Tyranny lives in theory: an analysis of rhetorical resistance and rebellion in Antigone and Incidents in the life of a slave girl

Abstract

In this essay, I will study individuals in the black community by analyzing the paths to agency and power taken by those who unapologetically promote a truth outside the dialectically symmetrical language set forth in American law and have achieved economic independence from institutions designed by the state or people to protect the integrity of, and grant privilege to white language, culture, and history. I will begin my analysis with a discussion of the irreplaceability of the brother in Sophocles’ Antigone. Following this discourse, I will go on to surveying the arrangement of the black family in Harriet Jacobs’ Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl through a survey of the various characters, all of whom are slaves that desire and pursue freedom from the institution of slavery. This study is mean to highlight the kinship black people share in America through the experience of being black in America. Finally, we will conclude this essay by exploring two characters in the modern day that represent conceptual metaphors for black sovereignty from white rhetoric in the 21st century.