Social Ramification In Celia As Slave By Mclaurin

709 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: celia a slave theme essay

The book “Celia as Slave” by McLaurin emphasizes the life of an African American teenager young girl slave named Celia. This real story of Celia demonstrates the social, political and sexual ramifications during this horrible time in American history. Celia who was purchased at the age of fourteen by a farmed named Robert Newsom. This Machiavellian “man” If he can be called one, loses his wife leaving him with two young daughters. Newsom has apparently become in a sexual need where he becomes using innocent girl “Celia” as a sexual object. Newsom brought a small place to live for Celia located behind her farm where he visits Celia every night to rape her. Many years passed and Celia began a romance with another slave who obviously pushed Celia …show more content…

After killing him in self-defense Celia burn his body. Given this “crime” Celia was called to be judges were the legal process extended a lot and finally she was found guilty. By this McLaurin prove who the social ramification was in lack of values and real laws that protect whites and blacks equally. The author also proves who Africans Americans were used as objects. McLaurin also shows who the sexual ramification on this section from the book “was warmly congratulated by his friends on his first and successful effort before a promiscuous body” (McLaurin, pg14). This quote clearly states the sexual ramification. This quote shows how the childhood friends of Celia recanted her just for the horrible life that she was passing by. Besides how this can be possible, why our justice system was so horrible at that time. Why they give death penalty to a girl go being abused since she was only fourteen years old. Why does Celia judge so bad because when she needed no body where they 're to judge this horrible …show more content…

McLaurin uses Celia 's story to expose the strains that worried the fabric of antebellum southern society. Celia 's case shows how one master 's exploitation of power over a single slave forced whites to make moral decisions about the nature of slavery. McLaurin emphases hard on the role of gender, exploring the degree, to which female slaves were sexually demoralized, the circumstances that often banned white women from ending such abuse, and the powerlessness of male slaves to support slave women. Setting the case in the context of the 1850s slavery debates, he also probes the manner in which the legal system was used to justify slavery. By allowing slaves certain statutory rights (which were usually reduced empty by the customary prerogatives of masters), southerners could argue that they observed moral restraint in the operations of their peculiar

Show More
Related

  • Moral Dilemmas in Celia, A Slave by Melton McLaurin

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    Melton McLaurin’s book Celia, A Slave is the account of the trial, conviction, and execution of a female slave for the murder of her “master” Robert Newsom in 1855. The author uses evidence compiled through studying documents from Callaway County, Missouri and the surrounding area during the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Although much of what can be determine about this event is merely speculation, McLaurin proposes arguments for the different motives that contribute to the way in which many of the events unfold. Now throughout the book the “main characters”, being Celia, her lawyer Jameson, and the judge William Hall, are all faced with moral decisions that affect the lives of two different people.

    Read More

  • Melton A. McLaurin's Celia, A Slave

    1249 Words  | 3 Pages

    Celia, A Slave is a novel that narrates a teenage girl from located in the banks of the Missouri river in Calloway County. The story of the young girl defined the significance Gender in this historical discourse of this young slave. The newly settled slave holders in Calloway County in 1850 have included Robert Newsom who was a man of statute in terms of wealth and power. This is manifested in the novel because many slaveholders made their living by purchasing slaves. The reflection of this is the case of Robert Newsom who made his living by buying six slaves who will be responsible. He was very successful man both economically and socially and also a very powerful individual among the member of his household. But the death of his wife did take a significant turn of his life. The death of his partner forces him to seek for a replacement by purchasing a slave who will substitute his sexual desire that he was misses from his decease wife. Newsom embarked on a trip and bought Celia, A slave who was then fourteen year old and the relationship between master and slave established a sexual nature that will ever change until tragic took place.

    Read More

  • Book Of Negroes Literary Analysis

    1166 Words  | 3 Pages

    Laurence Hill’s novel, The Book of Negroes, uses first-person narrator to depict the whole life ofAminata Diallo, beginning with Bayo, a small village in West Africa, abducting from her family at eleven years old. She witnessed the death of her parents with her own eyes when she was stolen. She was then sent to America and began her slave life. She went through a lot: she lost her children and was informed that her husband was dead. At last she gained freedom again and became an abolitionist against the slave trade. This book uses slave narrative as its genre to present a powerful woman’s life.She was a slave, yes, but she was also an abolitionist. She always held hope in the heart, she resist her dehumanization.

    Read More

  • Celia A Slave Thesis

    831 Words  | 2 Pages

    The challenges and difficulties slaves faced at the time of Celia’s trial left white Americans viewing them with little entitlements. Celia’s trial brought a new perspective into society in a time where slaves, especially females, were without hope. Her story was a beneficial challenge to the institution of slavery because it reached the thoughts of many involved in the controversy during the 1850s and left an effect on the standards of

    Read More

  • Celia, A Slave...

    1459 Words  | 3 Pages

    Celia, a Slave was a factual interpretation of one isolated incident that depicted common slave fear during the antebellum period of the United States. Melton A. McLaurin, the author, used this account of a young slave woman's struggle through the undeserved hardships of rape and injustice to explain to today's naive society a better depiction of what slavery could have been like. The story of Celia illustrates the root of racial problems Americans still face in their society. Although not nearly as extreme, they continue to live in a white-male dominated culture that looks down upon African-Americans, especially females. McLaurin looks at the views of the time, and speculates the probabilities of this pre - Civil War era, the values of which still pierce daily life in the United States.

