U.S Slave Stories And Hawaiian Folktale (Juhui Chen)

After listening to six groups’ presentation, each group’s story has its own profound moral that want people to learn. By comparing U.S Slave Stories And Hawaiian Folktale, I realized that both stories convey a similar central idea even though they talked in a different way.

 

Our group presented three folktales about different chiefs during the early 19th century. In Hawaiian folktale, it reveals how people wanted to get rid of the oppressor and jump out of the tough life. There are three chiefs Halaea, Koihala and Kohaikalani. They all have a selfie overbearing governing style, such as forcing people to carry heavy food to move around to meet him and let people bring back large pebble from many miles away. Due to their unreasonable governing style, people cannot endure anymore. Eventually, three of these chiefs were dead under their people’s rebellion. The outcome of the chiefs tells us a lesson: no matter how powerful leaders are, as long as people dissatisfied with his ruling way, when these weak strengths combine together it overcome any difficulty and defeat any barrier.Therefore, as a leader, a governor must fear and respect their people, they cannot impose any tyrannical rules on people.

 
In the U.S slave stories and secular song. It talks about how inhumane treatment that slaves had to undergo every day, and how many pains that they had to endure. No matter men, women or children, these slaves all had to work so hard day and night till they die, and then the master will buy a new slave to replace. In the story, there was a young girl who had just given birth to her first child. Without a full coverage of strength, she had to go back to work with her child. Under the intensive workload, eventually she was fell to ground couple times, but the overseer didn’t let her stop and take a breath. He lashed her until she got back to work. At the end, with an old man’s help, she was flying high over the cotton fields, and run away. Eventually, the old men not only help the young girl to get free but all the slaves. They all gone like the bird, flying in the sky, and seeking freedom. Through this story, we see that how these weak slaves work together, help each other, and united together to escape from the cruel condition. The story also reveals the idea that how can vulnerable people gather together to become a strong group to against the unjust oppression and get the freedom to be what they want to be.

 

By comparing U.S Slave Stories And Hawaiian Folktale, I found that these two stories are somehow similar. Both stories told us the same idea in a different way. These two stories convey the desires of disadvantaged people. And how brave these people are, they all have the ability to gather together to against higher power. Both stories reveal that when people united together, their inner belief and their desire of freedom would be the most powerful strength to defeat any barrier in front of them.

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