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Narrative of the life of frederick douglass themes
Themes and quotations from the narrative of Frederick Douglass
The dehumanization of slaves
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A common theme in these narratives and in slavery as a whole was dehumanization. Dehumanization is the deprivation of human qualities, personality, or spirit (Merriam-Webster). Slave owners constantly used dehumanization to show their dominance over slaves and further prove that they were the higher beings. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and The Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, slave owners dehumanize slaves by grouping them with animals. Choices are a make or break deal for Linda. In this case, one of her choices broke her and cause Dr. Flint, her master, to say, “I supposed you thought more of yourself; that you felt above the insults of puppies (Jacobs, 35)”, which manages to group her with animals. Dr. Flint calls Linda …show more content…
He has been making advances toward her for many years, but since she has respected family members he cannot act on those feelings. Slave owners tend to assert their dominance especially with women by forcing them to commit sexual acts. He believes that since a slave women is nothing he can use her in any way, which boosts his ego and furthers his white power. At a valuation, which is the process where an owner’s next of kin divided that owner’s property equally, Douglass says, “We were all ranked together at valuation. Men and women...were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine (Douglass, 58)”, this was to further characterize slaves as animals. It was a very common theme in America to match ethnic minorities with animals because it gives white people a higher place in the hierarchy. For example, when the Irish and Germans immigrated to America, they were immediately branded as violent, and incompetent beings. With the continued discrimination of ethnic minorities, it proved that whites believed that they were the only civilized beings at the time. Since whites were “civilized” it made sense for slaves to try and equate themselves to their
Douglass then goes on to describe how slavery and his mistress husband’s beliefs alter her demeanor, for example, he writes about her “tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness.” He
The issue of slavery in antebellum America was not black and white. Generally people in the North opposed slavery, while inhabitants of the South promoted it. However, many people were indifferent. Citizens in the North may have seen slavery as neither good nor bad, but just a fact of Southern life. Frederick Douglass, knowing the North was home to many abolitionists, wrote his narrative in order to persuade these indifferent Northern residents to see slavery as a degrading practice. Douglass focuses on dehumanization and freedom in order to get his point across.
According to Douglass, the treatment of a slave was worse than that of an animal. Not only were they valued as an animal, fed like an animal, and beaten like an animal, but also a slave was reduced to an animal when he was just as much of a man as his master. The open mentality a slave had was ...
Society is formed into a hierarchical format demonstrated by the relationship between slaves and slave owners. Douglass refers to this concept of racial formation in the following statement, “my faculties and powers of body and soul, are not my own. But property of a fellow mortal” (199). This statement refers to the master who has power to compel his slaves in any format that he or she may desire to a point of controlling every single movement the slave makes. Douglass utilizes his knowledge of language to expose the psychology of the slave masters and the complex mechanisms that are created in order to systematically enslave African-Americans. Douglas refers to this idea as being “a slave for life” which underlies the issue that society is being organized hierarchically (157). Take for instance, when Douglass’ master Thomas chose not to protect him as a man or as property from the brutal treatment of Covey (171). This relationship demonstrates how masters willingly objectify their slaves as replaceable commodities. Many slave owners took advantage of the power they had over their property without any regards to the repercussions. Instead, African-Americans were belittled and coerced into being oppressed to a point where they accepted being a puppet in a master’s
Frederick Douglass's Narrative, first published in 1845, is an enlightening and incendiary text. Born into slavery, Douglass became the preeminent spokesman for his people during his life; his narrative is an unparalleled account of the inhumane effects of slavery and Douglass's own triumph over it. His use of vivid language depicts violence against slaves, his personal insights into the dynamics between slaves and slaveholders, and his naming of specific persons and places made his book an indictment against a society that continued to accept slavery as a social and economic institution. Like Douglass, Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery, and in 1853 she published Letter from a Fugitive Slave, now recognized as one of the most comprehensive antebellum slave narratives written by an African-American woman. Jacobs's account broke the silence on the exploitation of African American female slaves.
Gender and location played a very important role in the lives of Fredrick Douglass, and Linda Brent (Harriet Ann Jacobs). These two important factors effected not only their child hood and growing up, but what they saw and experienced. Age, and dismemberment also was a key fact in both of the narratives. These two factor effected them early on in their narratives, and in many cases outlined them from other slaves throughout their early years of slavery.
