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Slavery And Gender Issues Portrayed In American Literature

1057 Words5 Pages

Manal Irfan Khalil
American Literature
Shaila Koya
16/1/2017

Slavery and Gender Issues Portrayed in American Literature

One of the most important part in the history was slavery. It played a major role in early 1800’s. It was one of the main reasons which caused the Civil war. Before the start of the Civil war, the cotton gin was invented and there was a rapid widespread of the machine, especially in the south. Machines such as the cotton gin required extensive labor and African Americans had supplied the labor. There were many more jobs which required inexpensive labor. This is when slavery had raised again after the constitution of 1787. The main issues during the age of realism was slavery. Slaves were forced to work for their master in order to survive, they went through harsh punishments and abuse.

A book written by Harriet A. Jacobs called Incidents in the life of a slave girl shows the way women were treated as a slave. The book describes what the girl had went through as a slave. As a young girl She didn 't know that she was a slave, she was happy and lived in a comfortable life until her parents died. Soon it had struck her that she was a slave and suffered from psychological trauma when she found out that a human being could be sold and used just like an object. After some time working as a slave,she described her experience as if she “ had not lived fourteen years in slavery for nothing, she had felt, seen and heard enough to read the characters and

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