Bondage can be defined as a state of subjection to a force, power, or influence or the state of being under the control of another person. Throughout the novel Middle Passage, written by Charles Johnson, bondage is a reoccurring theme. The characters in the novel are bonded physically, emotionally, or psychologically. Some characters are bonded and can not escape their bondage. Others choose to place themselves in the situations. Throughout the course of the novel, some of the characters gain their freedom and move forward with their lives. Other characters are never able to gain their freedom because their lives end in death.
Within the first page of the book we are introduced to Rutherford Calhoun, an ex-slave. He has been recently freed and has chosen to settle down in New Orleans. According to Rutherford, “New Orleans wasn’t just home. It was heaven”(2). Rutherford is in search of living the life of what he envisions as a free man: happy and self-directed. However, Rutherford finds himself bonded to new things. As scholar Barbara Z. Thaden asserts, “Rutherford discovers that his freedom is only a different type of slavery” (254). Thaden also notes, Rutherford leads “a life of petty crime, drinking, womanizing, and running from commitment of any kind” (254). He becomes bonded to gambling, stealing, and debt. As scholar Ashraf H.A. Rushdy argues, “gaining his freedom has only trapped him further into the futile struggle to preserve and promote his individuality” (375).
In New Orleans, Rutherford becomes a petty thief. He says that he “looked for honest work” but “found nothing” so he stole (3). Rutherford also says that stealing was “a way to shake off stress and occupy his hands” (103). As scholar Ashraf H.A. Rushdy notes, “stealing, for Rutherford, is more than an occupation: it is a philosophy”(376). As a child, Reverend Peleg Chandler “[noticed] the stickiness of his fingers”(3). In order to gain access aboard the Republic, Rutherford steals Josiah Squibb’s paper and continues his habit of stealing throughout the voyage.
Rutherford also becomes bonded to gambling and as a result, ends up in debt. Rutherford would play card games “that lasted three days and nights”(7). Because he lost most of the card games he played and used what money he had to play card games, ...
... middle of paper ...
...i were bonded to slavery. They had to give up their freedom to become bonded to the Republic as slaves. They were treated harshly and their only choice to escape their enslavement was mutiny. The Allmuseri were also bonded to their beliefs. Thaden illustrates that Johnson had “inscribed into the Allmuseri mindset many classical Buddhist beliefs”(255). The Allmuseri believed that the ship was condemned to death because they had allowed themselves to kill so many of the whites.
As scholar Barbara Z. Thaden expresses, “Rutherford learns on his voyage that the more people escape the bonds of others, the more trapped they become in bondage to their own egos”(257). Johnson shows throughout the novel that no man is truly free of bonds and that freedom doesn’t exist without bondage. Rutherford gains a new idea of freedom as a result of his experience aboard the Republic while Falcon, bonded to his ego, never gains freedom because he takes his own life. As scholar Ashraf H.A. Rushdy suggests, “Rutherford learns that bonds and connections are a matter of surrender to another order of being, and are not simply determined by racial or biological destiny” (377).
