Freedom is Slavery by Taiina Ayala

Freedom is Slavery

(Merriam-Webster) Slavery: submission to a dominating influence

We stomp, we yell, we beg, we plead

To have our rights is what we need

We scream, we push, we cry, we fight

We become strangers when fallen is night

I know the cause for which we fight is true.

But still, why, oh why am I still so blue?

I’m fighting for what’s right, we are people too

Without freedom, what can we do?

But what does freedom give in return?

This dim light, it seems so far.

Will we ever know what makes it burn?

Is it worth the bodies covered in tar?

We give our souls and we give our lives

While the ones in power sit like Queen bees in their hive

 They don’t seem understand

That our world’s future is in their hands

We have the same lines in our palms, same nails on our fingers

Like a bad taste, this hatred lingers

The same nose to breathe, the same mouth to taste

And all that stands between us is our race

I once had a faith in the world, I know I did

My mother used to tell me as a kid,

“Tomorrow today will be the past”

With just this thought, the possibilities were vast

I pictured myself walking to the corner store

No fears in the world is what I had

The thought made me radiate, I smiled until my mouth was sore

With this thought I could not be angry, sad, upset, or mad

I’ll send a letter to in the mail without any trouble

My kids will go to an excellent school

The positive possibilities will more than double

No colored man will ever be thought of as a fool

We give our souls and we give our lives

For these stories, once told by our mothers

These dreams we have must survive

People are all the same, no matter their colors

But do we really give our lives for this war?  

Or are they bought and sold?
What do we get in exchange for our lives? Money? Silver? Gold? 

For something to be sold, both sides must benefit

But the racial slurs, dirty looks, and dead bodies seem to be infinite 

And in this scenario what do we get? What is it for? 

No, these things are stolen.

Stolen like a slave’s soul from God.

Our lives are stolen from us for something that can be so easily solved.

My need to fight for what has right has become swollen.

Imagine a world where all who breathes are equal.

Will I finally be able to go home to my family in peace?

Will I finally be able to answer my child’s question,

“Daddy when will racism cease?”

I Hope I Did This Even A Little Bit Right (Study in Impressionism) by Taiina Ayala

The last set of a musical performance in a small but packed venue, extremely late at night

She stood in the audience and looked. Looked at the lights coming from above her, above them. They were so blinding she began to see dots, floating from left to right, right to left, and everywhere in between. Dots of different colors, not just the shrieking magenta shade of the light. Dots of mustard, crimson, turquoise, indigo, lime. But they weren’t exactly dots. "Dots" implies that they were circular. These lights were more specks: Shapeless, undefined. Even their colors weren’t constant. One would turn from an orange to black in an instant. They overwhelmed her, so she tried to concentrate on something else; Stay still, let her eyes return to their normal state. Only she couldn’t concentrate because she couldn’t stay still. She herself was standing in one spot but the bodies of others moved her like a strong current. She felt a clammy pressure on her arm. On both arms. On her back, on her stomach. It was a small space filled with lots of people. It was late, and her eyelids suddenly felt the weight of bowling balls. "What time was it?" she asked herself. By the smell of alcohol coming from peoples’ open, singing mouths, it was late. Or early. Early in the morning. Now that she had adjusted to the constant sticky pressure on her arms and learned not to look up, she focused on the music. The bass’ vibrations were low and rhythmic, like a heart beat. She pressed her hand to her own chest, feeling her own rhythm. It was different. She looked up at the lead singer’s face. Wet, droplets appeared, formed, from the border of his forehead and made their way down his facial features. She heard a shake in his voice and looked back up at a feature she seemed to miss while following the path of his sweat: his eyes. It looked as though they were also sweating. Feeling an uncomfortable confusion, she turned her head to look at the faces of those who closely surrounded her. And what she found created a feeling in her gut that surprised her even more than the singer’s sweating eyes. For what seemed to have no reason at all, bumps arose from every inch of her body. Her spine to her fingers, her toes to her head.

Just How Dark is Your Heart? Taiina Ayala

While beginning to read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, our teacher had us play a card game which was a stimulation of the situation in The Congo, and many other places, during this time. In the game, we were put in teams and played the role of the Europeans. We had many obstacles and were faced with tough decisions regarding treatment towards the natives. But through it all we had one common goal: Profit. My team won, coming out with the larger amount of profit. After playing the game we were asked a series of questions. These were my responses.

