The History of Mary Prince sheds light upon the horrors of slavery in the West Indies, from the cruel beatings to the inhumane dehumanization. It is written by an abolitionist from the words of a former slave to give us a first hand account. In the novel, the author uses Mary's position as a female slave to humanize her and express her experience as a slave to the English public to help push for the abolishment of slavery in the West Indies.
The abolitionist who wrote The History of Mary Prince had to portray Mary as a female person and not just property to the English public. Seeing Mary as a woman forced readers to see all the unjustified acts and horrors of slavery. To put it in perspective, nobody will question if you physically abuse a cattle but if you abuse a human being it is crime. To humanize Mary, the author constantly brings attention to her emotions in the story. Mary expressing emotion and pain over loss of family or the separation from her husband makes her more relatable to the audience. Mary just being separated from her family expresses her deep pain "My heart was quite broken with grief and my thoughts went back continually
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to those from whom I had been so suddenly parted" (Prince 13). The story is told this way to show make Mary is a normal woman that would fit into everyday society, suggesting that slavery is unjust in the sense that slaves are people too. Her faith is used to bridge a connection between the English public and slaves. Mary participating in an religious institution that was widely established in England and her ability to believe and practice the faith makes her more human to the common reader. Mary credits God for ability to establish herself in England during her new found freedom "I trust in God I have profited by what I have heard from him" (Prince 37). Seeing Mary as Christian made the English pubic recognize human beings are descendants of Adam and Eve, thus they are the same and equal according to the Christian faith. The idea of separate spheres for males and females in Victorian England were vastly different from the ideas of gender roles we have today. White women of England were supposed to cook, clean, raise the family, be sexually pure and not participate in hard labor. This idea of the common women in England is contradicted in Mary Prince's time as a slave. She is forced into a position of hard labor in the salt ponds of Turk's Island. The work on Turk's Island was brutally tough this is seen as Mary explains her normal day, "I was given half a barrel and a shovel and had to stand up to my knees in water, from four o'clock in the morning till nine" (Prince 19). This type of labor was reserved for men in England and would be seen as terrible social injustice to force a women into this kind of difficult, round-the-clock work. Seeing her terrible work conditions helps push the case for abolishment of slavery in west indies because no human should have to go through that treatment. Sexual purity was also another one of the gender roles that was a part of the separate spheres ideology of the time.
Women were to be sexually untainted and only should share their bodies with their husbands. When Mary was sold for the first time around the age of twelve, she was man handled in the streets and her body was on full display for all the potential buyers to see. There would have been an uproar in England if a white woman was paraded around town exposed but this was common in slavery and well accepted as the usual. Mary expresses in this passage her experience of mistreatment when she's auctioned, "I was soon surrounded by strange men, who examined and handled me in the same manner that a butcher would a calf or a lamb he was about to purchase, and who talked about my shape and size" (Prince 10). This is
because Mary was not a woman to the people of the auction instead, she was property. In another case of sexual exploitation, Mary was forced to bathe her elder male master. She explains how shameful the act of bathing him was, "Stripping himself quiet naked and ordering me to wash him in a tub of water, my eyes were so full of shame" (Prince 24). Acts of sexual exploitation were common in the relationship between owner and slave. In a time were women were looked down upon for having any sexual or nude contact before marriage, especially with a man they did not intend to marry. These examples of the sexual exploits Mary faces showed the common reader in England how dehumanized and mistreated these slaves were by comparing them to the social standards of their England. The English reader would see how differently slave women were treated in the colonies and find slavery as an institution to be cruel and unjust. This novel displays how Mary's position as a female slave to humanize her and express her experience as a slave to the English Public. Her narrative portrays of the horrors of slavery through the examples of sexual exploitation, abuse, and the fact that she was treated as property, and less than a human being. This novel was a milestone for abolitionists in England, because a first hand account from a slave helped humanize the victims of slavery in the West Indies. It helped build momentum to fight for the end of slavery in the British colonies by bringing awareness through the humanization of slaves.
The black women’s interaction with her oppressive environment during Revolutionary period or the antebellum America was the only way of her survival. Playing her role, and being part of her community that is not always pleasant takes a lot of courage, and optimism for better tomorrow. The autonomy of a slave women still existed even if most of her natural rights were taken. As opposed to her counterparts
The book The Classic Slave Narratives is a collection of narratives that includes the historical enslavement experiences in the lives of the former slaves Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, and Olaudah Equiano. They all find ways to advocate for themselves to protect them from some of the horrors of slavery, such as sexual abuse, verbal abuse, imprisonment, beatings, torturing, killings and the nonexistence of civil rights as Americans or rights as human beings. Also, their keen wit and intelligence leads them to their freedom from slavery, and their fight for freedom and justice for all oppressed people.
