Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Birmingham was the segregated city in the United States. Martin Luther King held a parade without a permit, and got arrested. People have the obligation to follow the justice law but also has the right to against the unjust law. He supported the nonviolent protest.

Blacks and whites are all human being and should treated equal according what Bible said; but why whites treated blacks so bad. Martin Luther King used the point of view from the blacks and wrote this letter to speak out his mind.

The story that Martin Luther King used as a example of segregation which is a strong persuasion. The black kid wanted to go to the amusement park, but the parents only can said it's closed for colored people. The black kid also asked,"Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?" How cruel is this for a child that they can't pursue what they want!

I agree that Martin Luther King took the nonviolent action to against the segregation. If the black people still not took the action, the white people would still oppressed them.

Henry David Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government

Henry David Thoreau was influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau spent one night in the jail because he refused to pay taxes. He also against slavery. Thoreau emphasized the importance of individualism. "I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward." He challenged the government that people can disobey the government and don't support it."That government is best which governs not at all."

He also described the function of government. Government should control by people and has the least power. People have the right to resistance. Civil disobedience is a necessary expression of individual conscience and morality.

Emerson's the duties of the scholar

After Emerson talked about nature, mind of past, and action, he began to talk about the duties of the scholar. For example, the development of self-trust and a mind to be a repository of wisdom The scholar should be brave to go through any obstacles, so that required self-trust. Scholars should remained their own thinking, and don't distracted by the popular opinions. "They are such to become Man Thinking. They may all be comprised in self-trust. The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances."

The third influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson

The third influence is action! A true scholar shouldn't stay in the house just studying and thinking, he should go out and experience to understand the world. "Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth." The active person is richer than the scholar. "The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power." A true scholar should use their knowledge of what they learned, and using it in the reality. Then the studying will be useful.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's second Influence

Ralph Waldo Emerson's second influence in "The American Scholar" is the mind of past. In the beginning, he talked about the books which contained the mind of past. Books can be good and can be bad. The books can hold you back from thinking, and not forward. Emerson stressed on the creativity. On the other side, books can help scholars form new ideas, and books can kill time too. Emerson thinks that each book has its own idea, so each age should create its own books and find its own self according to nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson was the most important philosopher in the nineteenth century. People said he was the Father of American Transcendentalism or the Father of American Literature.
In the argumentative essay "The American Scholar," he addressed to the scholars of Phi Beta Kapa Society at Cambridge. Emerson talked about that there 's something new happened in this land, and all the scholars, writers had responsibility. He wrote how should a scholar should be educated, and came u three influences: nature, past of mind, and actions.

Nature is everything, like plant is part of nature, including what's in your mind. Nature and soul are related. If you know more about nature, then you get more understanding of yourself too.

Hawthorne's Rappaccini's Daughter

In the 50 minutes American Lit. class, we "listened"the story of Rappaccini's Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Beatrice was a lonely and innocent young girl who was isolated from the society by her father's stupid experiment on her. Rappaccini raised a poisonous plant and got into his daughter, Beatrice body. Her little breath can make insects or other livings died. The poison had already been in her body for years, so Beatrice died because she took the powerful antidote. To Rappaccini, the final result of his experiment was his own daughter died. I wondered is that the result that Rappaccini really want?

I was surprised by the plot of the story!Rappaccini didn't do a great job on his role of father. He hurted his own daughter because of his own fervor of his science.

Thomas Paine's Common Sense

Thomas Paine was the key member during the American Revolution. His saying in the book Common Sense awakened the people, and inspired them to go to revolution. In his Common Sense, he said people have the right to get their own freedom, and the book was easy to understand by common people. People wanted to cut off the relationship with Great Britain, so people can successfully sell their goods to the European markets. Thomas Paine made many arguments in Common Sense that we should achieve our independence. Because of his book, Americans defeated British successfully!!!!

Olaudah Equiano

I was really impressed of Olaudah Equiano's writing "From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano." It was the first slave narrative. Equiano's first attempt was trying to tell the federal government to stop the slave trade. His life supposed to be better; when he was a kid, he trained to be a warrior. He was kidnapped with his sister, and enslaved in Africa. Life was not great for him, he got separated with his sister. He tried to escape, and it became impossible to get home. He had been sold many times. Once, he was bought from a woman, and the treatment there made him forget that he was a slave!

The horrible thing was if the slave resist to eat, then whites would tied them at windlass, and hit the slave. Equiano then sent to the New World, the voyage was horrible; people rather died. He even saw the white men hit their own white to die too. Whites were the savages. Equiano saw different things that he couldn't see in his home like flying fish, vessels, and horses.

Equiano found small comforts along his life, but after the comforts were the hard life waiting for him. If I am Equiano, i can't even bear with the arduous life he has. White and black men suppose to be equal, they are all human beings!

The Declaration of Independence

We're reading an original draft of the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson in American Literature class. The Declaration of Independence is a document that needed to be sign by all thirteen colonies to break away from British.

In the beginning of the declaration, Jefferson stated that all men are created equal. We mention all men are created equal whenever is to abolish the slavery, racial segregation, or upraise the female position. However, the declaration deleted the part of slavery under the resistance of southern colonies. This part is the most important in the declaration which really stress on the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration of Independence became the most successful argumentative essay.

From Letters from an American Farmer

On Wednesday, we started a new person in American Literature named J. Hector Sr. John De Crevecoeur. His name is long and interested. He actually was from France, but he went to Canada.

In his one of the writings, "From Letters from an American Farmer" described America had no "aristocratical family, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible on; no great manufacturers employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury."(301) Europeans came to America tried to build a better society than their back home in Europe. They were hard to maintain a family back home, they had no jobs, and not enough food to eat. On the other hand, Europeans had a better life in America, they had jobs, and they had food to eat, they even had more than they need now.

Remarks Concerning The Savages of North America

"Franklin's writings on American Indians were remarkably free of ethnocentricism, although he often used words such as "savages," which carry more prejudicial connotations in the twentieth century than in his time. Franklin's cultural relativism was perhaps one of the purest expressions of Enlightenment assumptions that stressed racial equality and the universality of moral sense among peoples."

http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FFchp5.html