One of the themes in the book Lyddie by Katherine Paterson is slavery. As the novel starts, Lyddie has been forced to work in Cutler’s Tavern because of her family’s debt. While there, she listens to a conversation about the rewards issued to those who return runaway slaves. As one of the men states, “ ‘You pay for something, it’s yours. If the law says a man can own slaves, he’s got a right to go after them if they bolt.’ ” (32) This quote clearly shows the stark issue of slavery. Lyddie is forced to choose between doing the right thing, or receiving the $100 reward. Is a person’s life worth $100? Or is her family’s debt more important? Lyddie must choose what is more important to her, a person’s life, or $100. Another example of slavery is when Lyddie, Betsy, and Amelia discuss factory rights. …show more content…
Betty argues that the factory girls work in unfair conditions, while Amelia argues that they shouldn’t whine.
Lyddie is conflicted, as she states, “ ‘I ain’t a slave!’ said Lyddie fiercely. ‘I ain’t a slave.’ ” (92) This quote shows Lyddie’s battle with herself. On one hand, she needs the money for her family, and to repay the debt, but she can also see how much factory life is destroying her coworkers’ health, as demonstrated by Betsy. Betsy has a cough, which is slowly destroying her health. By the end of the book, Betsy’s beauty, as well as her strength and money, is gone. She put her brother through college, but she can’t go to college herself! These workers are treated just as low as slaves. They work long hours, for a minute wage, in inhumane conditions. It is no wonder that they believe themselves to be slaves. Finally, my last piece of evidence takes place after Lyddie returns to her village, after she is fired from her job at the
factory. “ ‘So—for the first time, I’m a free woman. Not a care—not a care in the world.’ ” (178) This last example of slavery takes place when Lyddie is at an all-time low. She has been fired from her job for “moral turpitude,” something she is not even guilty of. Her brother dismissed her sacrifices, and took her sister with her. Her friend Diana doesn’t need her anymore. Her old job at the tavern is filled. No one needs her anymore. For Lyddie, a person who lives for others, this is a devastating blow. After a lifetime of living for others, being a slave to their whims, she is no longer needed, and this crushes her. Freed from her chains, she wants nothing more than to be chained again. Once a slave, always a slave. In conclusion, Lyddie is a slave. To others, and to herself. She refuses to believe this, and denies it over and over again. She finally comes to terms with it in the end. She constantly hears the world slave everywhere, but she wants nothing more to be rid of it all.
Prior to the Civil War, the young United States of America was in a period of rapid expansion. Hoping to find prosperity in new land acquired by the Louisiana Purchase, Americans ventured westward. Along with this expansion, however, came the increasing tension over slavery. Conflicts arose, and in one particular town, where a slave named Celia was accused of the murder of Robert Newsom, her owner, tested the ambiguous laws and human rights ideals of that age. In “Celia, A Slave,” Melton A. McLaurin identifies the moral dilemmas confronting Americans regarding slaves and conveys how the patriarchal system and “abused” usage of law benefited the powerful and disadvantage those outside of the group, especially people of color. By critically analyzing and cross examining historical events and evidence with records of Celia’s trial, McLaurin offers an enlightening view of the prominent issues of slavery that plagued antebellum southern society.
He explains in great detail of how a black woman was punished because she helped save the life of the slave driver who was transporting her and fifty-nine other slaves. This article further proves David Walker’s argument in which Slaves are men too and are not treated, as they should
Despite each individual having different circumstances in which they experienced regarding the institution of slavery, both were inspired to take part in the abolitionist movement due to the injustices they witnessed. The result is two very compelling and diverse works that attack the institution of slavery and argue against the reasons the pro-slavery individuals use to justify the slavery
... slave and the cruelty of it. It’s important to literature because if the reader didn’t have the perspective of an actual slave, nobody would no what slavery actually did.
Families torn apart, humans sold on auction blocks, using humans for animal labor. These tragedies along with the words of the Quaker poet John Whiittier are just the beginning when trying to explain the motivation for abolitionists helping to free slaves.
In Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, personal accounts that detail the ins-and-outs of the system of slavery show readers truly how monstrous and oppressive slavery is. Families are torn apart, lives are ruined, and slaves are tortured both physically and mentally. The white slaveholders of the South manipulate and take advantage of their slaves at every possible occasion. Nothing is left untouched by the gnarled claws of slavery: even God and religion become tainted. As Jacobs’ account reveals, whites control the religious institutions of the South, and in doing so, forge religion as a tool used to perpetuate slavery, the very system it ought to condemn. The irony exposed in Jacobs’ writings serves to show
In sum, all of these key arguments exist in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” because of the institution of slavery and its resulting lack of freedom that was used to defend it. This text’s arguments could all be gathered together under the common element of inequality and how it affected the practical, social, and even spiritual lives of the slaves.
Analyzing the narrative of Harriet Jacobs through the lens of The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du bois provides an insight into two periods of 19th century American history--the peak of slavery in the South and Reconstruction--and how the former influenced the attitudes present in the latter. The Reconstruction period features Negro men and women desperately trying to distance themselves from a past of brutal hardships that tainted their souls and livelihoods. W.E.B. Du bois addresses the black man 's hesitating, powerless, and self-deprecating nature and the narrative of Harriet Jacobs demonstrates that the institution of slavery was instrumental in fostering this attitude.
During the Antebellum Era in the United States, it was constitutionally protected to own slaves as property. Slavery also made up a large sum of the American economy, especially in the Southern states. However, the act of slavery in America was much more than economic stimulation and constitutional interpretations. Slavery was cognitively oppressive and immortal as it dehumanized the white population and enslaved people. In the slave narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Fredrick Douglass, both authors write how their lived experiences embodies the dehumanization of African Americans in both physical and mental acts of violence. In addition, their narratives render examples of how mistresses and masters did not acknowledge the problems of slavery
In this story it clearly shows us what the courts really mean by freedom, equality, liberty, property and equal protection of the laws. The story traces the legal challenges that affected African Americans freedom. To justify slavery as the “the way things were” still begs to define what lied beneath slave owner’s abilities to look past the wounded eyes and beating hearts of the African Americans that were so brutally possessed.
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
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
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.
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.
Slavery has been a part of human practices for centuries and dates back to the world’s ancient civilizations. In order for us to recognize modern day slavery we must take a look and understand slavery in the American south before the 1860’s, also known as antebellum slavery. Bouvier’s Law Dictionary defines a slave as, “a man who is by law deprived of his liberty for life, and becomes the property of another” (B.J.R, pg. 479). In the period of antebellum slavery, African Americans were enslaved on small farms, large plantations, in cities and towns, homes, out on fields, industries and transportation. By law, slaves were the perso...