In modern terms, education is the primary obligation children are held accountable of fulfilling. Previously in history; however, education served as something only the privileged whites acquired. For colored men, it was the golden ticket towards freedom and a form of withdrawal from the injustices of race and discrimination. Not only was physical freedom possible then, but education just as well enlightened and led an individual towards mental liberty. In Immanuel Kant’s “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” Kant claims that for enlightenment, “…nothing is required but freedom, and… [the] freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters.” The character of Grant from Earnest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying, exemplifies Kant’s claim that once a man is physically free, the individual also unlocks free mentality and, therefore, is enlightened which allows him to reason and question the injustices of society. With physical and mental freedom both acquired through education, one should use it as the initiative to gather the courage to embrace and forgive the cruelties of fate in order to view the world in brighter colors.
One thought on “Introduction Exercise #2”
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What’s good:
You take your time with the hook and introduction.
You identify a theory and literary text.
Concern:
I’m not quite sure what your last sentence is doing. It seems to be a departure from your previous claim that A Lesson Before Dying [ALBD] exemplifies Kant’s essay. That claim seems to be about those two texts. This last sentence seems like a big claim about what to do with the freedom required through education. I am not quite sure where the ideas of “embrac[ing] and forgiv[ing] the cruelties of fate” comes into either Gaines or Kant.
If I ignore the last sentence though and just think about the claim before, I still need you to go further. It’s not enough to say that the literary text reflects some part of the theory text (that’s good but not enough). You also need to posit a claim about how the way the literary text reflects that theory affects/speaks to our understanding of that theory. (i.e. what does it add? what does it challenge? ) OR you need to posit a claim about how the fact that some part of theory text is reflected in the literary text affects our understanding of what the literary text is doing (i.e. what does that theory text show about the literary text that we wouldn’t have seen without putting them in conversation?).