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The Wheatleys had to flee Boston when the British occupied the city. The opening thought is thus easily accepted by a white or possibly hostile audience: that she is glad she came to America to find true religion. Here are 10 common figures of speech and some examples of the same figurative language in use: Simile. To the extent that the audience responds affirmatively to the statements and situations Wheatley has set forth in the poem, that is the extent to which they are authorized to use the classification "Christian." 1 Phillis Wheatley, "On Being Brought from Africa to America," in Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition, ed. Wheatley's English publisher, Archibald Bell, for instance, advertised that Wheatley was "one of the greatest instances of pure, unassisted Genius, that the world ever produced." By making religion a matter between God and the individual soul, an Evangelical belief, she removes the discussion from social opinion or reference. Such authors as Wheatley can now be understood better by postcolonial critics, who see the same hybrid or double references in every displaced black author who had to find or make a new identity. His professional engagements have involved extensive travel in North and South America, Asia, North Africa, and Europe, and in 1981 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Foreign Languages Institute, Beijing. Wheatley's shift from first to third person in the first and second stanzas is part of this approach. Proof consisted in their inability to understand mathematics or philosophy or to produce art. Figurative language is used in this poem. , Wheatley continued to write throughout her life and there was some effort to publish a second book, which ultimately failed. , black as The last two lines of the poem make use of imperative language, which is language that gives a command or tells the reader what to do. The prosperous Wheatley family of Boston had several slaves, but the poet was treated from the beginning as a companion to the family and above the other servants. of the - ccel.org No wonder, then, that thinkers as great as Jefferson professed to be puzzled by Wheatley's poetry. It is supremely ironic and tragic that she died in poverty and neglect in the city of Boston; yet she left as her legacy the proof of what she asserts in her poems, that she was a free spirit who could speak with authority and equality, regardless of origins or social constraints. She was instructed in Evangelical Christianity from her arrival and was a devout practicing Christian. Throughout the poem, the speaker talks about God's mercy and the indifferent attitude of the people toward the African-American community.