Phillis Wheatley was born in Senegal, West Africa in 1753. She was kidnapped in 1761 at the age of eight and purchased by John Wheatley so she could serve his wife Susan. Due to the fact that Phillis was extremely intelligent and a quick learner, Susan did not train her to be her servant. Phillis was taught English, Latin and Greek and other subjects including the Bible. He slowly became part of the Wheatley family. Thanks to the lessons she received from Phillips she began to write poetry, one of the poems she is known for is "Being Brought from Africa to America". In this poem Phillis Wheatley uses some poetic devices such as similes, metaphors, hyperbole to illustrate color and darkness, multiple meanings of words, and the relationship between skin tone and salvation. Wheatley begins the poem in a very dark place when he mentions the word “Darkened” (line 2) as if the darkness disappeared from his life once he encountered mercy. Since the poem was written in the late 1700s, the reader can assume that she was in obscurity in her homeland of Senegal because she was a slave. Once she is mercifully brought to America, she is no longer clueless. The word darkened means to be overcome by darkness, so this means that the speaker was darkened when he lived in a place where they did not follow certain religious beliefs like the rest of the world. The speaker's soul is in a dark place and when she was brought to America and found God, she was enlightened. Another example of how Wheatley references color and darkness is line six of the poem "Their color is an evil die" (line 6), this is the only sentence in the poem that has quotation marks so that readers they can assume that he quoted someone. This could also mean that it refers to a phy...... middle of paper ......or has ever lived in darkness can be revived by this angelic train or by the famous mercy that will bring light into your world dark. Wheatley clearly emphasizes that all people, despite their color, can be saved. As a final point, Phillis Wheatley may have been bought as a slave but she never lost her faith and ended up becoming one of the best known poets of the early 19th century. This poem illustrates how she lived in darkness in Senegal, West Africa and because of slavery she was bought and brought to America. In this poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America”, Wheatley uses poetic devices such as similes, metaphors, hyperbole to illustrate color and darkness, multiple meanings of words, and the relationship between skin tone and salvation. This poem appears to be a narrative of her life and how slavery may have been the best thing that happened to her.