Steve Epting
AP English
“The Story of an Hour” Literary Response
This short story, of a woman named Mrs. Mallard, expressed her true happiness of freedom. In this story, freedom is explained as her not having to care for her husband anymore. Her family thought that they needed to break it down to her gently that her husband had died; but she didn’t feel that bad about it. A burden had been lifted off of her.
After the news had been to her, she left and went in another room to be alone. She began to think about the situation more and more. The text says that, “she was sitting in a chair with a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.” She was in profound thought. She felt something coming to her, and all of a sudden she realized that she was free. She kept mumbling the word free to herself. As she kept thinking about it she realized that she will have a bunch of time to herself.
The husband, Mr. Mallard, must have treated her wrong for her to react this way. All she could think about was the ample amount of time that she was going to have all to herself. “Into this (chair) she sank, pressed down by physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. Mrs. Mallard had heart trouble and after a while, when she got the news she didn’t even consider her ailment. In this text, there were an abundance of descriptive adjectives that described her feelings. An example is when she was sitting in her room looking out the window and the smell of the rain was described as delicious breath.
In conclusion, the main character experienced freedom in this story. She is beginning to start having time for herself. When she whispered the words,”Free! Body and soul free!, she was breaking out of her devoted shell.

Sojourner Truth Literary Response

Steve Epting
AP English
Sojourner Truth Literary Response
When comparing the two documents that I have read about Sojourner Truth’s speeches, the most obvious point that she is trying to get across is equality. Truth wants equal rights for black people and she also wants equal rights for women. Truth believes down in her soul that all women deserve equal rights as men and she has convincing points that get her point across. By the end of Sojourner Truth’s speech there wasn’t a dry eye or an untouched heart in the place. Her words were so strong that they reached everyone that heard them.
In the document Aren’t I a Woman?, it wasn’t as raw and heartfelt. The words weren’t as appealing and it wasn’t as exciting. Even though the points and ideas were the same, the way they were given were not as strong as the other document. This document held back and did not give as many details of how a woman should be treated. The only reason that I could tell that the crowd was into it was because the reading said so. The word choice wasn’t as hard hitting. I received the message of her wanting equality for every person, but it just did not blow me away.
The document 1881 Account by Frances Gage (or is it by Sojourner Truth? The Debate Continues) is the direct speech that Sojourner Truth gave at a convention. This piece of literature hit home to say that all women need equal rights as men because we can do anything a man can do. She gave specific examples referring to how she plowed the fields and she showed how strong she was by holding up her muscle. Also, she said that she had thirteen children and she cried every time every one of them got sold into slavery. Her point there was, if she could withstand that trial, she could take on anything. This was a speech back in the 1800s so the grammar back then wouldn’t be correct if we spoke it today. She used such words as dey, dar, ‘twixt, and ’em mos’. This created a connection with the people in the audience because it opened their eyes to know that everyone needs equal rights.
In conclusion, the main point that Truth wanted to get across was equal rights for all women and black people. She said, “If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yourn holds a quart, wouldn’t ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?” She meant that if I only have limited rights now and you have more than me, wouldn’t you be mean to take my rights and not let me have any? Equal rights are the basis of Sojourner Truth’s entire mission.

The Wiz essay

Steve Epting
AP English
The Wiz
The movie The Wiz is an all time classic. It is a very fun and entertaining movie to watch. The main character, Dorothy, shows a big transition in her attitude in being independent. At the very beginning, she is a very shy person that always keeps to herself. By the end, she is a young woman that is not afraid to be herself around anyone. She shows tremendous growth as the movie progresses.
When the movie starts, Dorothy keeps to herself and she lives with her aunt. She is very dependent on her aunt for things. She is always helping out around the house and doesn’t really have a life of her own. Dorothy also doesn’t have a love life; she pushes guys away because she doesn’t like to get too close. Her aunt challenges her to start a new life by getting her own apartment and also teaching older high school kids instead of kindergartners.
Dorothy realizes, after she was whisked to Oz, that in order for her to get home she had to depend on herself to make it happen. This was a whole new world for her because she’s never really had to do anything for herself. This predicament is challenging her to face her fears and be brave. She had to go to Emerald City to meet the Wiz so that she could get back home. Dorothy realizes that she can be brave for not only herself, but for other people as well.
The main character, Dorothy, meets some very peculiar characters during her journey to Emerald City. First, she comes across a scare crow in need of a brain. Next, she comes across a tin man that was in need of a heart. Finally, she meets a lion that is in desperate need of courage. She had company on her way to meet the Wiz and it helped her to not give up hope. Even though she had problems, she still wanted to help others.
In conclusion, Dorothy showed maturity growth and she was growing to be independent. She had to go through all of that just to learn how to be independent and take care of things on her own. By the end, she didn’t need anyone to take care of her. She has broken out of her own little box and she has started to really live her life.

