Who is Nightjohn and why is he so important?
Nightjohn is a slave who is brought to the Waller plantation. He is unique in that he once escaped to the North, but came back to teach slaves to read. Nightjohn is courageous, and self-sacrificing.
When did the movie Nightjohn come out?
(March 2011) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Nightjohn is a 1996 American television drama film directed by Charles Burnett and written by Bill Cain, based on the 1993 novel of the same name by Gary Paulsen. It aired on Disney Channel as one of its Premiere Films, on June 1, 1996.
What happens to Nightjohn after everyone has had a look?
After everyone has had a look, Nightjohn, with Sarny's help, teaches the letters to those who do not yet know them. Though they all must return to their quarters by daybreak, the slaves are confident that Nightjohn will come again, walking in the darkness, and that soon, they will all have "the way to know."
Who is Nightjohn in the Scarlet and the Black?
The title character is Nightjohn, who's a slave who managed to escape to the North and freedom but returned to the South to teach reading and writing to slaves. Because of this ambition and the activity of teaching slaves, Nightjohn has been beaten and tortured.
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What is the story of Nightjohn?
Nightjohn, a young adult novel by Gary Paulsen (1993), takes place shortly before the Civil War on a Southern plantation. It tells the story of one slave's mission to teach other slaves the illegal skill of reading. The story is narrated by Sarny, a young girl slave. She lives on the Waller plantation.
Who is Delie in Nightjohn?
Nightjohn CharactersNameRoleMammy/Old DelieMammy is an older enslaved woman who takes care of the enslaved children. She is Sarny's surrogate mother as Sarny's birthmother was sold after giving birth to Sarny.3 more rows•May 30, 2022
Who is the main character in Nightjohn?
SarnyClel WallerAliceMammyNightjohnNightjohn/CharactersSarny. This character is the protagonist and narrator of the novel. Born into slavery, she is 12 years old when the narrative opens.
What year is Nightjohn set in?
It begins in 1930 with a 94 year old Sarny telling her past. After the events of The American Civil War, Sarny leaves the plantation in search of her two children, Delie and Tyler, who were taken from her prior to slavery being abolished.
Why does outlaw get whipped?
The next morning, Outlaw is being punished because he snuck out the previous night to see Egypt. As Mr. Waller is about to whip Outlaw, Jeffrey, Clel's son, asks him to stop because they are friends. Clel say to Jeffrey that the slaves were made to pick his cotton instead of being his friend, and Outlaw is whipped.
What does Sarny do at night?
What does Sarny do at night? At night Sarny goes into that pallet and the end of the long log house. She also reflects about parts of her day and what was significance.
What is the climax in Nightjohn?
Rising Points -The climax of the story is when Sarny got caught for writing the word "bag" everywhere and Delie and Nightjohn got punished for teaching her. This is the climax because it shows alot of emotions.
What happened at the end of Nightjohn?
Ultimately, after Nightjohn is punished for coaching Sarny, he runs away, however, later he returns to complete coaching Sarny. Sarny failed to accept the fact that she was a slave or the unfairness in opposition to her prevent her from learning.
What does Waller do to Nightjohn?
Nightjohn: Characters Waller has ''run'' him: making the man run to keep up with Waller's horse for ten miles. He is then immediately sent to work in the fields, still unclothed. His name comes from the fact that he must teach at night, in the dark, because educating slaves is forbidden.
What grade level is Nightjohn?
5th gradeReading age is listed as 5th grade and up, but I would urge caution in handing this book to kids below age 12; it's a lot to handle.
What year did slavery end?
1865The House Joint Resolution proposing the 13th amendment to the Constitution, January 31, 1865; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1999; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.
Why is Nightjohn rated PG 13?
This film steers clear of all nudity and profanity. The violence is brief and indirectly portrayed (for the most part).
What are the characters in Nightjohn?
SarnyClel WallerAliceMammyNightjohnNightjohn/Characters
What does Waller do to Nightjohn?
Nightjohn: Characters Waller has ''run'' him: making the man run to keep up with Waller's horse for ten miles. He is then immediately sent to work in the fields, still unclothed. His name comes from the fact that he must teach at night, in the dark, because educating slaves is forbidden.
What happened at the end of Nightjohn?
Ultimately, after Nightjohn is punished for coaching Sarny, he runs away, however, later he returns to complete coaching Sarny. Sarny failed to accept the fact that she was a slave or the unfairness in opposition to her prevent her from learning.
What is the climax in Nightjohn?
Rising Points -The climax of the story is when Sarny got caught for writing the word "bag" everywhere and Delie and Nightjohn got punished for teaching her. This is the climax because it shows alot of emotions.
What is Nightjohn about?
Nightjohn is a book Gary Paulsen, first published in 1993. It is about slavery in the American South shortly before the time of the American Civil War. It was later made into a movie of the same name .
