Phyllis Wheatley
Phyllis WheatleyTelevangelists like Jimmy Swaggert and Jim and Tammy Fay Bakker promise the Christian faith to
millions everyday. For the right price, anybody can have something- a.k.a. Christianity, God, and
faith- in their lives. On these shows, there is no need to have believed in religion before, as long
as there is a need for it now.
Religious telecasts asking for money in exchange for faith attract nearly five million people
each year. Fifty-five percent of these people are elderly woman; Thirty-five percent are from the
desperation pool, the poorest and neediest members of society; The remaining ten percent are
those who might be classified as upper-middle class, who want spiritual justification for their greed.
Most of us know that the religion professed on these telecasts is not about trusting in God or
having a deep belief in his teachings, ideas that aggregate Christianity in society. Instead, the old,
the poor, and the rich are buying something to have as their own when they have nothing else,
whether it be in the material, social, or emotional sense. So-called faith gives them possession, yet
places responsibility in the hands of a higher force. And in that, they are hoping to find freedom in
knowing that their lives are less empty and without direction.
It may seem that we can hardly relate the televangelist audience of the 20th Century to
poetic views on Christianity of the 18th Century, but surprisingly, there lies many similarities
between the two.. Both Anne Bradstreet and Phyllis Wheatley appeal to Christianity after their
own personal tragedies. These women, like the many viewers who watch Church-TV everyday, have
lost everything and are left with nothing. In an attempt to fill the void in their lives, left by
Bradstreet�s burnt house and Wheatley�s treatment as a slave, they turn to the Christian faith that at
times seems as empty as the faith that can be commercialized and sold by dramatists on television.
In analyzing "Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning of Our House" and "On Being
Brought from Africa to America," I will consider Christian faith as means of coping with nothingness,
rather than a pious way of life. While making references to Anne Bradstreet�s similar development
of faith, I will contend that Phyllis Wheatley�s Christianity seen is sought out for her own purposes
in times of feeling nullity rather than a confident belief or trust in God and the acceptance of
God�s will.
Phyllis Wheatley�s first appeals to Christianity emerge as she is transported on a slave ship
from West Africa to Boston in July 1761, which begins the poem under analysis. In this voyage, she is
still indentured into slavery, indicating that she has no material possessions of her own. Slavery has
also stripped her of any feelings of self-worth or emotional well-being, through its harsh treatment
and totalitarian control. Like a slave master, she views herself as no more than an object, as seen
in line one of the poem through the use of the passive "brought." Wheatley makes reference to
her race throughout the poem, however, I think that...
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