This outline contains too little content about rhetoric and genre, which are the most essential parts of this course.

Part 1&2

I wonder how Linda made the decision to hide in her grandmother’s loft and finally escape to north with her children, since this decision was quite hard to make for the enslaved people at that time. Because few of them can read or know about the situation in north; all they see in their entire life may just be other enslaved people suffer and suffer and die. Also, Linda’s grandmother doesn’t want her to do so. How she shows the readers how she makes the important decisions and what ethos she has?

Decision of her identity: Chapter 1: Childhood, “I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away”, Linda has two identification about herself: one is a slave, which is told by others after she is six; one is a normal free person, which is her own feeling before six. And since she learns read and write, she is intelligent enough to think about her own life: “I was now old enough (twelve) to begin to think of the future; and again and again I asked myself what they would do with me.” Clearly, Linda thinks deep about her life and her identification——she chooses a normal free person. This is the first important decision she makes, view her as an autonomous decision-maker. The audience is attracted by two controversial identities. Ethos: minded, independent. “Give me liberty, or give me death.” (Months of Peril)

The experiences of other enslaved people the author mentions in Chapter 3: The Slaves’ New Year’s Day, also plays an important role on the decision Linda makes later. “I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction-block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all. The children were sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was brought by a man in her own town. Before night her children were all far away.” Linda saw a poor enslaved mother lose all her children hopelessly: “she wrung her hands in anguish, and exclaimed, ‘Gone! All gone! Why don't God kill me?’” There is no denying that this experience shock Linda a lot, which makes her try everything to protect her children when she become a mother later.

So she has an extremely desperate plan when she finds out that her children are treat badly as she used to, even she knows that escaping to north with two little children is nearly impossible. Ethos: deep love, responsible for kids (make contrast to male characters abandon everything to escape) attract audience by tense and twisted plots

The pain she suffers as an enslaved person also helps her make this essential decision. As Chapter 4: The Slave Who Dare to Feel Like a Man mentions the first time for Linda to be punished, she is forced to walk barefoot on snow. “I took them off, and my stockings also. She then sent me a long distance, on an errand. As I went through the snow, my bare feet tingled. That night I was very hoarse; and I went to bed thinking the next day would find me sick, perhaps dead.” Her owner, Dr Flint, also torture and force her to have a sexual relationship with him as early as she was 15. As she says, “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own.”

The author shows her fear and despair that she can’t protect her own purity. She is not in the shadow of law, but abandoned by it. “But, O, ye happy women, whose purity has been sheltered from childhood, who have been free to choose the objects of your affection, whose homes are protected by law, do not judge the poor desolate slave girl too severely! If slavery had been abolished, I, also, could have married the man of my choice; I could have had a home shielded by the laws; and I should have been spared the painful task of confessing what I am now about to relate; but all my prospects had been blighted by slavery. I wanted to keep myself pure; and, under the most adverse circumstances, I tried hard to preserve my self-respect; but I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp of the demon Slavery; and the monster proved too strong for me. I felt as if I was forsaken by God and man; as if all my efforts must be frustrated; and I became reckless in my despair.” (A Perilous Passage in the Slave Girl’s Life) The audience of this part is free women, attracting them by despair experience they never know, how bad and dark is slavery. That’s the twist point she decided to be with Mr. Sand, for the reason at least she can choose who to sleep with. Ethos: spirit of resistance.

The potential arguments may go against my opinion is that Linda may just revolt her destiny instead of enduring like other enslaved people because she learns much and is able to read and write while most enslaved people don’t. Chapter 7: What Slaves Are Taught To Think Of The North shows that many enslaved people are ignorant about things in north. “One woman begged me to get a newspaper and read it over. She said her husband told her that the black people had sent word to the queen of 'Merica that they were all slaves; that she didn't believe it, and went to Washington city to see the president about it. They quarrelled; she drew her sword upon him, and swore that he should help her to make them all free. That poor, ignorant woman thought that America was governed by a Queen, to whom the President was subordinate. I wish the President was subordinate to Queen Justice.” Most enslaved people are so ignorant that they don’t even have the idea or believe that they can escape. They don’t have the ability or chance to escape, either.

Part 3

  I apply the feedback that don’t just summarize the article and focus on the important points when Linda makes decisions as a free person. I delete the parts which I used to think are other characters influence Linda and make her have the decisions. But in fact I just use lots of pointless quotations and summarize the main points. So I delete all these parts and focus on how Linda makes decisions as an autonomous decision-maker. I also add some quotations of Linda’s mental activities to show her ethos: brave, spirit of resistance, spirit of adventure, intelligent, deep love for her children, patience, desires for freedom.

My thesis last week was how other people——like two totally different ways her uncles choose, experience of a poor enslaved mother loses all her children——make Linda have the risky and sacrificial decisions of hiding for seven years to protect her children and escaping away for freedom with them eventually, even her grandmother doesn’t want her to go. Now I’m focusing on the main points where Linda makes her decision as a free decision-maker, as she chooses for her identity deep in her heart——a free person. So I add more quotations to show her mental activities, to show how she makes the decisions, to show what emotional struggles she has and why she finally makes up her mind.

I think I should add more parts about the plots which pave the way for Linda’s decisions ——like the unfair treatments she gets, the difficulties and dangers she meets, and the same unfair treatments her children have, the desire to be freedom and give her children better life——since Rome was not built in a day, and the process of her emotional struggles. I have already focused on the aspect of rhetoric and what’s the audience of each part and how the author attracts them, what ethos of the character can the plots show. I think I should add more parts about genres and rhetors, like what genres can be identifies in the text and are the plots reflective of the author’s life.

My essay is not great or strong enough to support my own idea now, so I should add more details about the parts I mentioned and more evidence to demonstrate my points.