The play The Escape; or, a leap for freedom by William Wells Brown presents realistic situations from the era of slavery. Brown provides interacts between slave owners, their mistresses and slaves. The play also presents the idea of slaves masking their true identities. Slaves would often act one way toward their white owner, and act another way in private. In this play masking came from the slaves in order to gain trust, and out smart their slave owners as a form of survival. The character Cato was a prime example of masking among the slaves. He was able to outsmart and gain the trust of his slave owners, in order to escape to freedom. The play starts out with Cato and Dr. Gains; his slave owner working at the doctor’s office. Cato was
Author and purpose: By the 1850’s England had many organizations established to abolish slavery. Some of the organizations were the London Emancipation Committee, the Women's Suffrage Organization, and the British and Foreign Freedmen's Society. The American Slave stories were not only about how they became free, but were also about their personal stories to demonstrate the cruelty placed upon them. Some of the stories came
This book holds scenes from 16 individual plays during the Harlem Renaissance. It holds scripts from playwright and social activist, Langston Hughes. This
Henry Box Brown was an African-American slave in the 1800’s. When he was young, his original slave owner had passed, and Henry was sent to work for his old slave owner’s son. As he got older he met another slave named Nancy while on an errand for his owner. Brown and Nancy wanted to get married and start a family. Later on, Brown and Nancy had three children. “Unfortunately, in 1848 Nancy and their three children were sold to a slave trader who sent them to North Carolina,” (Simkin). Brown was bemused and mournful because his owner promised to not sell his family. Questions were raised on if he should attempt an escape, and this paper will explain the benefits on why Henry Box Brown made the right decision to escape.
In the play, Collins flees to Princeton to start over, but quickly realizes his race will keep setting him back. In another composition, a slave auction takes place on the Princeton campus in front of the prestigious president’s home. Before the auction, enslaved men were said to be having conversations with their sons about freedom. One more drama tells about two college roommates in a conversation with a former slave while under the influence, and the significance of people of color. Each rendition of Princeton and slavery show the impacts of how slavery impacted every facet of nineteenth century life. Emily Mann says her reasoning behind each ten-minute play is that, “All history plays are really about the present. I felt compelled to tell that story because it means something now.” Indeed, these stories have everything to do with the present, news of white supremacists’ rallies are always on the news. Most recently one in Charlottesville, further demonstrating how powerful slavery is and how it still manipulates how society operates today.
Blackmon provides many stories in his book about what the slaves to forced laborers went through and how they felt about the new so called “freedom” they gained. The Black Americans prior to the Emancipation Proclamation have never seen the slightest clue to what freedom could even feel like. “Some of the old slaves said they too weren’t sure what “freedom” really was”
In the South, the slaves were treated poorly. The free slaves were discriminated against because of their skin color. At the time, many Blacks became free because of the reduced plantation profits in the late 1700s. Regardless of their freedom, they were still working for white employers and had many restrictions. They were limited through freedom of movement, economics options, and protection by the law. The book gives the example of Ester Fells who was beaten by her White neighbor because she was ‘disturbing his peace’. The police, in addition, whipped Fells more for “being insolent to a white person”. However, free Blacks boys could become apprentices and eventually make independent living.
We all experience our own forms of confinement in our lives. Freedom may mean one thing to someone, but something very different to someone else. In August Wilson’s Fences, several characters experience their own form on confinement, and feels his own form of freedom by the end of the play. In Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, confinement and freedom are taken much more literally as Cora experiences life as a slave.
Despite of being declared free and living in a free society, many times characters remain restricted due to their own conflicting matters. This can be seen evidently in the play Harlem Duet through the main character, Billie. Despite all blacks being declared officially free from slavery by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Billie still feels ‘enslaved’ many times due to pressures of external factors, such as racism that still exists in society, and internal factors such as her inability to remain in control of a situation.
In “The Life and Escape”, William Wells Brown tells his story of being a slave as a young child and his escape out of slavery as he was older. He was a slave alongside his mother and he had witnessed her going through struggles, but could never do anything about it to help her. He came to realize that all he could do was sit back.
Due to the inhuman mistreatment of slaves in the United States many slaves like Fredrick Douglass had to escape to fight for freedom to become abolitionists. To expose the terror and cruelties that he faced from his owners and overseers as a slave as narrated in “Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass.”
The time preceding the Civil War was a hard time in America for African American families and many authors, which are the base of how people portray their community, wrote about these struggles. They do this by creating feelings for their readers that become very persuasive. In the 1800s, stark reality was a very common type of writing. So much was actually happening that it made for good writing and realist definitely took advantage of this golden opportunity. During this time period, the huge problem that was surfacing was select groups of people were treated very indifferent. Women had to be an addition to their husband’s beliefs and African Americans were treated as if they were a piece of cleaning equipment. In My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin both of these issues are discussed and both use literary techniques that make the audience feel sympathetic to their writing. One technique that Douglass and Chopin use is the use pathos, or the emotional appeal. Another technique that Frederick Douglass uses is his Personal Anecdotes and experiences.
A slave’s life is one of poverty, no privacy, severe punishments, and cruel working conditions. A slave’s home life on the plantation consisted long hours of hard work, and harsh punishments if they were to make a mistake. According to a source titled On the Plantation, it states, “She say [slaves] didn’t need nothing to eat. They just like animals, not like other folks. She whip me, many time with a cowhide, till I was black and blue.” Some challenges a slave faced during escape was having to travel hundreds of miles to freedom, and having to be very cautious of being caught by slave hunters. According to a source titled Escape!, it states, “Robert Brown rode another 40 miles through the mud roads. When the courageous horse gave out, Robert tied him to a fencepost, and walked on. For two days, he dared not talk to anyone for fear of being arrested.” Reaching safety affected a slave because they still had to be very careful about being caught, since slave hunters were looking for the missing slaves. According to a source titled Reaching Safety, it states, “Anyone who refused to aid in the capture of a fugitive, interfered with the arrest of a slave, or tried to free a slave already in custody was subject to a heavy fine and imprisonment.” Therefore, freedom impacts a slave because they have a chance to help other slaves reach
Finding the courage and strength to do so was the most difficult challenge. But the most difficult challenge remaining on the run without getting caught. Being captured means death at times or going back to the plantation and continuing to work as a slave. The quote, “To escape the boundary of the plantation was to escape the fundamental principles of your existence: impossible”, gives the reader the idea that being a slave crumbles a person’s opportunity in being a free man or woman (Whitehead 8). Imagining such an escape or freedom from the plantation will make someone seem as if they were going crazy or they were just hallucinating.
However in the novel, The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead, freedom is just a dream every African American character desires. Whether enslaved or free they must navigate the impossible choice between slavery or racism. The stigma of colored people create this idea that Ridgeway believes "If niggers were supposed to have their freedom, they wouldn't be in chains. If the red man was supposed to keep hold of his land, it'd still be his. If the white man wasn't destined to take this new world, he wouldn't own it now." (Whitehead) Similarly, any white person who feels sympathy for the enslaved is confronted with the fact that if they choose to assist enslaved people, they will likely be killed along with their families.
The origin of this novel stems from a time with great attitude changes within the African-American way of life. Tensions between gender specifically had begun to emerge, women, who were thought of as subservient, belonging to the house as well as to their husbands. During the timeframe of this story, women had been beginning to emerge with dignity, grace, and authority. The play takes place in Pittsburgh, during the 1950’s when the gap between genders had been shrinking, as women had been introduced further into society as more than just mothers. To most, this diminishing gap, to most would be a seamless concept, however, to the characters of this play would be a deciding factor for many conflicting scenes. The main characters of this play