Phyllis Wheatley :: essays research papers

Televangelists like Jimmy Swaggert and Jim and Tammy Fay Bakker promise the Christian faith tomillions everyday. For the practiced price, anybody passel squander something- a.k.a. Christianity, God, andfaith- in their lives. On these shows, there is no need to have believed in religion before, as longas there is a need for it now. &9Religious telecasts asking for money in exchange for faith attract nearly five million peopleeach year. fifty-five percent of these people ar elderly woman Thirty-five percent are from thedesperation pool, the poorest and neediest members of society The remaining ten percent arethose who talent be classified as upper-middle class, who want spiritual justification for their greed.Most of us know that the religion professed on these telecasts is not about trusting in God orhaving a deep depression in his teachings, ideas that aggregate Christianity in society. Instead, the old,the poor, and the rich are buying something to have as their own when they have nothing else,whether it be in the material, social, or emotional sense. So-called faith gives them possession, yetplaces responsibility in the hands of a higher force. And in that, they are hoping to find freedom inknowing that their lives are less empty and without direction.&9It may seem that we can hardly relate the televangelist audience of the twentieth Century topoetic views on Christianity of the 18th Century, but surprisingly, there lies legion(predicate) similaritiesbetween the two.. Both Anne Bradstreet and Phyllis Wheatley appeal to Christianity after theirown personal tragedies. These women, like the many viewers who watch Church-TV everyday, havelost everything and are left with nothing. In an attempt to fill the void in their lives, left byBradstreets burn down house and Wheatleys treatment as a knuckle down, they turn to the Christian faith that attimes seems as empty as the faith that can be commercialized and sold by dramatists on television. &9In analyzing "Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning of Our House" and "On BeingBrought from Africa to America," I pull up stakes consider Christian faith as means of coping with nothingness,rather than a pious way of life. While making references to Anne Bradstreets similar increaseof faith, I will contend that Phyllis Wheatleys Christianity seen is sought out for her own purposesin times of feeling nullity rather than a confident belief or trust in God and the acceptance ofGods will.&9Phyllis Wheatleys first appeals to Christianity emerge as she is transported on a slave shipfrom West Africa to Boston in July 1761, which begins the poem under analysis.