The Middle Passage by Charles Johnson

1082 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Discussion on the middle passage

In the novel “The Middle Passage” by Charles Johnson, mental slavery is a huge factor that is used throughout the book. Metal slavery is the inability to view events, or one’s self, differently from commonly held beliefs. This explains that if you have heard something that is most likely not true and will not research history on it, but spread it around as if you did thus being ignorant as the person that told you. I think that mental slavery is a terrible thing in the world today because everyone is or was a slave captivated by lies or false accusations. In the novel it was possessed by almost every single character in “The Middle Passage”. Within my essay I will discuss the topic of mental slavery and how it affects four characters that I chose from this inspiring novel .
One of the first people I picked from the novel is Diamelo. Diamelo is one of the Allmuseri that was unknown at first. However, when the rebellion from the slaves happened we could see that he was an important figure as one of the head men. During the rebellion’s planning, Diamelo is one of the only Allmuseri who does not approve of Rutherford being on the inside of the meeting. His cold heart does not try to see the good in Rutherford, even if he is African American, the fact that he is American makes him hideous to Diamelo. All he sees in Rutherford is a pathetic man, because in his cold heart is full of hatred. He has strong hatred for the mere American man. Diamelo is mentally enslaved by hatred. Every since he got locked away on that ship he has hated Americans. He has hated every single person because he was a captured slave. He hated Americans because of the harsh conditions Captain Falcon let the Allmuseri live under. All of the deaths he has beneath t...

... middle of paper ...

... he finally got off the ship, I hope and assume that he cleared his head and helped himself to exit his entrapment from his old life to a brand new one.
Overall, in the novel “The Middle Passage”, mental slavery is alive in many people. Fortunely, only some people were brought out of their jail cells and were open into a new life, but some will probably be trapped forever. I have mentioned that each character was enslaved in some way and how from in the book. Mental slavery is not a joke and can make or break people. It can change a person and the way their life can turn out for them. Make sure you are not mentally enslaved because it can hurt you now or later.

Works Cited

• Johnson, C. (1990). The Middle Passage. New York, NY Scribner Publishing
• The Anacostia Gazette (2011) Mental Slavery. Ag-east.org. Retrieved from http://www.ag-east.org/achieve/Mslavery.htm

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Celia, A Slave By Melton A. Mclaurin

    960 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novel showed a pivotal point prior to the Civil War and how these issues ultimately led to the fueling of quarrel between Americans. While such institutions of slavery no longer exist in the United States, the message resonates with the struggles many groups ostracized today who continue to face prejudice from those in higher

    Read More

  • Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman?

    1623 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...tive on the psychological damages of slavery. White believes “pairing the psychological with the enslaved woman’s means of survival has helped us analyze many patterns that emerged after slavery (10).”

    Read More

  • Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

    1478 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the earliest part of Harriet?s life the whole idea of slavery was foreign to her. As all little girls she was born with a mind that only told her place in the world was that of a little girl. She had no capacity to understand the hardships that she inherited. She explains how her, ?heart was as free from care as that of any free-born white child.?(Jacobs p. 7) She explains this blissful ignorance by not understanding that she was condemned at birth to a life of the worst kind oppression. Even at six when she first became familiar with the realization that people regarded her as a slave, Harriet could not conceptualize the weight of what this meant. She say?s that her circumstances as slave girl were unusua...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Documentary ' The Black Atlantic '

    747 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...served as a pillar in the economy of one of the earliest forms of globalization.”. On the other hand, the documentary provides facts illustrating approximately how many slaves died during this monstrous journey. The book describes the middle passage as the name given to the journey across the Atlantic in which many slaves died. According to the textbook, “In the North, slaves worked as field hands on farms and as domestic servants, dockworkers, and craftspeople in cities. But because of their labor-intensive cash crops, the market for slaves was much more lucrative in the South and the Chesapeake.” The documentary only discusses slavery up to 1800 however as we know slavery continued beyond that year with the cause of the civil war in 1861 which was a war fought over slavery. Overall, I highly recommend watching the documentary as it is educational and entertaining.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

    1348 Words  | 3 Pages

    America in the mid to early nineteenth century saw the torture of many African Americans in slavery. Plantation owners did not care whether they were young or old, girl or boy, to them all slaves were there to work. One slave in particular, Frederick Douglass, documented his journey through slavery in his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Through the use of various rhetorical devices and strategies, Douglass conveys the dehumanizing and corrupting effect of slavery, in order to show the overall need for American abolition. His use of devices such as parallelism, asyndeton, simile, antithesis, juxtaposition and use of irony, not only establish ethos but also show the negative effects of slavery on slaves, masters and

    Read More

  • Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl And Frederick Douglass

    1202 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Language of Douglass’s State of Mind

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    Slavery consisted of numerous inhumane horrors completed to make its victims feel desolated and helpless. Many inescapable of these horrors of slavery are conveyed in the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. The entire prospect of the duration of the story is to plan an escape from the excruciating conditions awaiting Douglass as a slave. When his escape is finally executed, unpredictable emotions and thoughts overwhelm him. Within the conclusion of his narrative (shown in the given passage), Frederick Douglass uses figurative language, diction, and syntax to portray such states of mind he felt after escaping slavery: relief, loneliness, and paranoia.

