Journal 7: Mini-Pastiche

And Jonathan hoped for Freedom. Freedom, the majestic being with the great, iron hooves who lived far away in the North. The one whose home was the great, open fields of the West. What restraints can hold Freedom, what code is he bound to follow? He gazes across the plains, across the world into eternity. He gallops through blistering heat and bitter cold, his great hammer ready, waiting for the cries of the forlorn and the meek. His powerful back has carried them to salvation since the sun first rose over the earth. He was sure to hear his hooves soon, to see the scorched earth from the heat of his breath. But he was also terrified. Oh, Sampson! His back breaking under the cruel crack of a whip! He begged Josiah to protect the boy, but he was far too old. A doctor could heal Sampson's wounds, but they had little to offer for a broken spirit. He would recover once the bearded man had made due on his word. His scars would heal. This he believed. And if they did not, then he would bear eternally the marks of his chains, for they became heavier each day. Men toiled in the fields day in and day out. Wasting away under blinding heat of the sun. Slavery, that diseased, eyeless mule that had founded this plantation.

I chose to use freedom because I thought that it would be an interesting and enjoyable noun to write about. I personified freedom as a horse, because there is a strong image of freedom associated with wild horses and the plains. I also mentioned that freedom possessed a hammer, which I chose because it possesses the implication that it could be used to break chains, a prevalent symbol of slavery/oppression. Conflict within the passage surrounds a boy who is a slave in the Antebellum South, which I thought was a good contrast for freedom. In describing my second noun, I chose slavery, which I see as being the complete opposite of freedom. I described slavery as being a "diseased, eyeless mule" because of the feelings that slavery implies. It is diseased, because slavery itself is a disease, and it is eyeless because the act of slavery is blind to human emotion/compassion. It is represented as a mule because of the work that a mule does, much like the slave labor in the South.