What does John teach Sarny?
So, at night and whenever he has the chance, John begins teaching Sarny the letters of the alphabet. After teaching her 8 letters (A to H), Waller catches Sarny writing in the dirt and punishes John for teaching her by cutting off the toes from each of his feet.
Where is Nightjohn set?
The novel is set on the Waller plantation in the Southern United States in the early 1850s. The narrator and protagonist of the story is a young female African-American slave named Sarny. Sarny first sees Nightjohn when he is brought to the plantation with a rope around his neck, his body covered in scars.
What does John do after three days of recuperating?
But then after three days of recuperating, John runs, and makes it to freedom. He later returns to fetch Sarny and take her to "pit school" in the night, where she sees and learns what a catalog is, learns the rest of the letters, and has acquired great knowledge- something no one can take away from her.
Why did Nightjohn return to the South?
I appreciated the theme of this book and the heroism shown by Nightjohn who had successfully acquired freedom in the north, but chose to return south so that he could teach slaves to read and write. During one pivotal scene, Sarny’s “adoptive” mother, Mammy, asked Nightjohn why teaching the slaves to read and write mattered. “They have to be able to write,” Nightjohn responded. “They have to read and write. We all have to read and write so we can write about this—what they doing to us. It has to be written.” The singular problem I had with Paulsen’s book was the overuse of violence. Paulsen describes what runaways endured when the dogs finally caught up with them and he did so not once, not twice, but three times. The reader understands the gruesomeness of this action and the utter deprave satisfaction the master gets in seeing a man or woman being literally torn to shreds, but to restate it numerous times was borderline gratuitous.
What genre is Nightjohn?
Drama, adventure, science fiction, comedy, transcendentalism, memoir, how-to...Gary Paulsen has written in many genres, but some of his finest work is historical fiction. Though Nightjohn is a slim novel, Mr. Paulsen poured years of research into this true story of courage under oppression.
How did slavery affect the United States prior to the Emancipation Proclamation?
Slavery in the United States prior to the Emancipation Proclamation depended on keeping slaves ignorant. If they were privy to national news, they might hear of activists and politicians clamoring to free the slaves, stirring them to hope for their own eventual liberation. Learning to read might prompt a slave to pick up a book and study America's founding principle of universal liberty, a value opposed by those who claimed blacks didn't possess the same natural rights as white people. Whenever rich upper classes exploit the disadvantaged to retain political power, they do it by pretending to be their highly educated guardians who must tell them what to think and how to act. "Why they be cutting our thumbs off if we learn to read?" Sarny asks John. "'Cause to know things, for us to know things, is bad for them. We get to wanting and when we get to wanting it's bad for them. They thinks we want what they got." Authoritarian leaders fear their victims learning to think for themselves; if they logically trace their oppression to these "benevolent" gatekeepers, they'll take back the power they've given them and start working toward their own free, prosperous future. Sarny's "A, B, and C" are the first three links in a chain by which she can pull herself out of slavery and into a world of unlimited opportunity.
How old is Sarny in Nightjohn?
Gary Paulsen, best known for his wilderness survival novels, showcases a different kind of survival in the short book Nightjohn. Our narrator is a twelve-year-old slave named Sarny, who is bound to a plantation in the South.
What is the sadistic plantation overseer's purpose?
Violence: The sadistic plantation overseer enjoys flogging humans with a whip meant for horses and bulls, to the point where the backs of his victims have multiple scars as long and wide as chasms. He then orders the family members of these people to grind salt into their wounds to maximize the pain.
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Is Nightjohn a literary novel?
However, more than the average piece of historical fiction, Nightjohn offers tremendous opportunity for literary study. The story is told in first person, and students can examine the use of grammar, syntax and vernacular. Another strong literary feature of the novel is the development of character.
Nightjohn
In this uncompromising story of persecution and perseverance in the Antebellum South, former runaway slave Nightjohn (Carl Lumbly, "Alias") brings hope and the chance of freedom to slaves on cruel Clel Waller's (Beau Bridges, "The Descendants") tobacco plantation.
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18+? That rating is an obscenity! - Excellent (especially for young teens)
What happens after Nightjohn teaches Sarny the letter A?
On the third night after Nightjohn teaches Sarny the letter A, Alice runs away. The master sets his dogs after her, and she does not fight them. The dogs tear away the whole front of her, but the young woman does not die. When Mammy tries to sew her back up as best she can, she does not make a sound, but just lies unmoving, staring sightlessly at the wall. As Alice lingers somewhere between life and death at the other end of the quarters, Nightjohn teaches Sarny the letter B. Mammy catches him. Slamming him against the wall, she demands, "Don't you know what they do to her if they find her trying to read?"