Few years later, the mistress died and Linda was sent to Dr. Flint. Dr. Flint abuses his power as a slave owner to get what he wants, such as trying to get Linda to sleep with him. Another example of him abusing his power is when Linda stated, “I was made for his use, made to obey his command in everything; that I was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should surrender to his…” However, Linda had no intention of submitting to Dr. Flint’s control. Although Dr. Flint owns her body, she can still remain spiritually free. She lives in a time of slavery, but she still hold the hopeful thought of someday of being really free. Linda was different among all the slaves. She has the power to control her life in a way. She had an affair with a white neighbor and has two kids. However, because she was afraid Dr. Flint would do something to her kids after he finds out, she decides to hide in the attic for seven years. During those seven years, Dr. Flint spent countless of days and money to track her. This shows Dr. Flint has a deeper feeling towards Linda rather than just a slave. Linda have lived her life in confinement, yet she does not give up hoping one day she will provide a home for her
During the time of slavery, slaves were put to work on plantation, fields, and farms. They were considered property to their slave-owners and put under unfair living conditions. Growing up in this era, we can see the injustice between white and colored people. And one slave by the name of Fredrick Douglass witnessed this unjust tension. And because of this tension, dehumanizing practices became prominent among the slaves and in slave society. The most prominent of these injustices is the desire of slave owners to keep their slaves ignorant. This practice sought to deprive the slaves of their human characteristics and made them less valued. Fredrick Douglass was able to endure and confront this issue by asserting his own humanity. He achieved
Holt asserts that slavery can “rescue [the barbarian] from the wrongs and miseries of barbarism” and make him “happier and better.” However, slaveowners treated their slaves like animals, serving to degrade slaves and making them miserable. In Douglass’ account, he recalls a valuation, in which slaveholders ranked the slaves and then divided them based on their apparent worth -- much like how a farmer sorts through his livestock. Douglass strengthens this comparison by describing how “men and women . . . were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine,” implying that the slaveholders saw the slaves as unthinking brutes. After this event, Douglass claims that the “brutalizing effects of slavery” became clear to him. Not only did the slaves face dehumanizing
For Example, the mulatto and slave William Wells Brown comment “During the time that Mr. Cook was overseer, I was a house servant - a situation preferable to that of a field hand, as I was better fed, better clothed, and not obliged to rise at the ringing of the bell, but about half an hour after. I have often laid and heard the crack of the whip, and the screams of the slave”. Brown was the son of the plantation owner where he lived on and even though he was a slave he did not have the same obligations as the other slaves. He was simply a part of the family, but his father did not take his mother into consideration. She was still working in the field and getting whipped by the plantation’s overseer. In contrast to Brown being light skin and the son of the plantation owner, the mulatto Moses Roper had a total different experience. Roper’s father was also the plantation owner, but he was not considered a part of the family, he was simply another slave. Mr. Roper’s wife knew about Moses birth and she attempted to kill him after knowing that Moses was white. As Moses narrates, “she returned back as soon as she could, and told her mistress that I was white, and resembled Mr. Roper very much. Mr. Roper 's wife being not pleased with this report, she got a large club stick and knife, and hastened to the place in which my mother was confined”. Moses’s mother and him were not welcomed anymore in the
Douglass argues in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, in some circumstances, possessing the privilege of an ability or ownership can actually have a negative impact on the individual. It might not be perceived as favorable or desired as it had seemed in the past and as a result, some individuals wish to return to the past in which they had not changed so drastically. Slavery not only brutalizes the slaves but also to those in charge, as Douglass insisted, “Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness” (Douglass 32). Primarily, owning slaves signified acquiring authority and control.
Within the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave” Douglass discusses the deplorable conditions in which he and his fellow slaves suffered from. While on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, slaves were given a “monthly allowance of eight pounds of pork and one bushel of corn” (Douglass 224). Their annual clothing rations weren’t any better; considering the type of field work they did, what little clothing they were given quickly deteriorated. The lack of food and clothing matched the terrible living conditions. After working on the field all day, with very little rest the night before, they must sleep on the hard uncomfortably cramped floor with only a single blanket as protection from the cold. Coupled with the overseer’s irresponsible and abusive use of power, it is astonishing how three to four hundred slaves did not rebel. Slave-owners recognized that in able to restrict and control slaves more than physical violence was needed. Therefore in able to mold slaves into the submissive and subservient property they desired, slave-owners manipulated them by twisting religion, instilling fear, breaking familial ties, making them dependent, providing them with an incorrect view of freedom, as well as refusing them education.
Douglass's narrative is, on one surface, intended to show the barbarity and injustice of slavery. However, the underlying argument is that freedom is not simply attained through a physical escape from forced labor, but through a mental liberation from the attitude created by Southern slavery. The slaves of the South were psychologically oppressed by the slaveholders' disrespect for a slave’s family and for their education, as well as by the slaves' acceptance of their own subordination. Additionally, the slaveholders were trapped by a mentality that allowed them to justify behavior towards human beings that would normally not be acceptable. In this manner, both slaveholder and slave are corrupted by slavery.
Slaves are stripped of information about themselves, as depicted in Douglass’ unknowing of his own birthday. This alone is significant in removing one’s self-identity, for slaves have no knowledge of their own age. Furthermore, slaves were separated from their families, taking away one of the only senses of comfort and belonging in the harsh plantation. Douglass also references a moment where Colonel Lloyd does not even recognize his own slave, because he has so many of them. This is also supported by Douglass describing how quickly slaves were replaced if they committed a misdemeanor. This suggests that Colonel Lloyd sees his slaves as replaceable objects/tools, rather than actual human beings. Perhaps an even more moving moment was when Douglass was sent to be “valued” with other slaves and ranked with “horses, sheep, and swine,” following the death of his former Master. Douglass cleverly uses parallelism by pairing each animal with man, woman, and child, respectively. This shows the slave holder’s thought process when valuing each human/animal: they are equal. In this situation, Douglass describes his indignation by commenting on the brutalizing effects of slavery on the slave and the slave holder alike. So, by equating humans to animals, they are not only stripped of their self-identity as individuals, but also their self-identity as
Despite Flint’s overtures, Linda is able to avoid being by the grace of her own intellect. Although her actions may seem illicit and ill-advised, like her love affair with Mr. Sands to fend off Dr. Flint, so are the repercussions if she cooperates and does nothing. Jacobs predicates that slaves suffer from the influence of the slave system on their moral development. In the text, it is evident that Linda does not condemn slaves for illegal or immoral acts such as theft or adultery, but rather saying that they usually have no other option but to behave this way. However, she also points out that slaves have no reason to develop a strong ethical sense, as they are given no ownership of themselves or final control over their actions. This is not their fault, but the fault of the slavery system that dehumanizes them. “Pity me, and pardon me, O virtuous reader! You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of a chattel, entirely subject to the will of another” (Jacobs 49). Slaves are not evil like their masters, but important parts of their personalities are left undeveloped. She argues that a powerless slave girl cannot be held to the same standards of morality as a free