Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Go Down, Moses, ‘Way down in Egypt land, Tell ole Pharoah, To let my people go. When Israel was in Egypt’s land; Let my people go, Oppressed so hard they could not stand, Let my people go. “Thus spoke the Lord,” bold Moses said; Let my people go, If not I’ll smite your first born dead, Let my people go. -Anonymous, 1800 A well known African-American spiritual amongst all races, generations and religions throughout the United States, “Go Down, Moses” was originally created as a way for slaves in the 19th century to release their thoughts and emotions. This folk song was drawn from the biblical story of Moses and the Jewish slaves in Egypt in order to hide the real message behind the poem from the slave-owners. Because this poem is widely known, containing themes and symbols easy to follow, I would expect a published analysis of the piece to introduce new and more in-depth topics, rather than to restate the obvious. Unfortunately, Erica Smith’s analysis of “Go Down, Moses” does just that (restate the obvious), and when she does briefly introduce new points, they are weak and not useful to her overall argument. For instance, although she does insert a sporadic sentence or two in each paragra