Spontaneous Me Literary Response

Steve Epting
AP English
Spontaneous Me Literary Response
This poem is written by an author that has a strange way of relating things. This poem is an ode to nature. It has a lot of personification in it. The author describes different aspects of nature such as plants, animals, weather, vegetation and human being urges. I think that the author was on a camping trip with a close friend. The author is probably sharing experiences that were good and bad, in the poem, and the author was sharing things that were taking place when they were there. The writer has a peculiar way of explaining things because he or she is comparing like and unlike things together. The target audience is really unidentified. I think that the author is expressing his or her love toward nature in different ways to get their point across.
The diction was great because I got a vivid description in my head. “The hillside whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash, The same late in autumn, the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark green.” While reading that quote I got a description of a beautiful hillside, early in the morning, that had different colors in the air because of what season it was. “The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down, that gripes the full-frown lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and tight till he is satisfied.” That quote was comparing a bee receiving nectar from a flower to a human during sexual intercourse.
This poem appeals to pathos because it has very strong feelings in it such as happiness, excitement, and love. It has a lot of references to love because it says, “Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love yielding, love-climbers, and the climbing sap. I think the author is trying to get the point across that we should love in everything that we do, even though he used strange references like love-juice and love-odor. This is a whimsical poem because it was erratic and unpredictable.

Phillis Wheatley Literary Response

Steve Epting
AP English
Phillis Wheatley Literary Response
This excerpt is about the poet Phillis Wheatley. She was an educated slave that had an advantage to travel the world, unlike other slaves. Wheatley was born in Africa and was brought to Boston in 1761. She had an advantage of education even though few white women were given an education. She was taught how to read and write and how to read Latin writers. Wheatley’s mother described her as a “frail and remarkably intelligent child.” She wrote poetry and she was inspired to write poetry from different poets such as Milton, Pope, and Gray. She traveled to London with her son to get started on her first book.
This passage is basically a biography telling the life of Phillis Wheatley. It is stating logical facts about her life so this passage is appealing to logos. The word choice was not complex at all. Everything was clear and I could understand it. Wheatley was very fortunate and she lived a life that many slaves only dreamed of. Throughout the text, the writer really doesn’t go into depth about anything. The author didn’t go into depth about her time being a slave, her family, or the time period when she was in London starting her book. They just told key points in her life, without detail.
Some of Phillis Wheatley’s poems were about slavery, and how badly they were treated. Her poems appeal to pathos because they are filled with great emotion such as tyranny, love, and pain. She set traditions for the black race because she was the first black to become a poet and she was also the first black woman to become a poet. This woman gained respect from white academic scholars such as Benjamin Franklin. She’s giving other people hope, even though this was done a long time ago.

Thomas Jefferson Literary Response

Steve Epting
AP English
Thomas Jefferson Literary Response
This passage is from Thomas Jefferson’s autobiography. Thomas Jefferson wrote some of the Declaration of Independence. The American colonies were tired of the way that the king of Great Britain was treating them. They wanted to take a stand in separating themselves from British rule. The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776 and then was engrossed on parchment and signed again on August 2nd. The passage stated everything the king did that the colonies wanted to change. One of the complaints stated “He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” That means that King George III has ignored the laws that keep the society in order.
Thomas Jefferson only wrote some of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson had a major influence as he was writing. His influence was a man named John Locke. Locke believed that all people have natural born rights and Jefferson basically got some of his political ideas from Locke. Jefferson stated, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The reason of this entire plea to the king is so that every citizen can have equal rights. Every human was born with natural rights to be an equal citizen.
The passage was not very hard to understand even though the Declaration of Independence was written a long time ago. The word usurpation was being used in the passage. When they use this word they are talking about the way the king is using his power. The passage appeals to ethos because Jefferson and the other writers were trying to strongly persuade the audience to feel how they were feeling. They wanted some changes to happen and they’re doing it very calmly. The writers wrote a lot of complaints. Basically all the citizens want is to be treated right.

