Nicole Tomiselli
January 30, 2009
Mr. Fiorini
English
Desire for Freedom
Slavery affects people to this day. It doesn’t matter how much effort a slave puts into his/her work they always are disrespected in some sort of way.
Mercer was a slave. She was treated somewhat decently. Her master, Pryor whom she had two children with, Benjamin and Matthew cared for her enough that she could survive. Mercer also had another little girl named Willietta; her father was a runaway slave. They never seen him again, Mercer always wondered if he would ever sneak back just to see how they were doing. Her desire was to become free with her children, but she knew that Pryor would never let that happen. He wanted her with him. In a way I think he had feelings for Mercer, he cared for her way too much not to have any.
Her dream about being free was finally about to come true when Pryor invited her on a trip to Nicaragua. She thought that somehow she could escape and just wander off, but that did not happen. What happened was they made a stop at Philadelphia, and it is a free state. So when Mercer was waiting in a hotel room with Mattie and Etta an African American man named Tyree knocked on the door. She begged him to help her escape so he tried his best to help her out. While waiting to board onto the ship the Diligence Committee stopped Mercer and said if you want your freedom here’s your chance to be free. Pryor tried to convince Mercer to stay and said to the people she would never leave me. In a way she felt really bad and didn’t know what to do, but it was her once in a lifetime chance to be free and she took it. She stayed with Tyree’s family someplace no one knew where they were. Eventually Pryor would try to claim her back, but for now she felt safe and free spirited to do whatever she wanted to do. Tyree’s family became very close with Mercer over time. She felt comfortable with them. Mercer was disrespected because if Pryor really cared for her and wanted her to be happy he would of let her be free. Instead she had to gain her freedom in a way that didn’t make her feel very good. She was leaving her son Benjamin behind and would never be able to see him again. That is the one thing she regrets about becoming free. I think the title “The Price Of A Child” means that nothing in the world not even money would replace how she felt for leaving her baby boy behind.
I agree with you nicole about slavery and freedom. You made good points and statements that I also have in mine.I like how you ended your passage about the price of a chic and your meaning of that not even money would replace how the mother felt of leaving her child behind
ReplyDeleteNicole, most of what you've written here summarizes the plot of one small section of Cary's novel. I'm not quite sure what you were most interested in writing about here. When you began, it seemed like you were going to explore the daily life of the slave and the many forms of disrespect that Mercer experienced. This didn't really come out in what you wrote. Work on maintaining more of a focus in your writing in the future. When you re-read what you have written ask yourself what your goals were for your writing and whether you've met those.
ReplyDelete