During the modern era, many people began to evaluate something brand new for themselves. They are not following the popular flows anymore, yet they pursued the individual unique idea. Also, one of the most significant events from this time period probably would be the Declaration of Freedom of Slavery in North America. Up from Slavery written by Booker T. Washington was a non-fiction that described the situation in that period. He emphasized the wrong point of view about slavery, by writing with the first-person perspective, describing the chronicle events, and vividly portraying the situation, the author helped the readers to understand that slavery is wrong, and furthermore supported Washington to oppose slavery.
The non-fiction began with a clear description of the slaves’ living environment, and the author illustrated his experiences of slavery with a vivid image. "Cabin accommodation", "without any lights coming in into the cabin", "no floor", "sharing house" (Washington Chapter 1) illustrated the harsh environment that slaves need to face. All these descriptions gave some shocks to the readers. Since the novel was written in the first-person perspective, the author tried to put his audiences in his shoes and evoked a sense of pitiful and sadness. Apparently, non-slave people have never experienced such treatments, when they read all these things, they finally realized how crucial and dehumanize is slavery. By depicting such an environment, the author used the imagery to approach audiences within their hearts, emotions, that they must deny slavery.
Washington also intended to proclaim his idea in an ethically way. All the chapters were the memoirs of Washington, which means it was all recalled from his past memory. Within many of the chapters, Washington was compassionated to tell the readers that slavery is wrong within many perspectives. One of them is comparing environmental factors, "I had no schooling whatever while I was a slave, though I remember on several occasions I went as far as the schoolhouse door with one of my young mistresses to carry her books" (Washington 6). Within this short sentence, we can know that slaves never had proper education but only harsh labors, whereas the sons and daughters of their masters' schoolbags were held by their servants. One point can be reflected from this: according to their social position, the treatments were different significantly, even on most basic things that distinguished by the social positions. Why do people get separated by their races and social positions? This was the point made by Washington. Once again it advocates the idea held by Washington, that slavery is wrong.
At last, by illustrating the slave's behaviors and responses, the author helped readers to understand the points of view of slavery. Even though most of the babies were born as slaves who don’t have a concept of moral right –whether the act of slavery is right or wrong –but deep in their hearts, they understood that this is wrong, and it must be changed. Once the slaves heard that the war began as the result of the arguments of slavery, they were excited about the possible bright future. The frequency of singing during the labors was drastically increased, they began to change their names, and some of them even went out for traveling (Washington 16,17,20). They were satisfied even just hearing the news, we can tell that by the emotions on their faces and the topic they talked about during their work; they were so happy for even just imagining the scenario. These were enough to tell the audiences how passionate the slaves during that time period were. Unlike illustrating the environment, making a point of view from their behavior and responses, the author provided a third-person perspective, let the readers better understand the circumstances from a different perspective back then.
Good persuasive writing should be composed of ethos, pathos, and logos, which were mostly maintained in the non-fiction. Using the first-person perspective, comparing, and description with the explanations, the author established the idea that slavery is not the right thing to do. The first-person perspective was very effective, even in modern-day society. Because writing a story with a first-person perspective, the author can illustrate the environment vividly because he knows better than anyone else about the situation. The comparison was effective as well since it can show you what is the difference and what similar, it is still frequently used during the modern-day articles. Yet, description won’t be effective in modern society than before, because it is so common, that if you take the description out of the text, it would be hard for readers to understand. Furthermore, we can’t retrieve a description from a text, or we have no way to write one.
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