Being A Civilized, Clean Home

Another example of slave master’s methods to dehumanize slaves were the living conditions provided to slaves. Along with the lashings and severe punishment to which slaves were often subjected, they were also kept half-starved. As Douglass writes, “They [Henrietta and Mary] seldom knew what it was to eat a full meal.” Douglass adds, “I have seen Mary contending with the pigs for the offal thrown into the street.” (pp. 411-412) This reveals how slave masters would not feed slaves adequate portions of food, which led to many slaves being extremely thin and malnourished. Knowledge of such despicable acts happening to one's family can only inspire feelings of despise, disgust and hatred. Douglass, however, used this as fuel to inspire his freedom.

The slaves prepared their own food and carried it out into the field in buckets. Slaves were housed in slave cabins. Small, rudely built of logs with clapboard sidings, with clay chinking. The Floors were packed with dirt, and they were leaky and drafty. The combination of wet, dirt, and cold made them diseased infested environments.

Tom Weylin’s sexual assaults on his female slave Tess and selling out her children reflects the miseries of the helpless blacks at the hands of the white population. Though Tess has lost her children, yet she has to comply with the orders and wishes of her white master. (The Fight, X) In addition, Weylin’s consistent whipping on Dana, Tess and Alice also reveals the existence of butchery and domestic violence by the whites. Particularly stripping of the Black women and beating them brutally serve as the black mar on the very face of the white community. (The Fight, XIII) History is also replete with the examples of butchery and cruelties inflicted upon the Black slaves in the USA, northern and central Europe, Russia, Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) and other parts of the world, where sexual exploitations, whipping and torture were the orders of the day. Hence, Butler has portrayed the exact picture of the situation prevailed in the olden past in her novel.

In the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave, written by himself, the author argues that slaves are treated no better than, sometimes worse, than livestock. Douglass supports his claim by demonstrating how the slaves were forced to eat out of a trough like pigs and second, shows how hard they were working, like animals. The author’s purpose is to show the lifestyle of an American slave in order to appeal to people’s emotions to show people, from a slave’s perspective, what slavery is really like. Based on the harsh descriptions of his life, Douglass is writing to abolitionist and other people that would sympathize and abolish slavery.

“Whatever cultivation and improvement could be carried on by means of such slaves, was properly carried on by their master. It was at his expense. The seed, the cattle, and the instruments of husbandry, were all his. It was for his benefit. Such slaves could acquire nothing but their daily maintenance.”

This excerpt rejects Black culture by quoting an abolitionist Southern hymn, in which prostitutes are whipped and slaves are robbed. Unable to physically free himself from the nature of slavery, Douglass liberates his mind in religious duality. A slave is one who consents to be a slave, who participates in the dynamic of the relationship.

It was 1962, in Jackson, Mississippi, in the “wonderful” United States of America. At this time, racism was very prevalent. We can gather that, this was a time where white people were often convinced to marry early and start having kids. The problem with this is, they also all worked so the women didn’t have time to care for their children. This is why many women had a black maid.

“Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result.” This is done so the mother can get right to work on the field while women who are too old to do such labor are taking care of the kids and household. A child is taken away before the age of 1 for the fact that they are so young so they can’t remember or feel any attachment to their mother just yet. The slave owners also made sure when they took the child they would sell them off to a farther farm from which the mother would be working. For the reason to make sure the mother wouldn’t be able to easily see the child and try to corrupt anything that they are trying to play in them. This process is unavoidable like Frederick says, this prevents any connection with emotions between the slaves. The end result can be

