Nightjohn

The movie Nightjohn is a prime educational movie about slavery in the antebellum south. In Nightjohn, a young curious girl named Sarny just turns old enough to start work. She was raised by another slave named Delie as her mother was sold when she was a small child. Sarny starts working at the same house under the same master that Delie works under. Her job is mainly to take care of their young son named Homer. One night, while everyone is sleeping, Sarny notices a man (Nightjohn) awake sitting on the floor. She starts talking to him he asks her for tobacco, she said she will give it to him. He agrees and starts by teaching her the letter “A”. Once Sarny knows what “A” is, she gets very excited and starts reading all the “A’s” in the letters Misses is giving her to deliver to the doctor. When Delie finds out that John has been teaching Sarny to read, she becomes furious and demands him to stop. She asks if that's why he has all…

In Nightjohn, Paulsen fittingly describes how hope remained relevant and crucial in slaves’ everyday life. Characters were put in an intolerable position, but still remain strong enough not to give their oppressor the satisfaction of crushing their spirit. Another key point is made by Northup, “In about three-fourths of an hour several of the slaves shouted and made signs for me to run...I gasped for breath-gasped forth a half uttered, choking prayer to the Almighty to save me…”. In this…

Nightjohn Nightjohn has many things that keep it in grounded in reality, keep it realistic, and most importantly historically accurate. Not each one these have a theme but there are 3 themes that go throughout Nightjohn and that stood out to me personally are. Prejudice, Bravery, and Freedom, Which in my mind are the most important of the themes I saw throughout Nightjohn. Now onto Prejudice, the essay over this theme is based off these questions Is it ever right for one individual to own…

Corroborating Nightjohn ‘Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.' -George Santayana. The 1800’s. An atrocious time in which slavery was at its peak. African Americans were discriminated because of the color of their skin and were treated with impudence. NightJohn by Gary Paulsen is a historical fiction that follows the life of a slave named Sarny, the main character, and Nightjohn, who teaches young slaves to read and write. Although Gary Paulsen’s novel, Nightjohn, is…

Slavery is known to be a dark part in U.S. history, but why should people lie about what clearly happened? Slavery is the condition of forcing people against their will, specifically African Americans, to undertake exhausting labor for an owner of a plantation. In the novel, NightJohn, the main character, Sarny, secretly starts to learn to read and write despite the risks of getting discovered. Although Gary Paulsen’s novel, NightJohn, is considered historical fiction, Paulsen accurately depicts…

NightJohn In the book NightJohn by Gary Paulsen, there is nonstop conflict and resolution. Clel Waller owns many slaves, including Sarny, Deliah, and Nightjohn. Sarny’s birth was challenging because Waller was expecting a male child. Deliah and Waller had a small altercation when he found out Sarny was a girl. Waller later sold Sarny’s mother since he only promised that Sarny would not be sold. About seven years later, when Nightjohn enters the property of Clel Waller he is almost instantly…

Nightjohn was a very short, but informative and immersive story. It informed us on how hard and terrible being stuck in slavery was. Along with, somehow amazingly doing it using so many small and not very descriptive words or sentences. It did have many different themes, but the ones I chose to write on were: prejudice, freedom, and leadership. No, denying the rights of any people is not okay and I don’t see how anyone ever thought slavery was okay, much less the right thing to do. People…

capabilities and power of one person, whether it be for good or bad. In the story “Nightjohn,” by Gary Paulsen, the characters, such as Clel Waller and Nightjohn himself, change the lives of each other in many positive and negative ways, thus proving that an individual’s power can change the lives of many. To establish, the Master of the plantation, Clel Waller, greatly influenced the lives of his slaves base upon the way in which he treated them. When a mentally addled slave, Alice, disobeyed…

The story NightJohn is about a girl named Sarney who is a slave and isn’t educated at all. She wants to learn to read and write but can’t because she’s a slave. But one night everything changed when NightJohn came along and taught her a few letters a night. Even though she now knows how to read and write there can be consequences for that and there were. The book “NightJohn” written by Gary Paulsen is about a slave Sarny who has the guts and bravery to learn letters and realizes that bravery…

What are some themes from the story of Nightjohn that stand out to you the most and that you connect with. In the story of Nightjohn the Sarny is a young girl of the age of ten who lives under control of Mr. Waller as a slave. One day sarny saw a slave that the men had put in shackles. Sarny meets this man and learns his name is Nightjohn, he asks the slaves if anyone had any tobacco? Sarny had been working as a gardener at Mr. Waller’s home and she had tobacco to spit on the plants with to…