Douglass and the Elkins Thesis: The Effects of Bondage on Slaves

"I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares do more is none" (William Shakespeare). When the Bard penned that sentence in his acclaimed play Macbeth, what he intended to signify was that one should endeavor to be something within one’s reach, rather than be something greater. When this excerpt is pertained to enslavement, one can comprehend that the only purpose within a slave’s reach was a lifetime of servitude. The very thought of one day being free, to one day be something greater, was blasphemy. Nevertheless, there was a slave by the name of Frederick Douglass who made it his objective to grow to be someone who is more than just a drudge. Douglass did everything in his power to become literate and ultimately liberated. Furthermore, Frederick Douglass is not only an omission in the closed system that was North American slavery, but was also providential. Out of the four million slaves in his time, he was one of the scarce aggregate that was able to abscond from a slave’s purpose. Moreover, Douglass does not epitomize Stanley Elkins slave-as-sambo thesis, but he was also an anomaly to what a slave is. Notwithstanding Douglass, the inclusive illustration of slavery corresponds with the Elkins thesis, as Blacks adjusted to a state of absolute subjection under an oppressive establishment, thus making them psychosomatically deteriorating and puerile.
Elkins argued that bondage forced the slaves (over time) to turn out to be submissive and infantile. Furthermore, in his autobiography Douglass professed, “I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason” (Douglass 85). Though it ...

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...n slavery to the Nazi concentration camps. While there are some infinitesimal differences, at their most principal, they were alike. Elkins thesis made the relation by means of both occurrences ensuing in closed systems of being, that both infantilize the prisoner and eradicate any thought of rebelling and/or absconding. The question is not if slavery is morally wrong, for that has already been answered. It is if it psychologically impaired, those that took part in it. Moreover, if one employs the Elkins thesis to Douglass’s autobiography, their answer would be one of resounding ratification.

Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave,. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1960. Print.
Shakespeare, William, and John Wilders. "Act 1, Scene 7." Macbeth. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Page 2. Print.