Chains By Laurie Halse Erson Essay

One of the most prominent similarities between the two is the alienation they felt from their mothers. Despite the love they

The book Chains takes place during the Revolutionary War and is set in colonial New York. The main character, Isabel, is a slave for a Loyalist family. She and her sister were sold to them after her mother and her owner pass away. She makes friends with another slave, Curzon Bellingham, and is told to spy on her influential master. She operates in secret and constantly fears her owner, Madam Lockton, will catch her. She faces many troubles throughout the book, including her five year old sister being sold to an owner in another country. The book’s title signifies Isabel’s struggle with her independent soul being chained down by the others around her.

In the novel Kindred, by Octavia Butler, the main character Dana is exposed to the brutality and exhausting existence inflicted on slaves in the 1800’s. Through intentionally suppressive measures, slave owners used a series of methods to control and manipulate an entire race of people into submission. Dana describes this process as dulling and her experiences haunt her as she is slowly broken down. “See how easily slave are made?” (Butler 177) her thoughts say; this is Butler attempting to illustrate how it was nearly impossible for the enslaved people to change their situation and fight for freedom. Contemporary people didn’t understand why the slaves didn’t rise up and revolt against the whites, so Butler puts Dana through conditions that eventually show her and the audience it wasn’t that easy. The slaves were too tired to revolt, too broken to fight back, and too connected to each other to leave; thus giving the repulsive entitled whites the ability to continue their disgraceful contempt for human decency. By means of labor and sensational punishment, family ties, surveillance that included slave hierarchy; dreams of revolutions and freedom were overpowered and even Dana becomes complacent accepting the role of slave.

First of all, being a slave at the time was even worse than before. They would make her

There has been many assumptions and analyses of how African and African American slaves felt about their bondage and how they perceived freedom without ever experiencing it. Kenneth M. Stampp, Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, and Eugene Genovese have each made analyses detailing the different aspects of slave attitudes and key viewpoints backed up with factual evidence to support their ideas. These interpretations present personal slave accounts and can be construed in many ways.

In the novel, Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson, Isabel transforms from a compliant and naive slave to a brave and strong individual. In the beginning of the novel, Isabel discovers that she will not get her freedom. “What if we were to split up? Who would take care of her? I fought back tears.

Charlotte Temple is a seduction novel written by Susanna Rowson that tells a story about a British soldier, Montraville, who seduces a British schoolgirl, Charlotte, into falsely loving him and following him away to America, where Charlottes tragic life will unfold. Montraville takes advantage of Charlottes love for him and promises her that he will marry her one day and he also tells Charlotte that her parents would be proud and happy to hear that their daughter ran off with a man of honor. This manipulative and strategic doing of Montraville will continue up until the day Montraville leaves Charlotte due to the mistrustful actions of Belcour and Charlotte. The treatment and equality that the women have, or do not have, in the 18th century is evident in the novel by Rowson which is displayed by many factors such as Charlottes inability to live a happy life simply because the expectations of women during this time were standardized by men. Most jobs in the 18th century needed quite an amount of physical strength so jobs were mostly occupied by men, married women mostly did not work and many single women were private servants. The expectations of women in the 18th century that were set by men, halted the progress women were taking to try and step by step, alter the time ahead of women’s rights and equality so that the tales of Charlotte Temple would be one short told by women in the future.

No slave was respected or treated the same way as their masters were. For instance, Fiddler was a slave of a particular high status but Mr. Reynolds still made him perform the same chores as the others. He may have had better arrangements such as food from the actual kitchen and a bed to sleep on, but he would never be and could never be thought of as someone on the same level of his master. For enslaved women, the treatment was even worse. They were passed around and chosen by men as if they were simply items in a store.

The majority of the masters would abuse the slaves physically and mentally causing more hardship, and by placing the slaves under a secret slave trade where they would get sold without the community or family members knowing. Unfortunately in the book of Incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs , Harriet master Dr.Flint did not, have the opportunity to do that to aunt marthy who was the grandmother of Harriet jacobs. “ Shame Shame ! who is going to sell you aunt marthy? Don't stand there! That is not a place for you. A white aged woman who was the sister of my grandmothers deceased mistress gave the old servant the her freedom (text 2 , lines 11-12). Masters would utilize hypocrisy towards all slaves but the they were slaves who already had their name recognized because of their humanity, hard work, and virtuous heart. Violence towards slaves did not comply for reasons that the slaves are human, and not every white person abused of the

There are many similarities and differences to compare and contrast between the women who were subject of the captivity narratives. When comparing religion, gender and status, there are similarities, but digging deeper there are many differences between Kateri Tekakwitha and Mary Rowlandson’s narratives. On the surface, the similarities are easier to identify, but underneath is where the differences are and the biggest contrast between Rowlandson and Tekakwitha is religion.

Maria and Martin are alike and different in many ways. One way they are alike is both of their grandparents both follow a way of living and they both spread the way of living like they were supposed to. They were also different Marias grandparent was here grandpa and Martins grandparent was his grandpa that spread the way they live.

“He told me that I was made for his use, made to obey his command in every thing; that I was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should surrender to his…” The treatment of slaves varied in their personal experiences as well as in the experiences of others they knew, but Harriet Jacobs phenomenally described the dynamics of the relationship between many female slaves and their superiors with these words from her personal narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). Before slavery was outlawed it was not uncommon for young female slaves to be sexually abused and exploited by their masters. Although many people know about the cruelty of the sexual assaults that made too many young girls victims of rape in the Antebellum South, most people are unaware of the complexity of the issue and how many different ways these women were abused.

“Chains”, written by Laurie Halse Anderson, tells the story of an 11 year slave named Isabel. The novel depicts the struggles faced by Isabel when bought by Mr. and Madam Lockton and the hope and motivation gained through Isabel’s relationships with her sister, ruth, a rebel slave, Curzon, the Lockton’s servant, Becky, and Lady Seymour, Mr. Lockton’s wealthy aunt. “Chains” exhibits a lesson to stay hopeful in times of despair. When the protagonist, Isabel, says, “ She cannot chain my soul. Yes, she can hurt me. She’d already done so.” she shows this hopefulness. Madam beats Isabel and sells Ruth to cause Isabel pain. Regardless of this, Isabel remains curious and optimistic. Although, Isabel is legally chained to the Lockton

The main characters Mrs. Loisel in "The Necklace" and the grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" are very similar because both these characters refused to admit to a mistake that they had made. They both had the same motivation prior to the mistake and they also had the same reason as to why they wanted to keep quiet about it. Although Mrs. Lisle's and the grandmother's penalties were different, it is still fair to compare the two because either way, dead or alive, both their lives were ruined.

I Elizabeth Parris am done being treated like a slave. We have actual people to do that! Abigail, my 11 year old cousin, often voices her complaints to me. She knows that I am too afraid of all the adults to say anything about how I feels. I don’t know what we are going to do yet, but I get to see her today, so I will probably be hearing about all of her crazy ideas to improve our situation.