1. Why insert a story of romantic love in stanzas IX-XII? Think about how it brings the action to a crisis as well as the way it supplements the speaker’s reflections in stanzas IV-VIII.
    By adding a romantic story to this, it adds a whole other aspect to the story/poem. What seems to be just a poem that tells the story of a runaway slave has a lot more background information and outside stories than what is expected. It also gives a reason for the actions that take place in the poem. It also adds a drastic comparison to the stanza section before it, where the narrator essentially questions the reason for their life in a darker manner. It was much lighter and brighter in the next section about the romantic love.
  2. Stanzas IV-V depict two punishments How does stanza IV recall stanza I? What does she mean when she says “it was too merciful to let me weep pure tears and die” (ll. 104-05)?
    Stanza IV and I are similar in the fact that the both elude to an ‘exiled’ individual who is in a situation that they are not familiar with and that they are not accepted in. It also refers to God being happy with a decision that he made in the case of creation or relocation. By this line, “it was too merciful to let me weep pure tears and die” the narrator is expressing that those who capture her, those who are supposed to be like the exiled who came before her, are devious and uncaring about her. Almost as if she isn’t a real person.
  3. As the speaker recounts her story, she alludes to its ending—“until all ended for the best” (st. 16)—before she describes the central event. How does she interpret the child’s will to live?
    To me, it seemed like the narrator thought she was doing the child a favor by killing it, because of the horrible world that exists around them. She believed that the best alternative for the child would to stop existing because it would not be treated well by anyone else. According to her, the child wanted to live but that could entirely be because it did not understand what she understood.
  4. What reasons or explanations does she provide for her repeated effort to overcome his struggles? Which ones does she deny?
    She repeatedly overcame his struggling because he did not fit in with her perceived view of her world. He would not have fit in with him, but instead with her ‘master.’ He would never be able to relate to her and her culture, but also would never fit into the white world.
  5. Stanzas XXVIII and XXIX arguably resolve the infanticide story and see the speaker return to the present, to a new dawn from which “the pilgrim-ghosts” retreat, but their “hunter sons” appear and a new struggle emerges. What forms of defiance do you see in stanzas XXX-XXXIII?
    While they are fighting to get custody of her, she fights in everyway possible, especially referencing to herself as other animals in their natural habitat. She also fights back by telling them that she took down one of their own in revenge of some sort. She also references that all slaves who live after her will rise up against all those who have kept them captive.
  6. What do you make of the speaker’s contrast of the slave’s wounds do Christ’s?
    It’s essentially a reference that she believes the mistake they are making is the same mistake that they made in killing Christ. A person who believes in good and only plans to do good or just live their life normally. She also uses this in reference to the beginning where she makes herself equivolant to those who came to America first, and how drastically they have changed over the years.
  7. Why does the speaker, who has come to the shore to “curse this land” (l.20), leave “white men” “curse-free” (st. XXXVI)?
    I believe that she said this because she understands why they are doing what they are doing, and for those who came before them, she will not blame them for their wrong doings. Their ancestors came to this land before them and at the time, they were only doing what they needed to do to survive.