Of the Passing of the First Born” by W.E.B. Du Bois and “On My First Son” by Ben Johnson share a very similar event. Explain how this event is made “literary” by each author. Hint: use of literary terms such as symbolism, imagery, tone, etc. are the key. Compare the two events and how each author expresses his ideas in the writing. Give examples from the texts to explain your opinion. Write one paragraph of ten sentences or more, then respond to two other students.
In the poem “On My First Son”, the author uses metaphor and Symbolism. For the metaphor Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry. In this line, Jonson compared his son to a literary text as he called him the “best piece of poetry.” For symbols, the author used 2 for this poem.
- Right Hand – Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy
- This symbolizes importance and power. Calling his son his right hand shows how important and valuable his son is to him.
2. Flesh – To have so soon ‘scap’d world’s and flesh’s rage,
- Flesh symbolizes sin, sexual desires and temptation.
While “Of the Passing of the First Born”, the author used Symbolism by using The Veil, the most frequently mentioned symbol in the book. The Veil is used as a psychological presentation of the color line, which refers to the segregation between races – white people got all the privileges, opportunities. They received better treatment while black people experienced slavery and received nothing.
After the death of their children, both authors experienced extreme loss and despair, which is very evident in both pieces written where they did not only mourn the tragedy, but at the same time, the death of their children provide them solace for the fact that they wouldn’t experience the reality of racism. In “Of the Passing of the First Born”, the author wrote that his son is “not dead… but free.” Meanwhile, the author of “On My First Son” uses envy as death has freed his son from the reality of racism, temptations and suffering -“Will man lament the state he should envy? To have so soon ‘scap’d world and flesh’s rage, And, if no other world yet age?”
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