-What are some factors that influenced the choices you made?

Money. The resources (eatable diamonds) became the sole drive being our actions.  We also considered environmental conditions and natives’ well-being and mood (but only for our sake.)

-Under what circumstances would you have made different choices?

Strategically, if we had all good weather at first we would’ve been more cautious and we wouldn’t have pressed as much. If were able to see firsthand our extremely negative effects on the native people.

-How do you feel about the choices you made?

Overall, pretty good. We weren’t TOO harsh on them. But I do feel bad that we came in guns blazing. I hope families weren’t slaughtered or anything.

-Realistic portrayal?

Yes. We had a team that we made decisions with. We all had a common goal that really only involved the natives’ as tools to get what we really wanted. We were going after a resource for profit, as were the Europeans in Heart of Darkness. Survival was an ongoing struggle. And ultimately it posed the question, “How far are you willing to go to get what you want?”—a question the colonizers were forced to answer for themselves every day.

-Unrealistic portrayal?

In real life, our stay across seas would most likely be way longer than 12 months. Something that kept us going was knowing that we only had a few months left. In real life, they didn’t have that reassurance. Also, there would probably more than four months of bad weather. Weather can be very unpredictable. We saw no effects of the harm we caused upon the villages. Usually natives wouldn’t just give resources away, even for survival. Also, they wouldn’t have been so nice to us after all the oppression we caused, especially since my team came in guns blazing.

-How did this affect your understanding of European colonialism?

After playing this game I found myself sympathizing with the colonizers. What little thoughts I had about the natives were aimed only toward our profit’s well-being. It became only about winning and this part of me honestly alarms me. I suppose that this is a main theme of Heart of Darkness. It brings to light something about humanity that is usually hidden. We all know we have that dark side; we just like to believe that our personal worst is better than others’. We look back at the greedy European imperialists and swear we would have done things differently when in fact, I’m not so sure. The fact that while answering these questions after playing the game, I said that we didn’t hurt the natives “TOO much” was a little frightening. If this had been real life, hundreds of people would’ve died on our accounts. Would I still have invented justifications for my obvious cruel actions? I’d like to say I wouldn’t—that it would be different. But the truth is, I’m not sure.

"The Chimney Sweeper" by William Blake Analysis

In a well-written essay, analyze how Blake used figurative language to convey a major theme of the poem.

A major theme in "The Chimney Sweeper" by William Blake is the loss of innocence. Through the employment of multiple contrasting elements, metaphors, imagery, and symbolism, Blake creates a world full of doom, despair, disease, and eventually death.

The speaker of the poem is a fellow chimney sweeper, presumably a child as well. Making him a peer of little Tom's makes the speaker a more reliable and trusting source. We assume that he knows the pain and suffering that Tom is experiencing. However, because he beings with a short summary of how he himself became a chimney sweeper, and that he calls Tom "little Tom" leads us to believe that he is somewhat older than Tom. The gloomy, sad tone is established by Blake in the very first stanza. To further enforce this tone of the poem, he uses personification. While telling his sorrow tale of how he himself began chimney sweeping, he says that his tongue "could scarcely cry 'weep! weep! weep!'" Ending the first stanza with the use of anastrophe further emphasized the speaker’s role as Tom’s peer and our lesser. “So your chimneys I sweep,” says the speaker, assigning the reader the role of superior. This gives Little Tom’s story a sense of urgency. 

It is in lines 5-8 that we are introduced to “little Tom Dacre,” a small boy who has white hair that is curly like the hair on “a lamb’s back.” Using the color white instead of saying blonde and describing him as a lamb symbolizes Tom’s innocence as a sacrificial character. Tom is crying about being forced into sacrificing his hair and essentially his childhood and innocence in order to sweep chimneys. Having the white hair on the innocent young boy in such a dirty, gloomy setting provides a contrast that evokes an unsettling feeling. This is to emphasize the immorality of the situation presented in the poem; intended to make the reader sympathize with Tom. 

In the dream described in the poem, Tom sees some of his fellow sweepers in black coffins. They are then set free by an angel with a key. The coffins of black obviously represent death, a very possible outcome for Tom. Because these dead sweepers were also presumably children, the fact that when they are let out they partake in such child-like activities—leaping, laughing, and running in green plains—reinforces their return to innocence, something they had to sacrifice. They “wash in a river” to cleanse the dirt from the chimneys and metaphorically cleanse their souls from the despair they went through. When they finish cleansing, they are naked and white: childlike and innocent once more.

