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  • Essay / The satirical discourse of Wheatley's poetry

    In early African American literature there is a constant theme of gaining freedom through assimilation which, as an idea, slowly withers and becomes activist while she continues to be ineffective in the black struggle for freedom and equality. Phillis Wheatley is the first canonical African American poet and she is able to write in this era because her poetry is the opposite of criticism. Phillis Wheatley's "On Being Brought from Africa to America" ​​demonstrates not only the conformity imposed on early slaves, but also the immediacy of slaves' indoctrination into white European religious philosophies and poetic rhetoric. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayWheatley wholeheartedly adheres to the idea of ​​Christianity in its lowest understanding in that she uses the rhetoric of Bible to explain why she should be equal, and it is because she and other African descendants “can also be refined” (Wheatley). Nowadays it is an atheist habit to make a philosophical and scientific argument against the basis of a Judeo-Christian god, this stems from the religious indoctrination perpetrated on the masses in the early stages of America. This is exemplified by Jupiter Hammon, Olaudah Equiano, Phillis Wheatley, and even Reverend Martin Luther King Junior. To argue against societal restrictions and oppressions experienced by a specific population, one must expose the hypocrisy within Christianity from which the oppressor derives their morality. By appealing to this vile desire for self-gratification, the overlord must stop being the oppressor or admit that he is evil. While using the specificities of Christianity to criticize immoral behavior, the indoctrination of slaves nonetheless remains a dangerous and definitive stain on the personality of the forced. Jupiter Hammon wrote to Phillis Wheatley in his poem “An Address to Phillis Wheatley”: “The tender mercy of God has brought you hither; Thrown at the raging principal; In the Christian faith you have a part that is worth all the gold of Spain. It is telling that the value of Christianity for these people is a mechanism for adding value to a life that is insufficiently dynamic or full of exceptional things. It's dangerous because they believe in what is essentially a fairy tale, so much so that they depend on the afterlife to give meaning to their "humble" lives and become complacent about the horrors that they have lived and that their ancestors will endure. The adherence of Africans and African Americans to Christianity was a tool of control and this is akin to Moloch's plan to use the master's weapons against them so that Wheatley would deliberately advocate his freedom based solely on the principles that spoon-fed him by slavers and ministers. As a student of classical literature, Wheatley was well acquainted with Milton and Pope, and so he can be expected to take a critical look at Christianity with regard to its application of oppression. “On being brought from Africa to America,” she demonstratively declares herself a shining example of Christianity, not as a boast, but as a criticism of those who would oppress her and thus defile their own holiness. This poem along with a review works well as satire to expose the fear within the community of slavers and subjugators in which she writes her work. For example, Wheatley writes "Remember, Christians, negroes, black like Cain, / Can be refined, and join the angelic train", indicating that she is recalling.