Dehumanization In Slavery

Within the human body the most vital organ is the heart; it pumps blood throughout the whole body, without a healthy heart, a person is unable to live. As opposed to pumping blood, the hearts of slave owners pumped iron throughout the entirety of their bodies ultimately causing their whole state of being to be stone cold and lifeless. Slave owners, even in their actions, were mechanical in the way they completed their everyday actions and constantly abused slaves without the slightest twinge of remorse. Slavery froze human emotion and made society as whole frostbite and numb to its negative effects; it was not until the 14th amendment was enacted that warmth and returned back to America. Douglass accentuates the fact slave owners are halt the progression of society, as a whole, through their refusal to allow African Americans

Irony is one of the rhetorical devices in which it it uncovers the difference between the truth and something expected. Predominantly, it detects the misconceptions or the unfairness of a specific situation. (http://figurativelanguage.net/Irony.html) Most of the time, Frederick Douglass used irony in order to uncover the defect in the reasoning of the issue of slavery. For instance, in the third chapter, Douglass made a description about the obssesive care of his previous master named Colonel Lloyd on his horses.

Him comparing other slaves, men, to wild beasts shows how the slaves were horribly treated and demoralized. Douglass also shows how even a slave's mind can be corrupted into believing they are less than human and how he feels that African Americans are not equal to Whites and how they are seen more like animals than humans. Douglass’s use of similes could persuade a reader to join the abolition movement, if they come to understand the conditions that Douglass is comparing. Frederick Douglass’s narrative consists of figurative language. His figurative language is intended to catch the eye and an emotional response of the reader.

Shakespeare uses animal imagery to describe Othello; stating that because of his “animal” blood his grandsons will be half horses. The word “neigh” creates an animalistic view of Othello in the audience mind. They view him as beast whose desire to

Cruelty stood as the motivation for the baby’s death; it is displayed in Sethe’s former slave owner, the School Teacher, who would label his slaves as animals, recording any evidence of animal like characteristics that the slaves would exhibit to make himself feel less inhumane because the concept was to believe that slaves were no more and no less than animals and that it was okay to harm them in any way. “I am full God damn it of two boys with mossy teeth, one sucking on my breast the other holding me down, their book-reading teacher watching and writing it up.” (70) As the Schoolteacher's nephews harass Sethe, he observes how Sethe exhibits her behavior and he records her responses that are similar to animals. This conveys the extent of cruelty slave owners would stoop down to, they would stoop low enough to convince themselves that African Americans were not human and treat them as if they were equivalent to a

Part way through her narrative, Jacobs describes the different slave owners that were in the county. Mr. Litch was a master that Jacobs described to be ill-bred, uneducated, and very wealthy. She claims that being one of his slaves is especially dangerous. She claims, “There was a jail and a whipping post on his grounds; and whatever cruelties were perpetrated there, they passed without comment. He was so effectually screened by his great wealth that he was called to no account for his crimes, not even for murder”(Jacobs 44).

Then, we have Babar the Elephant who lives a carefree life until his mother is killed by hunters sacrificing herself for the herd’s safety. As the story continues young Babar is faced with the same situation and brave like his mother risk his life to save the herd as well. Amazingly, he 's not murdered only separated from his family so and learns to survive on his own. Personally, I think it’s sad how Elephants are killed by polluters for their tusks. In King Leopold’s Ghost, he used his power to rob Africa of its natural wealth which included ivory and many other resources.

There are many great supporting characters throughout literature but Jim from the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is an amazing major character that supplies the book with conflict, themes and a lesson all of us could take notes from. In the 1830s and St. Petersburg Missouri, Mrs. Watson’s slave named Jim is a empathetic, superstitious, and strong man was separated from his family through slavery and after hearing about how he was going to be sold to a different master he ran away to escape out of fear for the new master. He ends up on Jackson island and runs into Huckleberry Finn the protagonist. Jim is a major character that encompasses much of the story. He brings up many great and important themes and lessons for the protagonist and the reader.

In Beloved by Toni Morrison, cruelty factors into the theme, dehumanization in Blacks because Whites employ cruelty to coerce Black slaves to view themselves as animals who serve superior human. Thus, Black slaves gradually start to independently view themselves with the same rights as animals. Cruelty is a noun that consists of the act of inflicting physical or mental pain to others. Accordingly, in Cincinnati, Ohio and Kentucky in the 1850s, cruelty is the factor that forces Sethe, a Black, female slave to turn homicidal and ignore human ethics like gentleness and peace because she does not want to be dehumanized by schoolteacher again. In other words, the cruel savagery in Whites is the source of the savagery in Sethe when Sethe is desperate for freedom.

This hostility act from the police officer towards Oscar Grant reminds me of the former slavery. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass reveals the story of a slave named Demby, who was shot by his master because he was trying to escape from the torture of Mr.Gore (Chapter 4). At this point, Grant is the resemblance of Demby when he was shot. Demby was scared and afraid that he decided not to obey the slave owner because he thought that by giving up his body to the master could get him into a greater torture, thus, he decided to go against his master’s order. While, the master shot Demby because he feared that Demby would pose a bad example to the other slaves.

White people were becoming more and more desensitized to slaves and saw them little more than cattle (8.9). Later on he remarked about a young boy, no more than twelve years old with a brutal metal collar. His owner, when prompted by Sutcliff explained that the boy had attempted to flee so many times that it was the only way to keep him from running (8.9). This is but another example of the cruelty and changing views of slaves and slavery. The treatment didn’t matter, as

A slave once said to himself that he wished he was an animal, “Anything… just to get rid of thinking.” After reading this excerpt, Life of Frederick Douglass, learning more horrid things about slavery, the criminal and unaccepting ways of the enslavers, and the struggles of the slaves, I now know what us “white’s” have done wrong in our history. We treated others of different colors as if they were different, unpleasant to the eyes, or unintelligent — but the one thing we didn 't see in them is that they too, were human. Who is Frederick Douglass? When Douglass was young, he had been sent to Baltimore along with someone named Hugh Auld, a relative of his first master.

The tribes and especially the Cherokee people built a governmental system based on that of the United States, with an elected principal chief, a senate, and a house of representatives but Jackson still referred to them as “savages” (Foner, 302). The Cherokees suffered the greatest loss during the Trail of Tears of all the Five Civilized Tribes. While there are no exact figures, but it is estimated that 4,000 Cherokees died on the Trail of Tears. The Five Civilized Tribes made up the majority of the 60,000 Indians driven westward to their new homes. These tribes were distinguished from the other Native American populations because of their organization and leadership.

Such was true in many cases, one of them being the Demby dilemma mentioned in Chapter 4. Demby, a slave who disobeyed the commands of a cruel overseer by the name of Mr. Gore, was fatally shot in the head and killed for his defiance. When questioned by the plantation owner, the overseer’s explanation as to why he took such drastic measures was “…if one slave refused to be corrected, and escaped with his life, the other slaves would soon copy the example…” (Douglass 39). And so bought forth the true mentality of the white man during the time.

Marcus treated Esca nicely and not much like a slave at all. One night Marcus lets Esca go out on a wolf hunt. When Esca got back he had brought back with him a wolf cub, which was a custom to his people. They named the wolf Cub. One day Marcus’s next door neighbor Cottia came over to see Cub and talked with Marcus and became one of his best friends along with Esca.