What’s in a Name?
In Morrison’s novel Beloved, Baby Suggs and Stamp Paid were figures of salvation. Each devoted their lives to providing for other people. Baby Suggs preached her sermons on self-love and helped the black community to push away past evils they had endured. Stamp Paid played an active role in the Underground Railroad by always extending a comforting, resurrecting hand to battered, escaping slaves. However, these two former slaves that always uplifted those around them had experience deep valleys in the past. Though this former life caused them great grief, there was one thing that brought them reviving life –a name. Both characters, hoping to start anew, renamed themselves to mark their freedom. So, what’s in a name?
By renaming themselves, Baby Suggs and Stamp Paid created a new sense of beginning. Their former lives of slavery, when they had been called Jenny Whitlow and Joshua, brought about loss of loved ones and brutality (Morrison 167, 218). In the novel Baby Suggs exclaimed,” Those white things have taken all I had or dreamed and broke my heartstrings too… There is no bad luck in the world but white folks” (105). Baby, wanting no connection to that horrid past, picked a new name that symbolized a life of freedom beyond the past’s walls. Just this simple act of renaming himself, Stamp Paid gained dignity he had never known before. He thought, “Whatever his obligations were, that act paid them off” (218). He was no longer under the control of a master because he paid for his own freedom. A slave did not assign these names. No, it was their free will to choose their own names; thus, they claimed the liberty to live life as they wished.
Joy, pure joy, was finally in Baby Suggs once she had a name of her own ...
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...weary refugee that crossed his path. Stamp Paid, giving up the only person he ever considered family, finally felt needed again. Slaves could not find freedom without him, and from this he felt his worth. His post-slavery name helped Stamp Paid to feel alive again as he revived runaway slaves, and most significantly, it allowed him to regain his dignity after such a demeaning past.
Once they became free, Baby Suggs and Stamp Paid never thought their lives could be so fulfilling. Their new names brought with them joyfulness and love and the feeling of being needed, but ultimately, it helped them recognize their own identity. For the first time in life, they weren’t under the oppression of a higher authority, and with that they discovered who they truly were as individual’s and heard the call to revive the weak and burdened. To think, it all started with a name.
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.
Northup's nightmare of twelve years in slavery was over. He returned home to Connecticut. Northup's wife told him of a day his daughters arrived from school inconsolable. They had seen pictures of slaves in a cotton field being followed by an overseer with a whip. “It reminded them of the sufferings their father might be, and as it happened, actually was, enduring in the South.” (252) Twelve years in slavery, yet his family had “still held me in constant remembrance” (252). Northup and his family were finally free.
...ve interest was free born and wished to marry her. However, after Harriet?s attempts to pursued her master to sell her to the young neighbor failed she was left worse off than before. Dr. Norcom was so cruel he forbade Harriet anymore contact with the young man. Harriet?s next love came when she gave birth to her first child. Her son Benny was conceived as a way to get around Dr. Norcom?s reign of terror. However, this is a subject that was very painful for her. She conveys to the reader that she has great regret for the length she went to stop her Master. Along with her own guilt she carries the memories of her Grandmother?s reaction to the news of her pregnancy. Clearly this was a very traumatic time in Harriet?s life. In light of these difficult events Harriet once again found love and hope in her new born son. ?When I was most sorely oppressed I found solace in his smiles. I loved to watch his infant slumber: but always there was a dark cloud over my enjoyment. I could never forget that he was a slave.? (Jacobs p. 62)
This poem written by Francisco Alarcon describes the life of an illiterate man who finds himself signing away his freedom by placing his mark on a contract. He is unable to read the contract he is signing or even write his name. Being unable to read he leaves himself vulnerable to be taken advantage of and deceived. Alarcon, who was raised in a Hispanic community, was surrounded by illiteracy. Wanting to change the situation in which he was raised in he went to school to become a teacher and now focuses his efforts on eliminating illiteracy. This poem was written from the experience of watching those he cared about around him being taken advantage of because they were unable to read or write. "The X in My Name" shows the mistakes and ill consequences that illiteracy can bring upon those uneducated. It also sheds light onto how social structure and financial class play into illiteracy, and how detrimental illiteracy can be to those on the low end of the monetary spectrum. Though Alarcon only uses a few words it is easy to understand and see how the illiterate can be effortlessly be taken advantage of.
In the middle of the night, four white men storm into a cabin in the woods while four others wait outside. The cabin belongs to Alice and her mom. The four men pull out Alice’s father along with her mom, both are naked. Alice manages to scramble away. The men question Alice’s father about a pass, which allows him to visit his wife. Her father tries to explain the men about the loss of the pass but the men do not pay any attention to him. Instead they tie him to a tree and one of the white man starts to whip him for visiting his wife without the permission of Tom Weylin, the “owner” of Alice’s father. Tom Weylin forbid him to see his wife, he ordered him to choose a new wife at the plantation, so he could own their children. Since Alice’s mother is a free woman, her babies would be free as well and would be save from slavery. But her freedom “status” does not stop one of the patroller to punch her in the face and cause her to collapse to the ground.
