Jose Marti's Our America

José Martí was a Cuban author and political leader who fought for Cuban independence from Spain and the unification of the western hemisphere as a single “America”. In his work, Our America, Martí maintains that people, in order to succeed, need to transcend the idea of living separately, and adapt the mentality that they are stronger when unified as one like-minded country. To accomplish this, Martí alludes to other events around the world as references to prove why embracing unity would benefit people. He incorporates imagery with metaphors, including personification, that engage and inspire his readers, and applies parallelism to compare the actions of the honorable man and the petty man, which further reinforces his point by appealing to people who desire to be honorable. Martí alludes to many practices in the past that represent dishonor, all in an attempt to provide examples of why becoming honorable and uniting is a good idea. Whether it …show more content…
One metaphor demonstrates the power of an idea: “a powerful idea, waved before the world at the proper time, can stop a squadron of ironclad ships.” Here, the idea is represented by a mystical biblical flag that sends the opponent into hell for eternity- the influence of an idea can do what seems impossible. In this case, the impossible idea is to unite America, which would accomplish the impossible feat of creating a cooperative, powerful society. An example of personification is Martí portraying America as a man’s mother- it is wrong, he states, to abandon your own mother just because she is of a different origin than you. America, though having Native American culture and heritage, cannot be treated as foreign by any of her inhabitants, no matter their origin, suggesting yet again that bringing people together as one America, and not separate countries, would be the honorable and best thing to