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Topic Research

Samuel McDuffie
February 15, 2019
ENGL 205

Project Research
Topic: Pick a subject: love, work, freedom, etc. Then choose two selections and discuss how that subject is discussed in those selections. Use literary devices to help frame your discussion.  

Readings chosen:
The Luck of Roaring Camp
Whitfield: Self-Reliance 

Subject focus: Love

Source I will be using just as reference for Whitfield’s work:
Sherman, Joan R. “James Monroe Whitfield, Poet and Emigrationist: A Voice of Protest and Despair.” The Journal of Negro History, vol. 57, no. 2, 1972, pp. 169–176. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2717220.

Notes for The Luck of Roaring Camp:
·     Focus on the changes that Luck bought to the men of the mine. 
·     Symbolism: The infant baby symbolizes more than one thing. It may symbolize life, and it may also be a Christian symbol. After being born, the baby revives the spirit of the camp, giving it a new life. The men start to wash themselves and act with decency. The Christian symbol comes into play when they take the baby to church for its christening. The baby is like a recreation of Jesus who gave faith to people and life to the land. It also symbolizes love, purity, calm.
·     Although the town gets greedier, in the story it tells how the baby changes the men. 

Analysis for Whitfield:
James Whitfield’s poem “Self-Reliance” speaks of the theme of reliance, the need to depend or trust someone, for the sake of ones’ happiness, the ways of life, and the realization that our strength reflects from within us. It also tells the story about a man’s conscience informed by Christianity. Ways of finding happiness is through otherswho surround you during difficult times. Whitfield states: “When numerous friends, whose cheerful tone/In happier hours once cheered him on,/With visions that full brightly shone,”(Whitfield). Whitfield doesn’t signify his target audience, but he defies it openly. One must have people around them to get through the harshest and darkest of times. He uses words like cheerful, happier, brightly to indicate that he knows of love in various forms. Whitfield says “with visions that full brightly shone” expressing that someone or something can see the brighter side of these harsh moments. 
Whitfield states how being in love also defines our youth and purity: 
When love, which in his bosom burned
With all the fire of ardent youth,
And which he fondly thought returned
With equal purity and truth
The youth through their struggle find comfort in one another. Almost as if to blind themselves from the hardship, they focus on each other. Their purity cannot be destroy because of their love. Whitfield emphasizes the young’s purity, as it may change as the years go by and they experience more harm than good.  Their truth is their being. 


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