“The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege” (1). At a young age, Frederick Douglass, a slave, often wonders about the world outside his plantations. Douglass’s ability to see slavery from a different angle, gained through his experiences, also allows him to also see past his bondage. Throughout The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (2002, Glencoe/McGraw Hill), Douglass conveys the horrors associated with captivity, reflecting on how it dehumanizes both slave and owner.
In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison writes about the life of former slaves of Sweet Home. Sethe, one of the main characters, was once a slave to a man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Garner. After Garner’s sudden death, schoolteacher comes to Sweet Home and takes control of the slaves. His treatment of all the slaves forced them to run away. Fearing that her children would be sold, Sethe sent her two boys and her baby girl ahead to her mother-in-law. On the way to freedom, a white girl named Amy Denver helped Sethe deliver her daughter, who she later names Denver. About a month after Sethe escapes slavery, schoolteacher found her and tried to bring her back. In fear that her children would be brought back into slavery, Sethe killed her older daughter and attempted to kill Denver and her boys. Sethe, along with Denver, was sent to prison and spent three months there. Buglar and Howard, her two sons, eventually ran away. After about eighteen years, another ex-slave from Sweet Home, Paul D., came to live with Sethe and Denver. A few days later, while coming home from a carnival, Sethe, Paul D., and Denver found a young woman of about twenty on their porch. She claimed her name is Beloved. They took her in and she lived with them. Throughout the novel, Morrison uses many symbols and imagery to express her thoughts and to help us better understand the characters. Morrison uses the motif of water throughout the novel to represent birth, re-birth, and escape to freedom.
Many studies have been conducted in a bid to understand the cultural and geographical differences that influence the naming process among different communities (Alia 2008, p. 6). Within each of the studies, there has been considerable address of the issues that were in the past of great importance among different communities and the way the names have been changing with time, based on various the present-day trends (Norman 2003, p. 529). One of the significant findings in the studies conducted is based on the fact that many of the names that are given to newborns possess unique meanings and the different communities have made it part of a cultural practice to maintain this trend (Darlington 2011, p. 1).
In the novel, the author proposes that the African American female slave’s need to overcome three obstacles was what unavoidably separated her from the rest of society; she was black, female, and a slave, in a white male dominating society. The novel “locates black women at the intersection of racial and sexual ideologies and politics (12).” White begins by illustrating the Europeans’ two major stereotypes o...
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
For most American’s especially African Americans, the abolition of slavery in 1865 was a significant point in history, but for African Americans, although slavery was abolished it gave root for a new form of slavery that showed to be equally as terrorizing for blacks. In the novel Slavery by Another Name, by Douglas Blackmon he examines the reconstruction era, which provided a form of coerced labor in a convict leasing system, where many African Americans were convicted on triumphed up charges for decades.
When there is ever a conversation about oppression the subject of identity, and how it is lost, is seldom forgotten. From the minute and personal to the grand horrors of slavery an oppressor will always remove one’s sense of self as a way of preventing resistance, for in the sense of self lies dignity. It is this sense of losing one’s identity that is ever present in slave narratives. From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano written by himself to The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass also written by himself the goal of the work is indeed to dispel the notion that slavery should ever be acceptable, but so often the vehicle upon which this goal travels is the reclamation of self. In his autobiography Frederick Douglass reclaims this sense of self firstly by learning to read and giving himself intellectual agency, then in the physical confrontation with Mr. Covey he reclaims physical agency, and finally when he eventually escapes he reclaims agency as a human being. It is through this reclamation
Names are closely associated with identity. Although a name is just a word used to refer to someone or something, many people are very attached to their names and feel that without their name, they would have no identity. According to R. P. Masani, it is important that people have names because “’personality and the rights and obligations connected with it would not exist without the name.’” (In Bosmajian, pg 78) In “Lost in Translation,” the narrator receives a new name when she comes to America. Although the change from her original name “Ewa” to the
We are builders, we are warriors and we are kings fitted with prosperous wings. Do not fall victim to the poison of the outside man, let him not feed you his conscious being, for to you it can possess no true meaning. You are a free man even if your world/race/gender is not and such are the ideologies present within the autobiography of author Richard Wright. Since you have read his work in the past and found yourself intrigued I suggest taking some time to read his autobiography. In “Black Boy” we are produced a detailed relay of his life and experiences as boy/young adult colour in predominately the South in the United State. Following him from the age of seven to twenty, readers experience his first job, his first experience with an aggressive white, and his move to simply be, all experiences which shape the man he in turn becomes. It is a tale of questioned possibility in an era of conscious anxiety, a period in which hopes and dreams and plausible realities are destroyed by ascribed responsibilities. A explamaray time of the master, slave mentality, Wright moves againsts the winds of the collective deducing for himself the his purpose. And deduce does he as we witness his triumph over progranderous