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
In literature, a dynamic character changes significantly as a result of events, conflicts, or other forces. In the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Mary Warren, the young servant of the Proctor’s is a dynamic character. Throughout the play, Mary’s personality takes a turn for the better. At the beginning of the play, Mary is shy, timid girl who hides in the shadows of Abigail Williams and lets people walk all over her. As the play develops, Mary realizes that what Abigail is doing isn’t right and rebels against Abby. Instead of following Abby, she follows in the footsteps of John Proctor to bring justice to the girl’s accusing innocent people of witchcraft.
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...
After reading the slavery accounts of Olaudah Equiano 's "The Life of Olaudah Equiano" and Harriet Jacobs ' "Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl", you gain knowledge of what slaves endured during their times of slavery. To build their audience aware of what life of a slave was like, both authors gives their interpretation from two different perspectives and by two different eras of slavery.
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
Reynolds, Mary. The American Slave. Vol. 5, by Che Rawick, 236-246. Westport , Conneticut: Greenwood Press, Inc, 1972.
Lee, Desmond. “The Study of African American Slave Narratives “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” and “Narrative of Frederick Douglass”.” Studies of Early African americans. 17 (1999): 1-99. Web. EBSCO
In The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, a character named Mary Ann is introduced as the girlfriend of Vietnam soldier Mark Fossie. Even more so than the other American soldiers in Vietnam, Mary Ann is the embodiment of an outsider, in some sense, just like the soldiers. She is also the representation of American naivety in the Vietnam War. She does not belong there, and her story accentuates what happens when someone’s surroundings affect him or her. She arrives to Vietnam as Mark Fossie’s girlfriend, and she is the only tangible example of love in the novel. Mary Ann gets there dressed in her pink sweater and her white culottes, with a fresh face and a very curious personality. She wants to know about everything. She is the perfect representation
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
“Line of Color, Sex, and Service: Sexual Coercion in the Early Republic” is a publication that discusses two women, Rachel Davis and Harriet Jacobs. This story explains the lives of both Rachel and Harriet and their relationship between their masters. Rachel, a young white girl around the age of fourteen was an indentured servant who belonged to William and Becky Cress. Harriet, on the other hand, was born an enslaved African American and became the slave of James and Mary Norcom. This publication gives various accounts of their masters mistreating them and how it was dealt with.
Mary broke so many boundaries with her work as a physician, and this passage exemplifies one of those boundaries. J. Henry, the owner of a mining company, would not believe that a woman could work as a doctor. Mary remained fearless as she entered J. Henry’s office, awaiting his disapproval, but that did not stop her. She had to lie to J. Henry in order to receive a job, not because of her qualifications, but because of her sex. Then when arriving in Bannack, at the mining camp, the miners did not accept Mary as their doctor. Yet she remained brave, she did not give up, she kept fighting until she gained the respect from the miners. Mary not only became a physician, but she overcame the discrimination due to something she could not change, her gender. Most women in the early 1900s faced discrimination, their “jobs” included caring for the children and cleaning the house, but Mary did not believe in this. Mary knew when she became a physician that she would face much hatred and would have a difficult time getting a job , but she stayed strong. Throughout her life, she remained hopeful through every situation that sprung upon
At the beginning of the story, a trait that described Mary was charming. She seemed like a fairly pleasant woman who loved her husband unconditionally. There is a quote from the story to prove this: “There was a slow smiling air about her, and about everything she did.” (Dahl 10). She was also very tidy, which can be proved by this quote: “The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight-- hers and the one by the empty chair opposite” (Dahl 10). Her husband Patrick, however, seemed to be cold. This can be proven with this quote: “Her eyes waited on him for an answer, a smile, a little nod, but he made no sign.” (Dahl 12). He also seemed to be a bit of a dipsomaniac. To prove this, I have a few quotes from the story: “He lifted his glass and drained it in one swallow although there was still half of it, at least half of it, left.” (Dahl 11); “When he came back, she noticed that the new drink was dark amber with the quantity of whiskey in it.” (Dahl 11); “She watched him as he began to sip the dark yellow drink, and she could see little oily swirls in the liquid because it was so strong.” (Dahl 11). Mary stands up to her husband through second-degree murder. She tricks the police by devising an alibi and cooking the evidence in her oven. As a result of these events, Mary may grow more
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.