Through historical documents and transcriptions of personal accounts, he attempts to create a glimpse into the more economically driven side of slavery. Johnson uses excerpts from these documents to paint a picture of what it was like to be involved with the slave trade in New Orleans. Most importantly, he attempts to tell the story from several different perspectives—that of the slave owner, the slave trader, and even the slaves themselves. The picture Johnson paints is not the one we are used to of slaves on plantations and in “big houses,” working in the fields and serving their masters, nor is it the darker idea of the punishments those slaves received for taking even a tiny step out of line. Instead, Johnson shows us an even darker, bleaker side of slavery—the reduction of human beings to the same level as farm animals, to be bought and sold and traded in the brutal economy of the slave trade. In this trade, people were reduced to commodities, their value determined down to the dollar based on physical attributes. Johnson quotes one trader, David Wise, on the value of a human eye: "Being asked if the girl had a filter on her eye if it would impair her value, he says it would impair its value from $25 to
The novel showed a pivotal point prior to the Civil War and how these issues ultimately led to the fueling of quarrel between Americans. While such institutions of slavery no longer exist in the United States, the message resonates with the struggles many groups ostracized today who continue to face prejudice from those in higher
At first glance, the book “my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass appeared to be extremely dull and frustrating to read. After rereading the book for a second time and paying closer attention to the little details I have realized this is one of the most impressive autobiographies I have read recently. This book possesses one of the most touching stories that I have ever read, and what astonishes me the most about the whole subject is that it's a true story of Douglass' life. “ Douglass does a masterful job of using his own experience to expose the injustice of slavery to the world. As the protagonist he is able to keep the reader interested in himself, and tell the true story of his life. As a narrator he is able to link those experiences to the wider experiences of the nation and all society, exposing the corrupting nature of slavery to the entire nation.”[1] Although this book contributes a great amount of information on the subject of slavery and it is an extremely valuable book, its strengths are overpowered by its flaws. The book is loaded with unnecessary details, flowery metaphors and intense introductory information but this is what makes “My Bondage and My Freedom” unique.
The Apollo statue consists of a garment that is shown in a pattern like manner. The robe does not display realism but symbolism due to its lack of variation in the folds. The Aule Metele however, shows a great deal of realism in the drooping folds and twisted shoulder strap. It looks as though the material is in fact freely moving and could be manipulated. The muscle structure of the Apollo statue also displays a great deal of generalization. The limbs are robust and irregularly plump in areas as can be seen in the calf area of the right leg. The Aule Metele displays a great deal of understanding of muscle as well as bone structure in the limbs as can be seen in the edges created in the extended right arm of the figure.
As these sources have illustrated due to the high demand for free labor, slavery became a prominent problem through this era. However, African enslaved did not simply obey their capture. The primary source The Slaves Mutiny written by in 1730 by William Snelgrave focuses on another aspect of slavery that the other sources didn’t quite touch on, or go into much depth, and that would be slave revolt or mutiny. Author Snelgrave explains that “several voyages proved unsuccessful by mutinies.”# As author Snelgrave states upon ““what induced them (the African slaves) to mutiny? They answered, “I was a rogue to buy them, in order to carry them away form their own country, and that they were resolved to regain their liberty if possible.”# Author Snelgrave states, “They had forfeited their freedom before I bought them, either by crimes or by being taken in war, according to the custom of their country, and they now being my
In Solomon Northup’s memoir, Twelve Years A Slave, he depicts the lives of African Americans living in the North as extremely painful and unjust. Additionally, they faced many hardships everyday of their lives. For one, they were stripped of their identities, loved ones, and most importantly their freedom. To illustrate this, Northup says, “He denied that I was free, and with an emphatic oath, declared that I came from Georgia” (20). This quote discusses the point in which Northup was kidnapped, and how he was ultimately robbed of his freedom, as well as his identity. Furthermore, not only were his captors cruel and repulsive, so was the way in which they treated African Americans. For instance, Northup states, “…Freeman, out of patience, tore Emily from her mother by main force, the two clinging to each other with all their might” (50). In this example, a mother is being parted from her child despite her cries and supplications, the slave owner
During the era of slavery in America, it was common to see slaves being content with their given social ascription of identity. Many had accepted their fate of forever being bound. Madison Washington, the main character in Frederick Douglass’ novel, The Heroic Slave; however, couldn’t come to terms with being denied the inalienable right of being free. This book focuses on Washington and his journey in pursuit of liberty. He does whatever he can to be free from the bonds of slavery, and is fueled by the knowledge that slavery cannot be right or justified.
