The Theme Of Religion And Slavery In William Wells Brown's Clotel

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In the last couple of stories that we have read the theme of all of the stories have been religion and slavery. Religion according to Dictionary.com is, “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.” The authors made the theme religion very apparent in all stories because most of the slaves and slave owners were Christians but they all practiced their Christian religion differently. In speaking about slaves and slave owners, what is slavery by definition? According to Dictionary.com slavery is, “the keeping …show more content…

William Wells Brown writes his story Clotel to discuss the mistreatment of slave women who kept their faith through their hardships as well as their slave owners that claimed to be Christians. The character Clotel is portrayed as a woman born to a slave and a white man known to be Thomas Jefferson, and throughout the story Clotel fights for her children as well as discusses the slave owners Christian beliefs. The slave owners in the story thought very little of their slaves and although the slave owners were Christians their Christian beliefs didn’t count for the slaves. The slave owners would force their slaves to marry others regardless of if they were married or not and that went against what real Christians believed in because marriage is supposed to be a sacred bond between two people. Another non-Christian like act that the slave owners partook in was having children out of wedlock which was a sin. Just like Clotel a lot of slave women are forced to have sex with their slave owners and get pregnant by them. William Wells Brown puts this in his story to show that the slave owners wanted to believe that they were Christians but they weren’t since they were going against everything Christians believed in with their treatment of the …show more content…

Douglass in writing his narrative describes his slave self as Christian as well as his slave owners as Christian. Although they were both Christians they each practiced their religion differently. Throughout every struggle that Douglass went through he kept his faith and believed God would get him through. The slave owners on the other hand would sell their slaves to get their money for church activities and also required the slaves read the bible but wouldn’t allow the slaves to learn how to read. Fredrick Douglass wrote his narrative to tell about the horrors of slavery and to also show that slaves putting their faith in God and being religious had the best outcome for them and that slave owners couldn’t possibly be Christians since they went against everything God believed

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