"Huswifery" Literary Response

Steve Epting
AP English
“Huswifery” Literary Response
In this poem, Edward Taylor is expressing how he wants God to move through him and guide him. He wants God in every aspect of his life. Taylor wants God to guide him mentally and spiritually. Everything that Taylor does will be for the glory of God and no one else. He wants God to help him with his memory, conscience, judgement , affections, will, and understanding. He wants everything that he does to be pleasing unto God.
Taylor used metaphors to depict his hunger for God in his life. The most descriptive quote in this poem was the first line because it set the tone. “Make me, O Lord, thy Spinning Wheele compleat.” That basically means make me what you want me to be. Later in the poem, the author starts to compare letting the Lord use him to knitting on a spinning wheel. I think that is a wonderful example because it represents a skilled tailor designing his masterpiece into the greatest thing he ever made. Taylor wants God to speak through him so that he may talk respectfully. Also, when it says “Thy Holy Worde my Distaff make for mee” it means that he will follow God’s word.
This poem appeals greatly to pathos. I visualized a tailor knitting something that would be great. The word choice in this poem was amazing. Even though the style of writing was very old, I could still understand what it meant. This is a great poem because in every stanza, the author added more and more about how he needed God in every aspect of his life. In the first stanza it is comparing the knitting to being used by God. In the second, it starts to speak on how fine the thread is. The thread represents every personal quality that he has. Each piece of thread is a different color that represents him. In the third stanza, he talks about the inner traits that he has. The author sums up the entire poem by illustrating the entire masterpiece as a robe. All the traits and qualities that he had were intertwined to make a perfect robe portraying the way God wants him to look.

Anne Bradsreet Literary Response

Steve Epting
AP English
Literary Response: Anne Bradstreet
In these two different poems, Anne Bradstreet has a unique style of writing. In the first poem "The Author to Her Book", I think that she speaks in a general sense because she is not direct in her statements. “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain." She's having a thought. Throughout this poem, she talks about these different ideas and by the end she hates every idea that she came up with, so she throws the story away.
She appeals to pathos by just telling personal thoughts. She is having an intrapersonal conversation with herself. The tone of this poem is enigmatic, precocious, and frivolous. The tone was puzzling to grasp the main idea of the poem, it was prematurely developed because the ideas weren’t well thought out, and it was lacking in seriousness because she couldn’t pick one idea to stay on so she trashed the whole thing. I could tell these two poems were written a long time ago because of the word choice with words such as didst, nought, thou, run’st, thee, thy, and may’st.
In the second poem, "To My Dear and Loving Husband", it is very clear that she is showing her deep, heart-felt affection towards her husband. She is married and her audience is her spouse. She expresses her deep love toward him in a very nice quote that says, “My love is such that rivers cannot quench.” I think this is more like a ballad to say that her and her husband will be together forever.
The tone of this poem was euphoric, saccharine, and poignant. The tone structured the poem to be all these because she was very happy when she wrote this and it was cloyingly sweet. Anne Bradstreet appealed to ethos in this poem because she was expressing her feelings.

Literary Response: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Steve Epting
AP English
Literary Response: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
“Their foot shall slide in due time.” This quote is the basis of the whole passage. It sets the tone of the entire passage. Jonathan Edwards speaks very forcefully to get his message across. The quote basically means that while we are down on this earth we will sin and we will have to pay for it if we are not saved. The title actually speaks for itself because it’s saying that the people who are doing wrong are placed in God’s angry hands and His wrath can strike any time.
This passage was written a very long time ago. It was written in about 1712, and the reason I could tell that it was an old passage was because of the word choice. The author used words such as thou, didst, castedst, hitherto, shalt, whet, thither, and heretofore. I didn’t know what some of those words meant. The author used examples of similes such as, “They are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind.” There were also examples of personification such as “ …..hell opens its mouth to receive them…..” and “ …the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up.” The tone of this text is hostile and supercilious because it is angry and disdainful. The author appeals to pathos in this passage.
I don’t know who the audience is, but the author’s purpose was to tell people that the way they are acting now is going to send them to hell. The author depicted hell as the place that you never want to go. He explained it so well that I had a picture of it in my head. He was also trying to tell them that if they keep acting the way that they do, they will not see God, the sovereign. He based his text around a story from the bible when the Israelites were acting the same way the present day people were acting. They didn’t believe God and they didn’t care if they were going to heaven or hell. The author is taking the time out to warn the people about what is to come, so they won’t be condemned. The author talks about the people’s non-challant attitude towards heaven and hell and he said that their children will follow behind them and all of them will go to hell. The author is trying to save them from their wicked ways so that they can go to heaven.