age Arts 10 A Q1
English
Analyzing How Word Choice Supports the Authors' Claim
How does the authors' word choice contribute to the
claim in this passage?
Sugar plantations were Hell because of the endless labor
they demanded from slaves. They were Hell because of
the many dangers and the injuries that they caused. They
were Hell because the slaves who labored without end got
nothing for their work except to live another day, to
work more. But none of these miseries was the true
reason the plantations were so evil. The plantations were
Hell because the masters and overseers were treated as
gods-which turned them into devils. The English
historian Lord Acton famously said, "Power tends to
corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." That is
a perfect description of sugar Hell. Men with absolute
power over their slaves acted like creatures we would
otherwise meet only in nightmares. Their cruelty had no
limit-they preferred to kill their slaves rather than fear
them. As Equiano explained the island of Montserrat
requires 20,000 new Negroes annually, to fill up the
vacant places of the dead."
The denotations of words help explain how
plantations ran smoothly
The repetition of several key words creates a
positive view of slaveholders
The connotations of several words create a
neutral view of working conditions
The repetition and connotations of words
emphasizes that slaveholders were merciless
Intro
✓ Done