Slavery Justified By George Fitzhugh: Book Review

Satire is once again used to portray slavery in this novel. For instances, Huck’s father Pap should have been protecting Huck instead of being drunk and abusing Huck. On the other hand, Jim who was a negro slave has more compassion and consideration towards Huck. This shows the foolishness of slavery. Because of Slavery prevalent in that period of time, the slaves were considered to be “mere property” without any emotions or personalities.

Twain’s use of irony in this passage connects to the theme of slavery in the book and makes the reader recognize the

An American Slave,” Douglass discusses the horrors of being enslaved and a fugitive slave. Through Douglass’s use of figurative language, diction and repetition he emphasizes the cruelty he experiences thus allowing readers to under-stand his feelings of happiness, fear and isolation upon escaping slavery. Figurative language allocates emotions such as excitement, dread and seclusion. As a slave you have no rights, identity or home. Escaping slavery is the only hope of establishing a sense of self and humanity.

These conflicting emotions show that while Douglass is physically free, he is still a slave to fear, insecurity, loneliness, and the looming threat of being forced back into the arms of slavery. Douglass uses figurative language, diction, and repetition to emphasize the conflict between his emotions. Frederick Douglass’s story as told by himself in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is still relevant today. The book challenges readers to see slavery as a complex issue, an issue that impacts the oppressed and the oppressor, rather than a one-dimensional issue. Douglass goes beyond the physical impacts of slavery by choosing to recognize the tortured bodies of slaves along with their tortured souls, leading him to wonder what it takes for the soul to experience freedom.

The American Slave Trade: Uncle Tom’s Cabin “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves” ― Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works - Volume XII. In other words, no one deserves freedom, if one person does not let someone else have it. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an anti-slavery novel written by an American author named Harriet Beecher Stowe. The book is based on a true story which talks about Tom, who suffered from slavery, considering himself as black skinned colored.

Frederick Douglass wrote his narrative as a freeman, therefore, he is able to reflect on his life as a slave and decode the cryptic artifice of his former slave owners. Douglass lived a harsh life in the south before he made his valiant escape to the north, in order to evade further physical and mental torture. Therefore, Douglass is able to understand what it is like to be an invisible entity with a lack of identity, on physical earth. Metaphors are like string that Douglass uses to weave together a cohesive argument to support the eradication of slavery. As Douglass reminisces on his life he states that he “was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery...”

Stewart began with a casual use of irony in the form of sarcasm to mock the perspective of white slave owners who relegate work to their black slaves who “were lazy and idle” even though the lifestyle which their black slaves sustain allows the laziness and idleness of the slave owners themselves. Her use of figurative language, which appealed to pathos, emphasized the long toil for freedom which likens the slaves’ tired spirit to their tired bodies which the white abolitionists have never experienced: “I reply to it, the whites have so long and proudly proclaimed the theme of equal rights and privileges, that our souls have caught the flame also, ragged as we are.” Although the white abolitionists preach equality and privilege for all, the

He uses similes throughout his narrative to compare his struggles with slavery and show how the African American is negatively portrayed with something the reader can easily imagine and relate. When discussing his tiresome days working , Douglass compares himself to being held down by a weight, When I could stand no longer, I fell, and felt as if held down by an immense weight.” (55) The simile between him and the weight shows how slavery is weighing him down and it is something the reader can easily imagine and relate too. Later in the narrative Douglass compares slaves to wild beasts, “In the midst of houses, yet having no home,--among fellow-men, yet feeling as if in the midst of wild beasts,” (90).

Slavery was it positive or negative contribution to the world that we live in today? Well in the eyes of today’s society we see how horrible slavery was and how traumatic it was for those who were unfortunate to be in slavery. The film 12 Years of Slave shows the world of how a man who was free and then taken into slavery. We get a visual of how this man was tortured. However, in the eyes of James Hammond, George Fitzhugh, and John C. Calhoun they all gave us their own reasons on why slavery was a great contribution and why slavery should not be abolished.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain showcases a story where society upholds racial discriminations that clearly set a line between slaves and those who own them. In the novel whites are superior while black people are below them and are practically just objects that can be sold and replaced. The way that society functioned and the abuse that Huck received is what made him decide to leave and find his freedom. Jim, a slave who was gonna be sold also decides to leave in order to obtain his freedom. Both Huck and Jim leave their homes and families to go on a journey to find their freedom.

The emotion of caring was given little to none. They were used until they were seen as useless, as if they had expiring dates stamped on them. Various slave owners saw slavery as not only a beneficial empire, as well as, a religious factor of society. On the contrary, in today’s society slavery is morally wrong

The South was a slave society, with nearly every aspect of life touched by the presence of a brutal institution rooted in the dehumanization of black people and the supremacy of white males. At the time of Celia’s trial, Southerners felt that this way of life was being threatened by heated politics playing out both in Kansas and at home. Her fate was guided by the decisions and reactions of Southerners living in this uncertain atmosphere. These decisions, though they are what logically led to Celia’s death, were inevitably and inseparably connected to the institution of slavery. In a sense, the individual decisions were merely a means to an end, an end decided by the fact that Celia lived in a slave society that couldn’t afford the cost of her justice.

The purpose of the Underground Railroad was to free slaves from the ownership of slave owners, and did just that. Over 100,000 thousand slaves were freed from slave owners, and they managed to live their own lives. While slaves escaping did bring about anti-black sentiment from the Southern States most clearly seen in the Fugitive Slave Act, it brought support for abolition because white people could see that all the slaves were just as human as the rest of them. This may not have changed their beliefs of inferiority, but it did change their beliefs that African Americans deserved such cruel treatment. After the awareness of the slaves’ capabilities and the living in communities with slaves, white people in the North that still supported slavery changed their stance after seeing first hand that black people, not just the few free blacks, were similar to everyone else.

Looking inside from the most basic and primitive lense, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, is a tale about human nature and all its subsidiaries. Douglass delves into the most essential foundation of the humanistic persona -empathy- and moreover: the corruption of it through slavery. Throughout the novel, Frederick Douglass uses zoomorphism to demonstrate just how corrupting the system of slavery is, corrupting the slave and the slaveholder.

Because of this, he successfully creates a contrast between what the slave owners think of and treat the slaves and how they are. Douglass says that slave’s minds were “starved by their cruel masters”(Douglass, 48) and that “they had been shut up in mental darkness” (Douglass, 48) and through education, something that they were deprived of, Frederick Douglass is able to open their minds and allow them to flourish into the complex people that they are. By showing a willingness to learn to read and write, the slaves prove that they were much more than what was forced upon them by their masters.