Joel Cullen
11/06/2011
American Literature I
Professor Toto
Response Nine:
In this essay, I will outline my analysis, based on the auto biography of Benjamin Franklyn and on “Proclamations and Letters” of Toussaint L’Ouverture, after reading and extracting the comparisons and contrasts from the texts. On these literary pieces, we can find two different motives on the authors that made them write. First we have Franklyn explaining how he organized his days, how he managed to perform his daily tasks, he delineates how certain things that are comprised in his life are, and how they are performed, but he outlines one of the concepts that serve as evidence to state that American Idealism is influenced by religion. Unlike L’Ouverture, which wrote about equality, and delineates from a very different setting in which, nevertheless, racial discrimination and injustice was baring, just like in America. They do, indeed, have their values and creed align together, even though they have their differences. The creed and hence their ideas come from the bible and their religious views and values.
Franklyn, in his auto biography, show us a particularized, at some degree, point of view that relates to American Idealism, and which I could dare to say was one of the items that comprised American Idealism as well as several others that could be mentioned. Back in England, we had to belong to the religion that was imposed governmentally; we had to be Anglican because the king said so, unlike in America where the new Enlightenment was giving birth to tolerance among various religions under Christianity. Franklyn tell us that he was raised a Presbyterian, but he went to a point where he did not attend church no more, and he made his own prayer, the “Powerful Goodness” (916). Franklyn respected other religions, he says, as long as they acknowledge the essentials of all religions he supports the religious diversity that was going on in America. This is clear evidence that...