Why did Sarny go to Nightjohn?
The child's desire to learn, however, cannot be quenched. Heedless to Mammy's warnings, Sarny goes to Nightjohn to see what kind of knowledge he can give her.
What happened to Alice in the plantation?
During this time, a very terrible thing has been happening on the plantation. Alice, a young slave girl with an "addled" mind, had been forced to become a breeder and had resisted so violently that "they [had] tied her to make it happen." The experience had caused her to be even worse than before. She had begun to spend her days wandering incoherently and had been caught up at the white house, where no slaves were ever allowed. The master had whipped her, and when her back "was all ripped and bleeding," he had rubbed salt in her wounds "to make more pain." Mammy has been trying to nurse Alice back to health, but the poor girl is "broken [now]...broken inside."
Why does Sarny not remember her birthing mammy?
Sarny does not remember her "birthing mammy" because she was only four years old when the woman was sold away. Like the other slave children on Clel Waller's place, she has been raised by old Delie, whose job it is to take care of all the young ones until they are old enough to work in the fields.
What does Sarny hear when she hears the Missus talking to her sister?
One day, Sarny is working on the roses in the flower beds underneath the window of the white house, when she hears the "missus" talking to her sister. The "missus" is complaining about Waller, who has just spent over a thousand dollars, a great deal of money, for another slave.
Why is Nightjohn's back knitted?
Mammy asks Nightjohn why his back is so completely knitted with the scars of the whip, and the man tells her it is because he ran. The first time he did it, he had managed to get all the way to freedom, but he had returned so that he could teach his fellow slaves to read. Nightjohn's intent had been to keep moving, "teaching a little here, a little there... [at] hidey-schools." Sadly, he had "got [ten] slow" one time and had been caught by some "crackers" hunting bear. The marks on his back are the result of the punishment they had exacted.
What does Nightjohn whisper to Sarny?
As Sarny lies, still awake, in a pile of sleeping children, she hears him whisper, "I need some tobacco...I'll trade something for a lip of tobacco.". Sarny idly wonders what the man might have to trade.
What does Nightjohn teach Sarny?
When Nightjohn comes to the plantation, he begins to teach Sarny at night, at first for a trade of some tobacco. She is a good student and learns quickly, beginning to put letters together to make words. As it says in the text: ''Sarny and John meet in the middle of the night, when the rest of the slaves are asleep.
What is Sarny's first word?
Tragically, she is so excited with her first word, BAG, that she writes it everywhere in the dirt, forgetting to watch for Waller. He catches her and beats Mammy instead of Sarny. Now Sarny really feels the gravity of what she is doing.
Why is Waller a key character in the book?
The slave owner, Waller, is a key character because he inflicts so much hardship and punishment on the people working his plantation.
What does Nightjohn say about the enslaved?
Nightjohn sums up the urgency for the enslaved people to learn when he says, ''They have to read and write. We all have to read and write so we can write about this—what they doing to us. It has to be written.''
What is Nightjohn about?
Gary Paulsen's ''Nightjohn'' is a middle grade/young adult novel about a 12-year-old girl in the time of slavery in the American South. It's a grim story of heartache and punishment, but also a story of hope. Updated: 06/09/2021. Create an account.
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Why is the name of the man who must teach at night?
His name comes from the fact that he must teach at night, in the dark, because educating slaves is forbidden. But this brave man is determined to bring letters and words, leading to knowledge and freedom, to any of the slaves who want it badly enough to risk punishment.
What is Nightjohn's purpose in the Waller plantation?
He is unique in that he once escaped to the North, but came back to teach slaves to read. Nightjohn is courageous, and self-sacrificing. He endures brutal punishment in order to give slaves what he considers to be their ticket to eventual emancipation - literacy, so that they might become aware of their situation and be inspired to fight for their freedom.
How old is Sarny in Nightjohn?
Sarny is the main character in Nightjohn. She is twelve, and people think she is "dumb", because she has "a stuck tongue", and when she was born she "come out wrong...all backwards and twixt-and-twinst". In reality, however, Sarny is very intelligent, and learns how to read very quickly.
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Who is responsible for raising Sarny?
Mammy: Mammy has raised Sarny as her own. She gets upset when she discovers Nightjohn is risking everything to teach Sarny how to read and write. However, she takes the blame when Waller discovers Sarny can read. She is punished until Nightjohn steps in to take the blame himself and the full punishment.
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Who is the master on the plantation?
Waller: Waller is the master on the plantation and brutally punishes the slaves.
Who is Mammy in the book?
Mammy, or old Delie, takes care of the children on the plantation. She is a loving figure to the young ones who are taken from their real mothers as soon as they are born. Delie is strong, practical, and wise, maintaining an untouchable dignity even in the face of brutal and inhumane treatment at the hands of Waller.
