Author: Jazlyn

The poem I chose to write about is Little Brown Baby by Paul Laurence Dunbar.  I chose this poem because I love the sincerity it and resilience it exemplifies. This poem was filled with emotion and Dunbar’s use of slang definitely made the poem more worth the read. This poem was about a father speaking to his child and pouring out affection, he sits the child on his lap and start anazlyzing the childs face . It’s almost like he’s taking in his childs features and admiring its growth . He cracks a joke about the boogeyman coming to get the child, he did this with purpose. He was consuming the moment and wanted affection back from the child. ” Dah,  now, I t’ought dat you’d hug me up close. Go back, ol’buggah, you sha’n’t have dis boy.”  His writing technique almost made me feel like I was in the same room with this father as he spoke to his child. I was feeling the love and was more just taken aback when I really sat and thought to myself, no matter the hardships African American men are facing during this time in the world, their heart never changed towards their little ones. This actually moved me in a way where I became sad because Dunbar was a child of a former enslaved man, his father. Writing this poem he probably spoke from experience and wanted to reflect on his childhood. Empathy lacked in this time period, and with a poem like this, it makes you question why people were treated different when at the end of the day, we all are made of the same blood and all have a heart.

In Huckleberry Finn we learn a lot about Hucks upbringing and surroundings. A key event that grabbed my attention was when Pap popped back into Huck’s life after not seeing him for a while. Huck was doing good, he was going to school and enjoying, he also had his money deal with the judge. Pap for some reason, wanted Huck to stop going to school and decided to take Huck’s last dollar to buy alcohol. This key event bothered me so much because as a father, who isnt really even a father figure to his son, completely took advantage of the only good his son was putting on for himself. To then basically kidnap Huck and hold him against his will far from home just to treat him terribly and bring Huck into his old bad habits of smoking and swearing.  Pap appearing back into Huck’s life was detrimental to the path Huck was on .