A Slave's Dream Analysis

How did the slaves feel when they were enslaved? What was their escape from the prison that they were mentally held in? Longfellow uses his poem, A Slave’s Dream, to convey their place of peace while they had to endure those grueling conditions. One way he conveys this is through diction. He shows that the place of the slave’s peace was home. “in the mist of the shadow of sleep, he saw his Native Land…Once more a king he strode…He saw once more his dark-eyed queen, among her children stand they clasped his neck, they kissed his cheek, they held him by the hand!” (Longfellow). This explains how he felt that the place he would long for is home. How he reminisced of Africa and his family that was there. He conveyed how important his wife was to him by calling her a queen. He explained how he felt about being there, he felt important like a king. He missed his kids, their touch, and their embrace. He missed everything and while he thought of that he was at peace. But that is not the only thing Longfellow said would be the peace of a slave, death was another relief theory through diction that Longfellow mingled with.

What would put a slave to ease when he is down? What would put ease to the pain? Longfellow explains that death would help ease the pain of a slave through diction. “That he started in his sleep and smiled at their tempestuous glee. He did not feel the driver’s whip, nor the burning heat of the day; for Death had illumined the Land of Sleep, and his lifeless body lay a worn-out fetter, that the soul had broken and thrown away!” (Longfellow). He conveyed how he smiled as he was near death. Instead of saying that he died, he explained the place known as the Land of Sleep. This suggested how it would be a place of rest and where he could recuperate from the struggle. Longfellow used the Land of Sleep to convey how important, big, and open the place was. Because when one thinks of land they think of a place vast, far, and wide. To say a place would have made it secluded and not welcoming. Longfellow wanted the audience to understand how comforting that land was and how it embraced a torn soul. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wanted to establish to his audience, through diction, the place in which a torture soul would find ease and comfort in his poem, A Slave’s Dream.