Ferris Wheels, Giant Prizes, Cotton Candy, Oh My!

Imagine this: the smell of powdered sugar as you pass the funnel cake stand, the shriek of laughter, a loud "pop" as a dart flies through the center of a balloon, the sound of tinny music while a ferris wheel slowly spins around and around. That's right folks - it's the carnival!

While this carnival may not be nearly as exciting or have quite as many visitors as that of a real carnival but it is still a joyful, merry festival of words! At least, that's what it was like as I was going through and reading everyone's blogs in order to write my carnival post for this section.

There was, as expected, a vast array of opinions on each of the stories we read. However, there were several themes that I saw reoccur on different occasions. One of the first and most popular topics was of slavery. Of course, this was almost a given as quite a few of the stories we read in class approached slavery one on level or another and almost all of them caused some sort of a reaction among the class.

People also seemed to take quite an interest in the authors of each of the stories and their lives. Wheatly, Equiano, Franklin, and Edwards seemed to be of the most interest.

Wheatly was probably the most popular of all the authors. People were especially curious about her life, particularily as an educated slave and female writer. Many bloggers also questioned what her life would have developed into had she survived longer than 30 years.

Equiano appeared to be the second favorite author. "Compelling" was the word of choice when it came to describing Equiano's selection. I would have expected reactions to be somewhat alarmed at his story, however, it seemed that most people found Equiano's tale to be less horrific than others they had read or heard.

Franklin was also another popular pick. There was a wide range of opinions, however, on how much people actually liked it. Most people seemed to have found his attempts to better himself the most interesting part of his Autobiography.

Overall, I was surprised there was not more discussion over the influence of religion in general. While it was considerably less addressed in this section than the previous one, it was still a hot topic of the time period. I expected to see a much larger amount of blogs reacting to Edwards than what there actually are. It could be just because I found him to be so interesting. I sometimes forget that every one else did not feel the same way.

All this talk about carnivals has made me hungry for a fresh bag of cotton candy. Sadly... I think I have to wait for the snow to stop falling, the ice to melt, and temperatures to raise above 32 degrees before I can begin searching for real carnivals. Oh, the anticipation!