Thursday, September 1, 2011

Richard Allen

     Similar to all of the previous writers, Allen has a preface explaining why he is writing and how much he thinks his story will benefit others.  This is obviously a trend with autobiographers.  Both Cartwright and Allen have very similar experiences but they also have different ones.  First off, Allen's conversion experience is completely voluntary and on his own while Cartwright's was influenced heavily by his devout mother.  One thing they have in common however though is that they both experience deep feelings of guilt right after they get saved and have lots of conflicting feelings before they experience peace (page two).  One thing I found interesting about this reading and Cartwright's as well was the fact that preachers regularly came to houses to preach.  That would be, in today's time, considered a somewhat invasion of privacy.  On page three, Allen reminds me of Franklin and Venture when he is describing all the manual labor he does.  Allen is obviously physically strong.  Through pages four, five, and six, Allen describes his ministry and all of his travels.  Something very different about Allen and Cartwright however is that Allen faces much opposition to his ministry from people that should be supporting him simply because he is black (page six line 180).  Both Allen and Cartwright highly value the Methodist denomination (page 9).  They also both urge future Methodist preachers to remember the old ways of doing things and stick with old values (page ten).  Allen and Cartwright and Franklin and Venture are black and white almost mirror images of the corresponding pair.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with your views, of how Allen and Cartwright are similiar.

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