“The Slave Mother,” written by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper tells a story of a young slave boy being taken away from his mother to be sold to another family for work. An excerpt from, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, “The Slave’s New Year’s Day,” by Harriet Jacobs, also explains the life of a slave whose days never change, due to the unstability of the slave system, even on a special holiday like New Years. Both stories show how the mothers of their children are in despair, due to new families taking them away, portraying how the slaves do not have freedom nor the ability of staying with their family. In “The Slave Mother,” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a son is taken away from his mother, right before her very eyes. This situation …show more content…
On New Year’s Day, each slave is being put up for sale again, unless their owner wants to keep them for another year. This holiday is meant for celebration but for a slave, it is a day they dread. One mother went up to the auction block with her seven children, expecting only some to be taken from her, but, “I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all.” This portrays how each slave does not have a say in where they go or who they stay with. This shows the lack of freedom they have, especially since they are put up to be sold with their children that usually never stays with their mother. In addition to that, the children were often sold to a slave trader and their mother was bought by a man in her own town. All the slaves dread this day, becoming more and more depressed as they begin to lose more members of their families from other owners. One women second guesses why she even lives here, stating, “Gone! all gone! Why dont God kill me?” This shows how upset the slaves really do become, while they lack the right of being able to work for themselves or staying with their biological
Introduction The American Revolution was a very long and extensive war that lasted from 1775 until 1783, and as a result America gained its independence. It is very imperative to highlight the significant role that women played during the American Revolution. During this era a woman was often portrayed as illiterate, child-bearing mother, and a homemaker.
The acts of cruelty break down the slaves bodily and mentally, having no respect for human life. An example of this cruelty was when the slaveholders abandoned Douglass’ grandmother and “made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself… in perfect loneliness; thus virtually turning her out to die!” (Douglass 48) Douglass uses these experiences as the logical basis for his argument, being that slavery is unjustified acts of hatred and dehumanization.
Analogous in form to the spiritual autobiography, the slave narrative emphasizes the difficulty of upholding moral goodness under the weight of slavery. By revealing herself as a “fallen woman” Jacobs creates a hazardous problem, capable of eliminating the sympathies of a primarily white audience. Moreover, Jacobs risks portraying herself as an impure woman, whose virtuousness departs from the piousness and gracefulness typically exemplified by the ideal woman or “angel in the house,” according to the “Cult of True Womanhood.” Therefore, in an effort to preserve the ethos of her argument, Jacobs attributes her unchaste condition to the systemic effects of American slavery. Hoping to destroy the ideology of benign paternalism, Jacobs reveals her consequential ethical dilemma through a faint description of her master’s, Dr. Flint’s, licentious behavior.
Slavery is wicked and gory and monstrous and that is well known today but during the time it was well known. In Frederick Douglass’s, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass tries to persuade everyone to stop the madness and recognize how awful slavery is; to do this he uses comparison and realization leading to the reader being blown away by this one slave’s life story. The goal of Douglass’s writing makes the reader see slavery in a different light. This is why Douglass’s writing is such a heavy read. To get his point across he talks about how monstrous his whole life is, starting for the very beginning when “... the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it” (Douglass 1.4) Douglass had to go through
Frederick Douglass was a great writer, but he wasn’t always. He was an escaped slave who used that in his speeches as a topic to gain the attention of his audience. His audience was a seemingly sympathetic one and got to them through rhetorical questions. Douglass wanted to convey the message that there are many changes that need to be made.
The slave parents couldn’t even protect their children from the will of their master. There was some mercy shown to slaves by their owner’s. The Christmas holiday, the one break from work during the year for slaves, was anticipated with excitement because it allowed separated family members to meet and spend a week together. To this day, African American families hold family reunions in
The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass shows the imbalance of power between slaves and their masters. In his book, Douglass proves that slavery is a destructive force not only to the slaves, but also for the slaveholders. “Poison of the irresponsible power” that masters have upon their slaves that are dehumanizing and shameless, have changed the masters themselves and their morality(Douglass 39). This amount of power and control in contact with one man breaks the kindest heart and the purest thoughts turning the person evil and corrupt. Douglass uses flashbacks that illustrate the emotions that declare the negative effects of slavery.
He was selling off her children, though, one by one. ”(192) This shows how slaves were not treated like humans at all and rather as animals. Not only that but the slave owner plays it off nonchalantly, because to them it's just an everyday occurrence.
One of Douglass’s main claims is that the slaves cannot celebrate that which is not theirs. The “blessings in which” the whites celebrate are “shared by [them], not by [the slaves]” (Douglass). Frederick Douglass’s antithesis and parallelism prove that the slaves cannot celebrate freedom on the Fourth of July because they are not free. In order for all Americans to be able to celebrate independence, the injustices must be combated. The antithesis in Douglass’s claim illustrates how different the two groups are; the white celebrate an invalid freedom while the slaves mourn the absence of their freedom.
Frederick Douglass’s narrative provides a first hand experience into the imbalance of power between a slave and a slaveholder and the negative effects it has on them both. Douglass proves that slavery destroys not only the slave, but the slaveholder as well by saying that this “poison of irresponsible power” has a dehumanizing effect on the slaveholder’s morals and beliefs (Douglass 40). This intense amount of power breaks the kindest heart and changes the slaveholder into a heartless demon (Douglass 40). Yet these are not the only ways that Douglass proves what ill effect slavery has on the slaveholder. Douglass also uses deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion to present the negative effects of slavery.
Parenting has been a long practice that desires and demands unconditional sacrifices. Sacrifice is something that makes motherhood worthwhile. The mother-child relationship can be a standout amongst the most convoluted, and fulfilling, of all connections. Women are fuel by self-sacrifice and guilt - but everyone is the better for it. Their youngsters, who feel adored; whatever is left of us, who are saved disagreeable experiences with adolescents raised without affection or warmth; and mothers most importantly.
This statement pushes once more the pain the slaves feel against the rest of the
After having read both Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and Harriet Jacobs’s Incident 1. How were Douglass and Jacobs similar and different in their complaints against slavery? What accounts for these differences? In both the inspiring narratives of Narrative in the Life of Fredrick Douglass by Frederick Douglass’s and in Incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs the respective authors demonstrate the horrors and disparity of slavery in there own ways.
The Douglass’s Narrative reveals very many things about the lives of the American slaves. The lives of the slaves were very hard. They were treated unfairly treated. American slave women were used for giving birth and having kids against their will. As soon as the slave child was born, they would sell the slave child.
These songs were far from joyful, they would sing “…the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone…” and these songs would “… [breathe] the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish.” (29). Douglass argues against the positive image of slavery that portrayed slaves to be