Desiree's Baby

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/DesiBaby.shtml

Bradstreet's Bio

Anne Bradstreet was born in Northampton, England in 1612. Her father Thomas was the lead of soldiers who volunteered in the English Reformation and her mother Dorothy was a gentlewoman of noble heritage who was well educated. At sixteen, she married Simon Bradstreet who was twenty-five and an old assistant of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Anne and her family moved to America on the Arabella in 1630. This was a hard and rough journey that brought on malnutrition to the ones on board. Anne's family survived due to her intelligence and later came down with paralysis. This illness did not stop her, for she had eight children:Samuel, Simon, Dudley, John, Hannah, Sarah, Dorothy, and Mercy. Due to Simon's job, she would be lonely. So she spent her time writing poetry and teaching her children. Bradstreet soon came down with tubercolosis and as she contracted this disease, her daughter Dorothy died due to illness as well. Since the battle with her illness was more than she could bear,at the age of 60,Anne Bradstreet was put to rest on September 16, 1672.
"Anne Bradstreet Biography." Anne Bradstreet.january162003. 13 Sep 2008.

Bradstreet Response

Anne Bradstreet wrote poems to express how she feels about her life and her husband. One of the poems “The Author of Her Book” tells about her as a child growing up. The purpose of this poem was to let her audience know that she was not the wealthiest and did not care about what people said about her.There seemed to be like she had some self- esteem problems or she just felt that since she did not own much that she could never get rid of her flaws when she stated “I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.”
Bradstreet gave some credibility toward her poem when she wanted to dress better but she did not own homespun cloth. What appeals to the reader’s emotions is it seemed she wore rags as her clothes and people would make her even more conscience about herself by their pointing or laughing. Bradstreet knew she was poor and told us how she felt toward it. She mentioned that her mother was poor as well and caused her to go out of the door. It is unclear as to who left the house, perhaps Bradstreet was kicked out or she wanted to start her own life better than her old.
Anne Bradstreet’s second poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband” is pretty self-explanatory; it talks about her love, her husband.Bradstreet appeals to the women mostly and other readers in this poem because she talks about how her husband is loving to her and that she wants their love to continue to be everlasting, even after they have passed on to the heavens. The women receive between the line logos when Bradstreet said “If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can.” This meant that she wants the women to speak out in writing somewhere how their relationship is and how their husband provides for them .

Bradstreet compares her love for her husband to a river that u could not drink all of its water if you wanted to because it is overflowing. She prays that the heavens will open up and accept both of them in as one and that their love be forever ongoing.
The two poems we read could go together in some way because the first poem ended off with out of the door and the second poem started with two were one. It could be that after Bradstreet left the house, she quickly found love to fill the holes in her self-esteem to keep her from doing harm to herself.

Visual(de Vaca)

This is a picture of how Cabeza de Vaca described in the story of the work they had to do. He stated that the work sometimes tore into their flesh. The load on his back looks like leaves, some wood, maybe some fish, shrubs tied onto sticks. His back is somewhat red on the sides to symbolize his bleeding. The man is bent over to show us that he is tired, just as de Vaca described. He also talked about hiw his motivation for this work was his Saviour Jesus Christ because he thought of how Jesus must have felt bearing his cross alone up the hill and the throns on his head tearing into His flesh.

Cabeza de Vaca's words that described the work they did was cut, tore into flesh,blood, suffering, painful sores, heavy loads. The Natives were hard-working people and these words describe that everyday they worked for their lives in pain and suffering and even in agony. They made everything with their hands and that also shows that they are people who provide for themselves and the members of their family.

Simile

*Write a simile of a tree comparing to a domesticated animal.
- The tree's branches hung over in the wind like a tiger lounging out at its prey.

Cabeza de Vaca response

Cabeza de Vaca was captured after being arrested by the Indians to Spain. In this story he tells us what life was like living with the Indians and how they were different from his kind of living. The audience of this short story is the people who want to learn about de Vaca, mostly students and teachers. People fifteen and over would be able to understand what this story is talking. The Indians are described as these people who pierce themselves and treat their children and women with the upmost respect in some cases. They are respectful of the family of whom a soul has died and fast for three months anjd eat only what is provided by the neighbors, which is not very much. De Vaca describes the work their as bloody, skin cutting, and suffering. As ethos, de Vaca credits his Saviour being his source to continue his journey by saying, " Jesus Christ as my Redeemer shed his blood for me, how much worse it must have been to have thorns on his head!" He explained that the Indians' houses were made out of mats and the floors were made from oyster shells. The natives with some money slept on the shells in animal skins.

Daughters who married were responsible for taking everything her husband kills in hunting or catching to her father-in-laws house without eating any of it. The husbands do not sleep with their wives until after they are discovered pregnant and two years after the baby's birth. The children are breast fed until they are twelve, which to the Natives is old enough to find your own support. This reason being if the Indians were to not eat for three to four days, children not being able to stand the milk will become weaklings and be left to die if they were to ever take a long trip. The only ones that would be able to stay would be a son or brother by being carried across the back of another. The husbands have permission to leave their wives when they come to a disagreement, unless they have children together where he must stay.

Men who have problems with each other box it out until they both are exhausted and ahve to move away with their family until they are calm and collected. When they return, the fighters have to squash the situation as if it never existed.

De Vaca was joyous when they encountered the Christians because he met along the way people who cared about life, lived on a beautiful island, and were actual Christians to the "non" Christians with whom the Indians battled for a moment. After the altercation, the Christians took de Vaca, Castillo, and Dorantes away from communication with the Natives into the forest and to their town where the men helped rebuild their city.