This passage shows evidence that the slave trade during this time was very harsh and cruel. The children are placed upon the potential owners and they are put for sale like cattle at a slaughterhouse. Prince acknowledges the fact that she was very naive and unaware of the torture that was to come in her near future, and, in this passage, she only acknowledges bondage rather than pure torture and pain. Since she is only a child in the beginning of the slave narrative, her gruesome diction does not begin until she experiences her new owner and mistress; she comes to realization of how genuinely bad slavery really is. Soon, realization comes upon her with the knowledge that slavery is truly a nightmare and trulyhorrific. Dehumanization is completely evident throughout her story, through the slave owner’s ignorance towards their slaves’ weaknesses and injuries, and Prince’s false freedom when she is in Date Hill. During the trip in England, slaves are nonexistent since all those who adopt similar roles are paid fair wages and treated with respect. While she joins her master and mistress on their trip to Date Hill, she takes advantage of the small freedom by going to church frequently and surprisingly gets married to a free man. This becomes problematic for her master and mistress since, in their eyes,

Her dark skin tone and shiny/sweaty veneer connoted the hard work ethic she embodied, much like the skin tone a field slave. The bandana on her head symbolized her no fuss attitude and lack of time for personal appearance or kept hairstyles due to all of her time being in the kitchen. It’s color, canary yellow, accentuated her joyful attitude in the servant hood to her master. The white maid’s uniform emphasized not only her lowly position as the servant of the house, but her expertise in the preparation of food for the home. All of these attributes noted a certain type of woman, not just any ol’ Black woman that can cook.

His master had a plentiful garden on the property which some slaves could not stop themselves form eating from, if a slave was caught eating from this garden they would be submitted to a public beating. Fredrick’s master also had an impressive stable with horses and carriages. He left two slaves a father and son in charge of running the stable taking care of his horses. The master was strict about how his horses where kept and often whips both men for simple mistakes in the horses treatment that even they themselves cannot even control. No matter how much discrimination and unfair treatment slaves got they where not allowed to complain about anything to their master.

Richard Frethorne gives an account of his life as an indentured servent living in Martin's Hundred, Virginia. In his account, in the form of a lettler, he explaineds the horrable conditions in the settlement. One of the most pressing issues Frethorne writes about is the lack of food and the affects it is having not only him but the whole settlement. Due to this problom, the men are much weaker, and there is a vast amount of sickness speading thoughout the people. This causes the people to live in a constante fear of an attack from an emny, as many are too weak to fight. Frethorne also adresses his lack of atiqute clothing and how he has had some of his clothing stolen from him by his fellow men. It is hard to know if the whole settlement

As the narrator is leaving Mary's house for the Brotherhood, he sees a Negro-doll bank in his room. He is angry that the doll is holding a sign that read, "Feed me."

Douglass gives detailed anecdotes of his and others experience with the institution of slavery to reveal the hidden horrors. He includes personal accounts he received while under the control of multiple different masters. He analyzes the story of his wife’s cousin’s death to provide a symbol of outrage due to the unfairness of the murderer’s freedom. He states, “The offence for which this girl was thus murdered was this: She had been set that night to mind Mrs. Hicks’s baby, and during the night she fell asleep, and the baby cried.” This anecdote, among many others, is helpful in persuading the reader to understand the severity of rule slaveholders hold above their slaves. This strategy displays the idea that slaves were seen as property and could be discarded easily.

In Victorian times the lower class people were out-casts, considered as nothing and often snubbed by the upper class. An example of this can be seen when we are first introduced to Lane (the butler) and Algernon (the master of the house) when they are discussing family life. Algernon goes on about his family while Lane listens with patience, but as soon as Lane says one thing about his past Algernon won’t have a piece of it. “I don’t know that I am much interested in your family life Lane. (Wilde)” Here, Algernon acts as though his family is superior to Lanes, even though he knows nothing about Lane’s family. One can imagine such a scene taking place in many homes in our society. In today’s world, the rich still rely on maids and other servants. It seems to be a practice that will always exist in the world, however, the important thing here is not the existence of their jobs but the fact that they are reckoned to be of a different class. Class is still a major part of the world’s order, especially in our society. Similar to what happens in our society; in the society that Wilde is presenting it seems that the place of the servants was not only for manual labour, but also to provide conversation, and to compliment the employer’s personalities