The world in the dream is painted as such a contrast to the world that Tom lives in that it is understandable that the dream convinces him to long for and look forward to death. The unsettling thought of a child wishing for nothing but death, someone who is so young, who lives his every day wanting to die, ends the poem. He can no longer return to his child life. He has been exposed to a new world and now he wants nothing more than death. Tom has lost all of his innocence.

3 Easy Steps to Success

1.       Utilize the power of dialogue. It's the most natural way to express the way one is feeling. So natural, in fact, that we seem to forget that we can use it to strengthen our writing. Perhaps it seems all too simple. But rather than saying, “Suzie didn’t want to go to the store,” you could easily substitute this in:

Three knocks were heard from the outside of Suzie’s bedroom door.

“What do you want?” said Suzie.

“Rude, much?” said her older sister, Janice, as she entered the room.

“I’m busy,” Suzie said, returning her gaze back to her homework.

“Well, Mom said she needs us to get eggs, milks, and bread.”

“And why does this have to involve me?”

“Well, smarty pants Suzie, the words ‘us’ typically includes more than one person. You-“ Janice says slowly, with wide eyes and a nodding head, “and me.” She pauses and waits for a reaction from Suzie, who is now looking back up at her with extreme annoyance.

“I see. Well, Janice the jerk,” she says harshly while throwing a spiteful look at her sister, “the word ‘busy’ typically implies that someone has better things to do.”

“Well, I’m sorry but she said we, W-E, have to go.” She waves her hands in the space between her sister and herself. They sit in silence until Janice rolls her eyes, and leaves the room, closing the door behind her, but not before she says, “I’ll be in the car,” flatly.

Suzie, eyes as thin as her favorite mint chocolate cookies, which she was enjoying up until about five minutes ago, stares at her shut plain beige door. After a moment of pure hatred-filled tension, Suzie slams her book, slips her feet into her flip flops, adjusts her bun, and leaves her room with a large exhale.

Moral of the story: Let the characters do the telling. It’s far more interesting and a lot easier to get the point across for me personally. 

2.       Power of Pathos. There is a difference between telling your reader how to feel and persuading them to feel a certain way. The example used in class went something like this:

“I was sad because my dog died,” was being compared to:

“I woke up this morning, feeling as if something was missing. For one, I woke up on my own. I used to feel her whiskers caress and tickle my face when it was still dark outside, followed by the feeling of a wet, triangular, pink nose, and then tongue. Small strokes, to let me know there was no rush; she was simply reminding me of the time and what had to be done. This morning, without the sweet touch to awake me, I sat up from my bed, moved my hair out of my face, and simply looked straight ahead at my doors. I finally gathered the energy to shift my body to the side of my bed. I felt the silk sheets that she once loved caress my ankles. I lifted myself, and felt my feet hit the cold floor. I walked to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and got the milk out, preparing to make my daily coffee. And without noticing, I walked to the pantry, scooped out some dog food, and put it in her bowl. Disturbed by the absence of the sound of tiny paw steps running to the bowls, I looked up. It’s as if I could still see her face; wet, big, glossy eyes filled with love, blinking, rhythmically in sync with my heart beat. She was gone, and I couldn’t believe it. This was just the first of many now empty mornings without her. 

Moral of the story: take advantage of the power of the picture. Certain things universally symbolize emotions (i.e. wet eyes, cold floor, and empty mornings.) Never did I use the word “sad.” 

(Omg what is going on in this picture. God bless Google Images.)

3.       Figurative Language. The two main types of figurative language that have been beaten into our heads since about third grade are metaphors and similes. Because it would be uninteresting to read anything that is solely metaphors and similes, I will substitute a couple of excerpts from the examples above using figurative language.

“Three knocks were heard from the outside of Suzie’s bedroom door.” Can be turned into… “Three knocks as loud and threatening as Odysseus’ sirens were heard from the outside of Suzie’s door.”

“This morning, without the sweet touch to awake me, I sat up from my bed, moved my hair out of my face, and simply, looked straight ahead at my doors.” Could be… “This morning, without the sweet touch to awake me, I sat up from my bed, moved my hair out of my face, and simply, looked straight ahead at my doors as a sailor lost at sea might look into the gray abyss.”

Once again, it makes it all the more interesting and serves as more of an outlet for creativity, something every good reader looks for.