Mary Seacole's Memoir (thats is not me)

The text is a memoir from the autobiography, ‘The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole’. As the text type reveals, Mary Seacole’s memoir aims to reflect on her experiences in Jamaica in the 1850’s while the yellow fever epidemic was spreading. The text aims to draw people who are interested in Mary Seacole’s life and views or could be a historian wanting to know more about experiences of the yellow fever in Jamaica. The purpose is to showcase what Mary Seacole’s experiences were in Jamaica and how she lost people to the epidemic whom she dearly loved.

The author, Mary Seacole coveys many ideas throughout her memoir about the  yellow fever, a man she grew to love, a mother-son relationship with his friend who she grew fond of and cared for. The author conveys other ideas where people “have drawn their last painful breath like heroes, striking at their foe to the last, robbing him of his victory, and making their defeat a triumph. In this sentence she talks about normal people fighting like ‘warriors’ to overcome the yellow fever such that the epidemic’s victory (death) over them was robbed of and the triumph was with the victims. She also talks about the experiences of a mother-son relationship between her and a light-hearted joyous man who after some time died from yellow fever.

In the second paragraph she says, “I do not willingly care to dwell upon scenes of suffering and death, but it is which such scenes that my life’s experience has made me most familiar.” Through that sentence she is showing her hesitation to talk about “scenes of suffering and gloom” and hence for the rest of the text, Mary Seacole takes up a sympathetic tone and makes the mood of the text gloomy and sad. The mood also fluctuates within the paragraphs from when she says “I have now and then accompanied a little distance on their way into the valley of shadow of death” to when she says “Death is always terrible -- no one needs to be afraid of it” which changes it to a relieving tone rather than a sad one.

This memoir, by definition, takes a rather personal perspective of what her experiences were with the people affected by yellow fever. The use of pronouns like ‘I’ and ‘he’ proves the first person experience and hence her personal viewpoints. The memoir has a very good flow with ideas attaching to each other in a very structured way. The sad tone of the memoir raises the interest to read more of that text……….