Friday, March 5, 2010

The People Could Fly

The People Could Fly
Have you ever wondered what it was like to be able to fly or to have some kind of special power? Well in the story The People Could Fly written by Virginia Hamilton some of the slaves knew magic and they could fly. Slaves had very hard work back in the day. They would get bossed around and could not say anything back to their masters or they would be whipped or put into some kind of pain. I think that slaves back then had to have been the toughest people ever to live. To go out and work almost the whole day, and get little to drink and eat, that proves beyond toughness right there. No one now days would live through that kind of stuff. This is a great story that has a good meaning or lesson, good theme, and is made a great story through the characters.
There were a few main characters in this story. One of the main characters was Sarah and Sarah was one of the slaves who carried a baby on her back. Another one of the slaves was named Toby. He was a very nice man that helped Sarah out when she was getting whipped or hit by their masters. Those two are the main slaves and then the other main people are the masters or the owners of the slaves. They did not give names of the owners in the story though. Back then, the masters would whip the slaves and they would do anything to get them back to work no matter how hungry, thirsty or tired they were. The owners did not care about the slaves at all. They were just selfish people. The owners were so selfish that it should teach the readers of this story a very big lesson.
There is a great lesson that should be heard in this story. I feel that the lesson tells you not to be selfish and that you should care about the people surrounding you. Even if you don’t like them you should be nice to them and always treat them how you want to be treated, which is the golden rule. If you don’t want to be treated like crap than you should not treat people like crap either? Plus, why would you even want to make people feel bad or feel less of themselves? If you treat people like crap like the owners did to the slaves people will think less of you and it will wreck your reputation. All the owners did was think about themselves.
Talking about just thinking about yourself, relates to the theme which is man vs. himself. In the story the slaves had to battle against themselves. No matter if they were tired, hurt, or starving they had to keep going no matter what or it would just get worse for them. So, they had to battle against their minds, because when your hurt or when your hungry your brain and mind tells you to stop, feed me, or stop I am hurt or tired. Back then when you were a slave you had no choice but to go. So, they had to keep fighting and battling and they could not listen to their brains no matter what they said.
In the end, this was a very good story. It helped teach me how life was like back in slavery time. I would have never thought it was actually that bad till I read this story. Can you even imagine being whipped in the back? That would be one of the most painful things that will ever happen to you. The reason they would get whipped is because they had nothing left or they felt like they had nothing but to sit there and give up, or lay there and die. But, we should just be happy times are no longer like that and the world is a better place.

No comments:

Post a Comment