Slave narratives depicted a lot of dehumanizing aspects. More times than not slaves felt like property and not real human beings. In these true stories slaves write about how their treatment lead to the breaking of their spirit and motivation. There were plenty examples of harsh working conditions. It was demeaning for the slaves to be deprived of learning and knowledge. In regards to women who were slaves they had to endure a lot of sexual abuse from their masters. The slave owners would also give slaves false illusions on what freedom really meant. It was common for slaves to be removed from their families. Resources were always inadequate to meet their needs. These examples of dehumanization described through personal narratives were all reasons why Americans decided to join the abolition movement. One of the dehumanizing aspects depicted in the slave narratives has to do with the breaking of the slaves’ character and motivation. According to Frederick Douglass one of his slave owners by the name of Mr. Covey made him work in any type of weather condition (Douglas, 37). It did not matter if it was hard rain, snow, or hail. The temperatures were not a factor when it …show more content…
Harriet Jacobs writes in her narrative of constant sexual advances and torment. For example, she states that her master had told her that she was property and must be subject to his will in all things (Jacobs, 216). The master had whispered nasty language in Jacobs’s ear at the young age of fifteen (Jacobs, 216). This is a very frightening situation because she has no protection. The wife of the master could have protected her but did not due to her rage and jealous tendencies. Even though she refused the sexual advances and did not have a consensual relationship with the owner, these experiences were so horrifying that she carried painful feelings with her even when she became free (Jacobs,
Through out history we learn of the mistreatment of many different types of people. Several different groups of people have been prosecuted and singled out for many different types of reasons. In recent history, the African Americans and the Jews have been the focus of discrimination. Slavery and the Holocaust were made to make these groups of people feel inferior to those who were in control of them. During these two periods, the people involved were treated like worthless, insignificant human beings. They were brought down to the level of a mouse. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and in Maus, the main characters, Vladek and Frederick, struggle daily to be considered by others as a human. Their struggles show just how humans can be treated like animals, denied the right to an education and haunted by what others have done to them.
In the autobiographical writings Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs’ reflects on the times that her master Dr. Flint consistently tried to molest her sexually. In spite of her fears of horrible repercussions such as beatings or torture if she refuses to submit to him, Harriet always manages to evade his proposals to become his mistress by out-smarting him. She defends herself from his numerous attempts to seduce her, by the power of her mental strength and intelligence, and her Christian morality. While she fears him each time he secretly approaches her with his sexual propositions when he caught her alone, she could always think of ways to protect herself. For example she protects herself from the dangers of his sexual advances by removing herself from the master’s presence any opportunity she gets. She sometimes stays with her grandmother or aunt at night to protect herself from him. They are both Dr. Flint’s former slaves too who live on the plantation where she lives. Even though he threatens to kill her if she tells anyone, she tells his wife about his sexual advances, and Mrs. Flint invites Harriet to sl...
Harriet Jacobs describes several situations in which she was harassed, and abused physically, mentally and emotionally. “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.” Women were abused physically
Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery around 1818, will forever remain one of the most important figures in America's struggle for civil rights and racial equality. As an ex-slave, his inspiration grew beyond his boarders to reach the whole world. Without any formal education, Douglass escaped slavery and became a respected American diplomat, a counselor to four presidents, a highly regarded speaker, and an influential writer. By common consent Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845) is recognized as the best among the many slave narratives that appeared before the Civil War. He amazed people when he spoke bravely in his Fourth of July speech. He spoke out against oppression throughout America and abroad, and his struggle for freedom, self-discovery, and identity stands as a testament for all time, for all people. Although some people accused him of lying, exaggerating, and using his narrative and his well-known Fourth of July speech as part of an abolitionist plot, Douglass was able to clearly demonstrate his talents, sensitivity, and intellectual capacity by revealing the truth about the lives, culture, and psychological struggles of American slaves.
Learning and knowledge make all the difference in the world, as Frederick Douglass proves by changing himself from another man's slave to a widely respected writer. A person is not necessarily what others label him; the self is completely independent, and through learning can move proverbial mountains. The main focus of this essay is on the lives of the American Slaves, and their treatment by their masters. The brutality brought upon the slaves by their holders was cruel, and almost sadistic. These examples will cite how the nature of Douglass's thoughts and the level of his understanding changed, and his method of proving the evilness of slavery went from visual descriptions of brutality to more philosophical arguments about its wrongness.
Growing up as a slave Jacobs was constantly exposed to sexual abuse from her master. She was forced to learn what it meant to be a slave that was a women and the exploits that she would have to endure. A...there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men."(Jacobs,361)
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe”( Douglass). This famous quote epitomizes the philosophies of Frederick Douglass, in which he wanted everyone to be treated with dignity; if everyone was not treated with equality, no one person or property would be safe harm. His experience as a house slave, field slave and ship builder gave him the knowledge to develop into a persuasive speaker and abolitionist. In his narrative, he makes key arguments to white abolitionist and Christians on why slavery should be abolished. The key arguments that Frederick Douglass tries to vindicate are that slavery denies slaves of their identity, slavery is also detrimental for the slave owner, and slavery is ungodly.
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.
A “slave in form” refers to Douglass’ legal status of being a slave. A “slave in fact” refers to the lack of pride and self-determination he possesses as a human being. This dichotomy develops throughout the novel. At first, Douglass is not only physically shackled by slavery but emotionally limited because of this self-identity. As the novel progresses, Douglass goes through a striking transformation: over time, he begins to see himself as a free-standing human being, despite remaining a” slave in form.” Although there is an obvious turning point, this happened over time. Douglass displayed true freedom of thought at a young age when, despite his master’s protests, he decided he wanted to learn to read. Later, reading leads to understanding and allows him to help the abolitionist cause. By exercising the individuality necessary to go against one’s master’s wishes, Douglass inadvertently began the long journey towards true autonomy.
Frederick Douglass’ landmark narrative describes the dehumanization of African-American slaves, while simultaneously humanizing them through his moving prose. Douglass shows the dehumanization of slaves through depictions of violence, deindividuation, and the broken justice system. However, Douglass’ pursuit of an education, moving rhetoric, and critique of his own masters demonstrates to the reader that African-Americans are just as intelligent as white people, thus proving their humanity.
The illumination of the brutal treatment of the slaves, both physically and mentally, are also apparent in the works of Stowe and Jacobs. Stowe, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, uses the stories of Eliza, Harry, Uncle Tom and Cassy to show how slavery, with both cruel and kind masters, affects different members of the slave community. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs focuses her work on the how the institution is “terrible for men; but is far more terrible for women” (B:933), adding sexual abuse to the atrocities of slavery. Douglass’ Madison gives the reader a masculine perspective on the
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.
Both Fredrick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs write narratives about their time being slaves. The narratives show dehumanization through physical and emotional abuse, along with sexual abuse supported with textual evidence. However, Jacobs states "slavery is bad for men, but is for more terrible for women", which I concur with.
In “The Trial of Girlhood” and “A Perilous Passage In the Slave Girl’s Life” Jacobs’s narrative emphasizes the problems that are faced by female slaves. She shares the sexual abuses that are commonly practiced by slave master against young female slaves. She does this through revealing the unique humiliation and the brutalities that were inflicted upon young slave girls. In this narrative we come to understand the psychological damage caused by sexual harassment. We also realize how this sexual harassment done by the slaveholders went against morality and “violated the most sacred commandment of nature,”(Harriet 289)as well as fundamental religious beliefs.