    Read More

  • What did freedom mean to harriet jacobs

    1325 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Valerie Martin’s Novel Property

    1288 Words  | 3 Pages

    Valerie Martin’s Novel Property is an engrossing story of the wife of a slave owner and a slave, whom a mistress of the slave owner, during the late 18th century in New Orleans. Martin guides you through both, Manon Guadet and her servant Sarah’s lives, as Ms. Gaudet unhappily lives married on a plantation and Sarah unhappily lives on the plantation. Ms. Gaudet’s misserableness is derived from the misfortune of being married to a man that she despises and does not love. Sarah, the slave, is solely unhappy due to the fact that she is a slave, and has unwillingly conceived to children by Ms. Gaudiest husband, which rightfully makes Sarah a mistress. Throughout the book, Martin captivates the reader and enables you to place yourself in the characters shoes and it is almost as you can relate to how the characters are feeling.

    Read More

  • Thesis On Celia A Slave

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    Celia, a Slave, a book by author Melton McLaurin, shows the typical relationship between a slave woman and her master in America during the 1850s. The story is the perfect example of how relationships between slave and their masters and other non-blacks within the community. This is shown through Celia’s murder of her slave owner, Robert Newsom. It was also shown through the community’s reaction that was involved in unraveling her court case. The Celia personal story illustrated how slave women was treated by their slave owners and how the laws wasn’t effective at protecting slave during the 1850s. Celia’s story help shed light on woman injustices, unconstitutional rights and most importantly racial issues/discrimination.

    Read More

  • Gender Slavery And Freedom Essay

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the eighteenth and nineteenth-century, notions of freedom for Black slaves and White women were distinctively different than they are now. Slavery was a form of exploitation of black slaves, whom through enslavement, lost their humanity and freedom, and were subjected to dehumanizing conditions. African women and men were often mistreated through similar ways, especially when induced to labor, they would eventually become a genderless individual in the sight of the master. Despite being considered “genderless” for labor, female slaves suddenly became women who endured sexual violence. Although a white woman was superior to the slaves, she had little power over the household, and was restricted to perform additional actions without the consent of their husbands. The enslaved women’s notion to conceive freedom was different, yet similar to the way enslaved men and white women conceived freedom. Black women during slavery fought to resist oppression in order to gain their freedom by running away, rebel against the slaveholders, or by slowing down work. Although that didn’t guarantee them absolute freedom from slavery, it helped them preserve the autonomy and a bare minimum of their human rights that otherwise, would’ve been taken away from them. Black

    Read More

  • Celia A Slave Analysis

    1426 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the nineteenth century, slaves were afforded very few, if any, civil rights and freedoms, often being treated very cruelly. Although the abusive treatment of slaves was not unusual, the act of a slave protecting themselves against a master was. In the book Celia, A Slave, McLaurin recounts the trial of a female slave who was charged, convicted, and later executed for the crime of murdering her master in 1855. The author provides evidence for her argument through analyzation of documents gathered from Callaway County, Missouri, and the area surrounding, during the mid-nineteenth century. As the circumstances of Celia’s case were unique, in the fact that she had violently retaliated, the debate arose as to whether she was afforded rights to

    Read More

  • Harriet Jacobs Incidents And A Slave Girl: An Analysis

    1129 Words  | 3 Pages

    Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like. Charles Ball’s Fifty Years in Chains and Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl were both published in the early 1860’s while Kate Drumgoold’s A Slave Girl’s Story came almost forty years later

    Read More

  • Major Themes In The Trial Of Celia, A Slave

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    Women who were enslaved during the slave period endured much suffrage. Not only were they the subject of chattel slavery, but some were also molested by their masters, for their own personal pleasure. In some cases, masters would pair “good breeders” together so their farm would benefit and they would have more slaves. This behavior would lead to force rape. The purpose of the book is to demonstrate how slavery crippled African American slaves from defending themselves due to oppression, particularly women. The trial of Celia, A Slave opens a gateway where people’s morals and actions were put into question after the death of her master. Themes such as gender oppression, chattel slavery, race, prejudice, revolt are some themes present in Celia,

    Read More

  • The Trial Of Girlhood And A Perilous Passage In The Slave Girl's Life Analysis

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conclusion, women were considered property and slave holders treated them as they pleased. We come to understand that there was no law that gave protection to female slaves. Harriet Jacob’s narrative shows the true face of how slaveholders treated young female slave. The female slaves were sexually exploited which damaged them physically and psychologically. Furthermore it details how the slave holder violated the most sacred commandment of nature by corrupting the self respect and virtue of the female slave. Harriet Jacob writes this narrative not to ask for pity or to be sympathized but rather to show the white people to be aware of how female slaves constantly faced sexual exploitation which damaged their body and soul.

    Read More

  • Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl And Frederick Douglass

    1202 Words  | 3 Pages

    The issue of Slavery in the South was an unresolved issue in the United States during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. During these years, the south kept having slavery, even though most states had slavery abolished. Due to the fact that slaves were treated as inferior, they did not have the same rights and their chances of becoming an educated person were almost impossible. However, some information about slavery, from the slaves’ point of view, has been saved. In this essay, we are comparing two different books that show us what being a slave actually was. This will be seen with the help of two different characters: Linda Brent in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass in The Narrative of the life of Frederick

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author subjects the reader to a dystopian slave narrative based on a true story of a woman’s struggle for self-identity, self-preservation and freedom. This non-fictional personal account chronicles the journey of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) life of servitude and degradation in the state of North Carolina to the shackle-free promise land of liberty in the North. The reoccurring theme throughout that I strive to exploit is how the women’s sphere, known as the Cult of True Womanhood (Domesticity), is a corrupt concept that is full of white bias and privilege that has been compromised by the harsh oppression of slavery’s racial barrier. Women and the female race are falling for man’s

    Read More

More about Social Ramification In Celia As Slave By Mclaurin

Open Document