Use the texts “Sympathy” and “Excerpt from Nelson Mandela’s Nobel Peace Prize Lecture” to answer the following question.
BOTH the caged bird’s song in “Sympathy” and Mandela’s speech about the anti-apartheid movement develop the idea of---
A.striving for contentment with a current situation.
B.voicing a need for help without any hope for change.
C.willingly accepting and adapting to circumstances.
D.desiring freedom and justice.
(1) I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
(5) When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
(10) For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!
(15) I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
(20) But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!
Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1899). Retrieved from CommonLit. Public domain.
Excerpt from Nelson Mandela’s Nobel Peace Prize Lecture
Nelson Mandela
Note: Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) was a South African leader who worked to end apartheid, a system of racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa from 1948 to 1991. Mandela was later elected as South Africa's first black president, and he served as president from 1994-1999. In 1993, Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, the last head of state of South Africa under the apartheid era, received the Nobel Peace Prize jointly for their work ending apartheid. The following text is Mandela's acceptance speech.
...
2) I extend my heartfelt thanks to the Norwegian Nobel Committee for elevating us to the status of a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
3) I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate my compatriot and fellow laureate, State President F.W. de Klerk, on his receipt of this high honor.
4) Together, we join two distinguished South Africans, the late Chief Albert Lutuli and His Grace Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to whose seminal contributions to the peaceful struggle against the evil system of apartheid you paid well-deserved tribute by awarding them the Nobel Peace Prize.
5) It will not be presumptuous of us if we also add, among our predecessors, the name of another outstanding Nobel Peace Prize winner, the late Rev Martin Luther King Jr.
6) He, too, grappled with and died in the effort to make a contribution to the just solution of the same great issues of the day which we have had to face as South Africans.
7) We speak here of the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and nonviolence, racism and human dignity, oppression and repression and liberty and human rights, poverty and freedom from want.
8) We stand here today as nothing more than a representative of the millions of our people who dared to rise up against a social system whose very essence is war, violence, racism, oppression, repression and the impoverishment of an entire people.
9) I am also here today as a representative of the millions of people across the globe, the antiapartheid movement, the governments and organizations that joined with us, not to fight against South Africa as a country or any of its peoples, but to oppose an inhuman system and sue for a speedy end to the apartheid crime against humanity.
10) These countless human beings, both inside and outside our country, had the nobility of spirit to stand in the path of tyranny and injustice, without seeking selfish gain. They recognized that an injury to one is an injury to all and therefore acted together in defense of justice and a common human decency.
11) Because of their courage and persistence for many years, we can, today, even set the dates when all humanity will join together to celebrate one of the outstanding human victories of our century.
12) When that moment comes, we shall, together, rejoice in a common victory over racism, apartheid and white minority rule.
13) That triumph will finally bring to a close a history of five hundred years of African colonization that began with the establishment of the Portuguese empire.
14) Thus, it will mark a great step forward in history and also serve as a common pledge of the peoples of the world to fight racism, wherever it occurs and whatever guise it assumes.
15) At the southern tip of the continent of Africa, a rich reward in the making, an invaluable gift is in the preparation for those who suffered in the name of all humanity when they sacrificed everything - for liberty, peace, human dignity and human fulfillment.
16) This reward will not be measured in money. Nor can it be reckoned in the collective price of the rare metals and precious stones that rest in the bowels of the African soil we tread in the footsteps of our ancestors.
17) It will and must be measured by the happiness and welfare of the children, at once the most vulnerable citizens in any society and the greatest of our treasures.
18) The children must, at last, play in the open veld, no longer tortured by the pangs of hunger or ravaged by disease or threatened with the scourge of ignorance, and abuse, and no longer required to engage in deeds whose gravity exceeds the demands of their tender years.
19) In front of this distinguished audience, we commit the new South Africa to the relentless pursuit of the purposes defined in the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children…
1 answer
BOTH the caged bird’s song in “Sympathy” and Mandela’s speech about the anti-apartheid movement develop the idea of D. desiring freedom and justice.
In "Sympathy," the caged bird's struggles and desires reflect the yearning for freedom and the pain of oppression. The caged bird's song is a poignant expression of its longing to be free, which resonates with the themes of confinement and the desire for liberation.
Similarly, Nelson Mandela's Nobel Peace Prize Lecture emphasizes the struggle against apartheid, highlighting the fight for freedom and justice for the oppressed in South Africa. Mandela speaks on behalf of those who stood against tyranny, emphasizing a shared quest for dignity and human rights.
Both texts illustrate the deep yearning for liberation from oppressive circumstances, making the choice of D. desiring freedom and justice the most fitting answer.
1 answer