A response to: "The Author to Her Book" by Anne Bradstreet

A response to: "The Author to Her Book"

I actually love this poem. I've read it before and I love that sense of familiarity you get when you pick something up and realize you've seen it before. Anyways I think her metaphor is incredibly strong. She compares her book, or any piece of writing really, to a child. Unfortunately, the relationship the author has with her book is not a loving and nurturing one, but rather filled with disappointment and unreached expectations. She refers to her writing as her "ill-formed offspring" and her "rambling brat." Obviously she is not proud of her works. All she is able to see are flaws and imperfections. Because it is something that she created, I don't think it will ever be good enough. She explains that her friends took her writing prematurely and got it published, which only resulted in embarassment and disatisfaction. Every time she looked at the book (her so called child) after that, she was ashamed to be associated with it. I think that actually happens a lot with parents and children. Parents will sometimes set unreasonable expectations for their kids, and then reprimand and punish them when they are unable to live up to them. It's hard because parents are always associated with their child. Every decision that is made, action that is taken, word that is spoken by the child will always be related back to their parents. Often times parents are blamed for the mistakes of their offspring because "they did not practice good parenting". When Bradstreet talks about her book she is merciless. She is harder on herself because, as human beings, that's what we do. In my opinion, no matter how much time she had to edit, change, manipulate her writing into whatever she wanted it to be, it never would have been ready to "send...out of door."

Response to A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

I am not so sure what I think of Thomas Harriot. As I read his text from, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, I thought that Harriot's descriptions of the colonist's relationship with the Native Americans was interesting since he focused on the peaceful interactions between the different tribes and the colonists. I don’t believe this optimistic outlook gives a good depiction of what was actually occurring, however, since tensions had begun to arise between the European settlers and the Natives by this time. When speaking of the Native Americans, Harriot uses a condescending tone that, frankly, is annoying. He does not give the tribes much credit and wishes to settle the fears of the colonists who had worries about the "savages from the New World." He describes the Native American's lack of weapons, but fails to mention that they are far superior in knowing the way of the land, what crops grow best in different regions, and how to hunt. While the colonists may have more weapons, they did not, without the help of the Native Americans, have the knowledge base needed to survive in their new environment. When on the topic of religion, Harriot seems to enjoy the fact that the natives think that the colonists are gods, or rather the European God loved the colonists more than them. I found this interesting that the Native Americans would come to the colonists and ask for their prayers. Harriot writes that the natives should come to "honor, obey, fear, and love us" (42). Harriot speaks with a superior tone that resembles that of a Godly figure. I think he's letting the image portrayed by the Native Americans get to his head. How does he know such detailed stories of the religion practiced by the natives anyway?? I was surprised how similar their religion was to that of Christianity. They believed in an afterlife of bliss or misery. They also told of men rising from the dead to teach other believers about the afterlife. When first coming to America, I would be more focused on surviving than converting the Native Americans to Christianity. I think it is interesting that Harriot places such a large emphasis on conversion and transformation. It definitely puts into perspective what was important during that time period. The last sentence of the piece reprimands the authorities for behaving "too fierce[ly]" towards the Native Americans, but he brushes it under the rug saying that everything will be fine. If it were the other way around, if a Native American had behaved "too fierce[ly]" Harriot would not have had such a nonchalant tone referring to the killing of innocent colonists.