Benito Cereno by Herman Melville and Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson

Frederick Douglass, the author of the book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, said “I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder” (Douglass, p.71). Modern people can fairly and easily understand the negative effects of slavery upon slave. People have the idea of slaves that they are not allow to learn which makes them unable to read and write and also they don’t have enough time to take a rest and recover their injuries. However, the negative effects upon slaveholder are less obvious to modern people. People usually think about the positive effects of slavery upon slaveholder, such as getting inexpensive labor. In the book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass

Slavery has always been the most shocking phenomena of our world. Slavery, by itself seems very unnatural and provokes mixed feelings from the heart of each person. Some faced “slavery” even in the contemporary times. And some people just simply do not understand the possibility of one human being considering another human being its Slave. Slavery is the practice or system of owning Slaves. Nevertheless, there is still much to say about it and a lot of things to recall.Some of the big central ideas that I have found so far in my research are some of the ways Slaves were tortured, why was this portrayed, and what really led to this. Important insights that I have derived from my research topic include Slaves who helped other Slaves become free

Slavery has been a major component of human civilization all throughout history. People turn to slavery for many reasons, such as fear of different ethnicities and fear that these new foreign people will take over land that is not theirs. The conditions under which slaves work and live varies greatly by the time and location of which the slaves lived. Slaves play a major role in their society and contribute greatly to their communities, often forming one of the largest masses of the population. Though the accuracy of the information from primary sources may be tainted with exaggeration and bias, it is easy to deduce from primary works the treatment of slaves and the working and living conditions surrounding them. According to many sources,

One of the key arguments in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” as well as in other narratives about slaves is inequality. Douglass attempts to show us how African American slaves were still human beings like their white counterparts, there have been numerous instances where it is shown that many whites did not want to accept slaves as true humans. Frederick

“It was not color, but crime, not God, but man that afforded the true explanation of the existence of slavery; nor was I long in finding out another important truth, what man can make, man can unmake” (Douglass 59). In My Bondage and My Freedom, Fredrick Douglass explains in detail the harsh and cruel realties of slavery and how slavery was an institution that victimized not only slaves, but slave holders, and non-slave holding whites. Fredrick Douglass could not have been more right with his observation of slavery. In my opinion, slavery is not only an institution, but is a prime example of a corrupt business model that thrives on free labor, ultimate control, and wealth.

authors stories can have a different meaning than what the author had intended for it to have. In

One of the most common moral defenses of slavery was that slaves were being kept in better conditions than they would be if they had legitimate, paying jobs. For example, once slaves had grown too old to complete hard labor in the fields, they could be brought into the house, where they could be more comfortable working less strenuous jobs. Whereas a paid field worker would be fired once they grew too old to work. What this defense didn 't take into account was the horrible conditions that many slaves lived in their entire lives, and the physical, mental and emotional toll that these conditions took. For example, many slave owners allowed their overseers to hit workers who they believed were disobedient, or who just weren 't working fast enough. Female slaves were routinely sexually abused, and were punished for attempting to protect themselves. This kind of physical abuse would create an atmosphere of fear

Starting from a slave’s birth, this cruel process leads to a continuous cycle of abuse, neglect, and inhumane treatment. To some extent, slave holders succeed because they keep most slaves so concerned with survival that they have no time or energy to consider freedom. This is particularly true for plantation slaves where the conditions of slave life are the most difficult and challenging. However, slave holders fail to realize the damage they inadvertently inflict on themselves by upholding slavery and enforcing these austere laws and attitudes.

When reading literature we often attempt to use particular threads of thought or lenses of critique to gain entry into the implied historic or legendary nature of literature. To accurately process a tale in the light in which it is presented, we have to consider the text from multiple viewpoints. We must take into consideration intentional and affective fallacies and the socioeconomic circumstances of the presenter/author/narrator. We also have to consider how our personal experience creates bias by placing the elements of the story into the web of relationships that we use to interpret the external world. There also is the need to factor in other external pressures, from societal norms, cultural ideals, and psychological themes, and how

"Slavery exploded in the North American colonies during the eighteenth century .Life for slaves were terrible though not everywhere was the same"I mean the slavery topic has always been a hurtful topic to me it always has me wondering why would another human being treat someone this way ?Why where these slaves placed at the bottom of the class system and taken away from their families to be placed in such unconditional places? No one deserves to be treated this way no matter who they are and where they came from.As I read on in the chapter what was said was "not everywhere was slaves treated the same way "but just being classified as being a

Slave by definition is a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. That about sums up what slavery really is in our mind and is pretty much the definition that we all picture when we think about slaves and slavery. But this is not what slavery truly was within the antebellum time period. Most of the slaves had a whole different outlook on the way they viewed, and acted and while living in their unfortunate circumstances. This is one of the few things that will be discussed further on within this paper. The main concept of this paper will be to discuss slavery in three sections; these sections will be discussing the types of people who were enslaved, and the nature of their bondage in the first section. The

Imagine that a slave is released from bondage after he is enslaved his entire life. The values and cognition of a slave will undoubtedly be different from that of an average person who has never been exposed to slavery. Slavery has an impactful toll on those that are enslaved and treated so brutally. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass exhibits the repercussions of slavery. Slavery dehumanizes both slaves and their slave owners because of the abuse of power and injustice that slaveowners and slaves witness everyday.

Achieving their assignments was for the real value for their owners, not their own personal well being and worst of all not knowing when they were going to be free again. African slaves intelligently knew that in European beliefs, Christians were not allowed to enslave another Christian, so they tried to convert to Christianity to create a space in which they could negotiate for better freedom, but in reality this was only to increase their hope and faith, because this did not helped them at all.

The issue of slavery has been debated for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. It is of undisputed awareness that the act of enslaving another man or women is to strip them of their civil and natural liberties. It is also of uncontested certainty that no man or women would will- ingly chose to be a slave. And although slavery and it’s accompanied hardships are often seen as no less than an ultimate evil, it is also an indisputable fact that humanity has enslaved its brethren since the dawn of mankind1. As rational beings, we must put aside our presumptions, precon- ceived notions, and emotionally biased opinions of slavery and ask ourselves; why? One would think that if enslavement was such an unspeakable evil, it would have no place in our civil soci- ety. Yet, slavery time and time again has appeared as a fundamental part of many of the worlds most powerfull civilizations and societies throughout history. This is because slavery is a power- full tool and a necessary evil. The Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Ottomans, Egyptians, Ghana’s, Mali’s, Songhai’s, and Kanem-Bornu’s (the former four being powerfull African empires) all

Benito Cereno is a short story written by Herman Melville in 1855. This story is about a black crew’s desire for freedom. It was published around the same time the United States was reading itself for The Civil War. This short story is just one of several stories by Melville that contributed to the debate of slavery during his time. The San Dominick is the Spanish ship aboard which most the story’s events take place. By the time Captain Delano, portrayed as a dumbfounded racist, discovers it, the slaves had become the masters of the vessel. Babo, who is staged as the villain of this work by Melville, leads the slaves, continuing to deceive Delano, who is led to believe that there has been no mutiny on the ship. Also, Babo has the captain of the ship, Cereno under his command, who is forced to act as if everything is stable on the ship. The events that occur on the San Dominick paints a picture in the reader’s mind about the barbarism of slavery, which leads to other barbaric acts such as, murder and torture. This form of slavery was one of the characteristics of a plantation in the civil war days. The San Dominick, in Benito cereno, is shown to be a type of plantation in two different ways.