Afro-American Slave Narratives Analysis

Slavery is wicked and gory and monstrous and that is well known today but during the time it was well known. In Frederick Douglass’s, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass tries to persuade everyone to stop the madness and recognize how awful slavery is; to do this he uses comparison and realization leading to the reader being blown away by this one slave’s life story. The goal of Douglass’s writing makes the reader see slavery in a different light. This is why Douglass’s writing is such a heavy read. To get his point across he talks about how monstrous his whole life is, starting for the very beginning when “... the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it” (Douglass 1.4) Douglass had to go through

Abolitionists everywhere should read and share Equiano's narrative because it reveals the horrible realities of the slave trade and shatters stereotypes by presenting a slave who is intelligent and emotional. The narrative exposes the cruelty and ignorance of the nominal Christians who brutally treated the innocent slaves and managed the slave ship. A cargo filled with African slaves awaited for the young man as he embarked a journey of misery: “ When I looked around the ship...a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow(Equiano 58).” They escorted the young boy to

In Olaudah Equiano’s narrative, he demonstrates an oppressive tone in order to create sympathy for the slaves. For example, when the slaves pack onto the ships, the author describes, “[that] the stench…was so intolerably loathsome…it was dangerous to remain there” (Equiano 45). The diction Equiano uses such as, “stench” and “intolerably loathsome” leads to an increased amount of sympathy for the slaves suffering in the horrendous conditions. Equiano illuminates the dehumanization of the black slaves by describing the atrocities of where they survive. Furthermore, after days without food, instead of providing the slaves with much needed food, the whites simply, “tossed the remaining fish in the sea...although [the slaves] begged and pleaded

She talks about how she was treated by Dr. Flint " But Dr. Flint swore he would kill me, if I was not as silent as the grave." Although in Jacobs narrative she was treated, in Douglass' his grandmother was whipped "The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped, and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped the longest." He also talks about how bad women had it "He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome, would he cease to swing the blood-clooted cowskin." Then he talks about how slavery was like hell "It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass."

When the narrator decides to leave the basement he knows that he has to destroy the contents in the briefcase, “I realized that to light my way out I would have to burn every paper in the briefcase.” (Ellison 567-568). The narrator knows that the papers were the white an;s way of owning and defining him. The burning of the papers symbolize the end of African Americans assimilating into white culture. Leaders like Malcolm X, preached black pride and autonomy, separation from the corrupt white society, and self-defense against white violence.

Just before continuing to show Huck what she considers a person, retelling the death of a white Baptist. Yet, because slaves were not considered people instead property, the death of a slave would be a great economic loss (Hearn pg. 354). In “Life on the Wester Rivers” in the chapter “Human Life Is Cheap” a reversal of Aunt Sally’s sentiments occurs when steamboat owners get word of someone had fallen overboard, panicked at the thought paying restitution due to a loss of a slave, when they are told that it was a white man they responded with a delayed “Poor fellow.” (John Habernehl ctd. By Hearn pg.

The haunting of the ghost is a representation of Macbeth’s guilt haunting him, reminding him that once you take a person’s life, their blood will forever be on your hands and you will never be able to forget about it. Blood continuously links the theme of guilt to sin. And, it displays how the characters react to and are affected by ‘bloody’ events. Blood plays a major aspect in all parts of the play.

Douglass argues the fact that slavery is not good and it should be nonexistent. Fredrick Douglass proclaims “nature made us friends and slavery made us enemy’s.” The disturbing nature disrupts what should be to something that is not proclaimed to be. Through all aspects of slavery, dehumanization and pinpointing the victims allows Douglass to reflect on what has occurred and how he has become someone that everyone reads

The holocaust with the jews is an example of hatred and genocide .     I believe the holocaust is one of the worst event that happen to mankind history because of the nuremberg laws,propaganda,and anti-semitism     There is a lot of things the germans did  to make the jews suffer.

Walker speaks with distinctive honesty and passion about the cruelty of slavery. An Christian himself, he signals out white Christians for their double standards in supporting slavery, and society that treated most people of African origin as non-human possessions to be bought, sold or disposed of at will. He debates that, compared with slavery at other times and in other places, slavery in the United States is the most awful in history. Walker begs Black

Let us begin with George, Celia’s understandably treacherous slave lover, and his unreasonable demands that set Celia’s case into motion. George’s actions are an example of the common frustration and desperation of slave men who had no control over the sexual abuse of their loved ones by white masters (McLaurin 139-140). His was a reaction to a smoldering attack upon his masculinity, an attack that was a direct result of the dehumanization upon which slavery rested. Because the South was a slave society, this master-slave relationship structure echoed throughout every other aspect of southern life (Faragher, 204 & 215). In Celia’s case, we see this truth through Virginia and Mary Newsom’s position of powerlessness.

The Stono Rebellion signified a sense of belligerence in Africans during the mid 18th century. The aggression that the rebels portrayed demonstrated their desire to express their feelings towards the white people that treated them poorly. Hence, the slaves’ desire to kill showed how desperate they were in order to do that expressing. The only right thing for the slaves was to go out and kill every white people whom they despised no matter what age or gender so they can get the freedom promised by the Spanish King in Florida. Indeed, going against the white people would result in massive consequences like immediate death for those rebels and effects which would try to stop this from happening again.

In 1845, Frederick Douglass reveals his experience as a slave in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Slaveholders laid a cover of mental darkness over the slaves for centuries. The slaves were taunted physically, socially, and intellectually. Slaves were beaten savagely during this peculiar time.

Slave narratives used Purposes. In Andrew Jackson story he showed “The emphasized traditional Christian religious ideas.” He shows us this by telling the story about their “camp meetings”when he got his horse. The meetings were the savels place to worship and have their church. Jackson also showed us about the religious ideas by just saying a couple of words throughout his stopy.

The growth of the enslaved African American population directly led to an increase in domestic slave trade in the early 1800s. As a result, by 1860 a very significant amount of slaves worked on plantations in the Deep South. Hot temperatures, long work days, and harsh treatment made slave life unfathomably difficult. Families were destroyed, in fact, a third of children under the age of fourteen were separated from their parents and about a quarter of marriages were split, due to slave trade. Slavery was dehumanizing, but maintaining and creating culture and traditions was a way for slaves to have an identity, and in many ways was a resistance to the demeaning nature of slavery.