For most of the book, readers can recognize that Downs has many assumptions imbedded in his argument, but he does not deviate from factual support in order to make any claims. This style pays off as it allows readers to assess his argument purely on the basis the facts he has presented. Downs is skilled in how he pulls readers into his book. Early on in the book, Downs shares a story of what happens to a young boy and his family after emancipation. The story of this young boy turns from optimism to overwhelming reality as it reaches a point of illness for the young boy. This early narrative gives readers an early look into how tragic emancipation was for some African Americans. It helped Downs usher in his argument that emancipation did not usher in the instant freedom that is often
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
Slavery consisted of numerous inhumane horrors completed to make its victims feel desolated and helpless. Many inescapable of these horrors of slavery are conveyed in the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. The entire prospect of the duration of the story is to plan an escape from the excruciating conditions awaiting Douglass as a slave. When his escape is finally executed, unpredictable emotions and thoughts overwhelm him. Within the conclusion of his narrative (shown in the given passage), Frederick Douglass uses figurative language, diction, and syntax to portray such states of mind he felt after escaping slavery: relief, loneliness, and paranoia.
...details the transformation of a slave to a man. The institution of slavery defined a slave as less than human, and in order to perpetuate that impression, slaveholders forbade slaves the luxury of self definition. Therefore, when Douglass finally rejects the notions about his identity forced on him by slavery, and embraces an identity of his own creation, he has completed his journey from slave to man. He no longer defines himself in terms of the institution of slavery, but by his own thoughts regarding what his identity is. Through the metamorphosis of his identity as “an animal” to an author who fights for the abolitionist movement, Douglass presents his narrative not simply as a search for freedom, but also a search for himself.
First of all it is important to examine how many African slaves were brought to the New World. The Middle Passage is infamous route of the ships that carried slaves to the Americas. After the arrival to the New World, the slaves were sold or exchanged for the valuable goods. The term Middle Passage might sound somewhat romantic, but in reality it stands as a one of the most terrible events in history. The Middle Passage is the passage of bonded slaves from West Africa to the Americas. In the beginning, there was a trade between Europeans and African leaders who sold their enemies and disabled people in exchange for unique gifts such as guns, tobacco, iron bars and etc. But at the later stages of slavery, Europeans often kidnapped Africans at the costal area of Western Africa and then sent to ships that sailed them to the New World where this new free work force was needed to help stabilize the new nation.
The Middle Passage (or Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade) was a voyage that took slaves from Africa to the Americas via tightly packed ships. The trade started around the early 1500s, and by 1654 about 8,000-10,000 slaves were being imported from Africa to the Americas every year. This number continued to grow, and by 1750 that figure had climbed to about 60,000-70,000 slaves a year. Because of the lack of necessary documents, it is hard to tell the exact number of Africans taken from their homeland. But based on available clues and data, an estimated 9-15 million were taken on the Middle Passage, and of that about 3-5 million died. While the whole idea seems sick and wrong, many intelligent people and ideas went in to making the slave trade economically successful.
Freedom is what defines an individual, it bestows upon someone the power to act, speak, or think without externally imposed restraints. Therefore, enslavement may be defined as anything that impedes one’s ability to express their freedoms. However, complete uncompromised freedom is virtually impossible to achieve within a society due to the contrasting views of people. Within Mark Twain’s 1885 novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, numerous controversies are prevalent throughout the novel, primarily over the issue of racism and the general topic of enslavement. The characters in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn along with their development take an unmistakable, resilient stand against racism and by doing such in direct relation against the naturalized views of society. Twain’s characters, Jim and Huck are at the focal point of this controversy; they together are enslaved in two particularly different forms, nevertheless they both pursue their freedoms from their enslavements. The development of these characters and the growth of their interdependent relationship generate the structure of the anti-racism message within this novel. Twain’s introductory warning cautions the dangers of finding motives, morals, or plots in his novel, ironically proving the existence of each and encourages the reader to discover them. One of the undisputable major themes that extensively peculated my mind as I read the text regarded the subject of freedom and enslavement. Through Twain’s constant contrasting of freedom and enslavement such as its portrayal of slavery in the form of life on land compared to the freedom on the raft on the Mississippi Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, suggests that people are subject to various ensl...
...ow that people do not want to take responsibility to what is happening at the war that they want to remain indifferent and not be an actor in making decisions for what is to occur. This line could also refer to the grief people feel that even behind closed doors that there is much grief being experienced. It makes the reader question what happens after the war is over, how do the families continue after the death of a loved one?