    Read More

  • Slave Narratives as Abolitionist Arguments

    1809 Words  | 4 Pages

    The argument of slavery portrayed as a “slow poison” can be seen throughout the three narratives that are the basis for this paper. The “slow poison” being that slavery is a slow poison that effects not only blacks and whites but everyone around and subjected to slavery. The most obvious people that are effected by slavery are the slaves but there are many examples of whites and their families being effected by slavery also. The Epps family from Twelve Years a Slave is a good example of how slavery can tear apart a family. Mr. and Mrs. Epps were happily married until their marriage became challenged by Mr. Epp’s liking to a slave girl named Patsey. Mrs. Epps became jealous over their relationship and over time their marriage became broken and Mr. Epps became an alcoholic to deal with his marriage and his near constant whipping of his slaves. Mrs. Epp’s jealousy and hatred for Patsey c...

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass

    992 Words  | 2 Pages

    I 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. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right, and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.* (315)

    Read More

  • Slavery’s Dehumanizing Effects on American Slaves and Slaveholders

    1652 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Differences And Drapetomania

    741 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...seem helpless without slavery was a way of gaining the public’s acceptance of Drapetomania. The problem with this was that the evidenced of the mental illness did not stretch north. Northerners did not believe that there was such an illness because it was only being diagnosed in the south on slaves who were not free. They had not seen or heard of African in the north having Drapetomania. Also, it Dr. Cartwright was contradicted by claiming that the illness was within African people when Dr. Little knew it to had been more prevalent among whites than negroes. The evidence of the mental illness was questionable because of its setting, its founder, and its symptom contradictions. Drapetomania gave southern slave holders an excuse for the continuation of slavery and their lively hood, while taking away the lively of every slave in the south by keeping them in bondage.

    Read More

  • The Extreme Cruelty of the Middle Passage

    1719 Words  | 4 Pages

    Kendler, Adam. "The Middle Passage." Slave Resistance. Edward E. Baptist, Web. 13 Dec 2009. .

    Read More

  • My Bondage And My Freedom Analysis

    1592 Words  | 4 Pages

    At first glance, the book “my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass appeared to be extremely dull and frustrating to read. After rereading the book for a second time and paying closer attention to the little details I have realized this is one of the most impressive autobiographies I have read recently. This book possesses one of the most touching stories that I have ever read, and what astonishes me the most about the whole subject is that it's a true story of Douglass' life. “ Douglass does a masterful job of using his own experience to expose the injustice of slavery to the world. As the protagonist he is able to keep the reader interested in himself, and tell the true story of his life. As a narrator he is able to link those experiences to the wider experiences of the nation and all society, exposing the corrupting nature of slavery to the entire nation.”[1] Although this book contributes a great amount of information on the subject of slavery and it is an extremely valuable book, its strengths are overpowered by its flaws. The book is loaded with unnecessary details, flowery metaphors and intense introductory information but this is what makes “My Bondage and My Freedom” unique.

    Read More

  • Middle Passage

    1311 Words  | 3 Pages

    First of all it is important to examine how many African slaves were brought to the New World. The Middle Passage is infamous route of the ships that carried slaves to the Americas. After the arrival to the New World, the slaves were sold or exchanged for the valuable goods. The term Middle Passage might sound somewhat romantic, but in reality it stands as a one of the most terrible events in history. The Middle Passage is the passage of bonded slaves from West Africa to the Americas. In the beginning, there was a trade between Europeans and African leaders who sold their enemies and disabled people in exchange for unique gifts such as guns, tobacco, iron bars and etc. But at the later stages of slavery, Europeans often kidnapped Africans at the costal area of Western Africa and then sent to ships that sailed them to the New World where this new free work force was needed to help stabilize the new nation.

    Read More

  • Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

    1535 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the fourth book of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift uses satire to draw reader’s attention towards his concerns about humanity and uses irony to reveal his cynical views towards human kind. According to the Great Chain of Being, a term developed by the Renaissance that describes a divinely hierarchical order in every existing thing in the universe, human beings are placed a tier higher than animals (http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english /melani/cs6/ren.html). However, by comparing human traits with unpleasant qualities of animals, Swift blurs the definition of human being and questions the hierarchical place of human. In the fourth book of Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver starts his journey as a well-educated European person who is considered to be a decent example of humanity. The first group of inhabitants Gulliver finds on the island where he is dropped off on are the Yahoos. Gulliver is disgusted by the behaviours of these wild creatures at first and he considers them to be animals that are owned by the dominate beings on this island. Gulliver then discovers the Houyhnhnms whom he perceives as brute beasts (Swift 2420) and animals (ibid.) because they share similar physical qualities compare to the horses in England. After a brief interaction with the two Houyhnhnms, Gulliver is taken to the house of a Houyhnhnm whom he will later refer to as his master. Through the interactions with the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver is able to show the ability to reason even though he shares some physical similarities with the Yahoos. Due to this quality and the fact that the Houyhnhnms cannot see his bare skin under his clothes, he is able to live with the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver starts to relate himself more to the Houyhnhnms than the Yahoos becau...

    Read More

More about The Middle Passage by Charles Johnson

Open Document