminded me of a conversation I had with one of my friends here at UR who grew up in Alabama. He said when he learned about the Civil War, it was referred to as “the succession of the North”. It’s unbelievable that to this day, we are trying to influence our youth through distorted views of history.
These chapters were informative but also shocking to read. It was interesting to read about the class system which greatly benefited the “great men” but harmed the rest of society. Despite the variety of classes in today’s society, none are nearly as clear-cut as they were back then. It was also sad to see how this system of indentured servitude of Europeans coming to America gradually shifted to give white people more freedom and increasingly less to black people. Then, the system would result in complete racial-based slavery. The treatment of these slaves was also disgusting and hard to believe at times. Slaves were just property, expended at the slave owner’s discretion without a shred of humanity. The fact that slave owners would be compensated by the government if they killed one of their slaves is sickening. Additionally, reading about Lumpkin’s Jail and hearing about the conditions these slaves experienced was horrible. I understand that slavery was extremely normal at the time, however, it’s still impossible for me to imagine how one human could subject another else to such conditions and not think twice about it.