Slave My True Story Character Analysis

(1) The use of natural dialect can be seen throughout the slave narrative interviews through words and phrases used that were common during the period of slavery, but are not used today. One example can be seen in the dialect used by former slave Mama Duck, “Battlin stick, like dis. You doan know what a battling stick is? Well, dis here is one.” Through incomplete sentences and unknown words the natural dialect of the time can be seen. Unfamiliar words such as shin-plasters, meaning a piece of paper currency or a promissory note regarded as having little or no value. Also, geechees, used to describe a class of Negroes who spoke Gullah. Many examples can be seen throughout the “Slave Narratives”

She emphasizes that the life of a slave woman is incomparable to the life of a slave man, in the sense that a woman’s sufferings are not only physical but also extremely mental and emotional. Whether or not a slave woman is beaten, starved to death, or made to work in unbearable circumstances on the fields, she suffers from and endures horrible mental torments. Unlike slave men, these women have to deal with sexual harassment from white men, most often their slave owners, as well as the loss of their children in some cases. Men often dwell on their sufferings of bodily pain and physical endurance as slaves, where as women not only deal with that but also the mental and emotional aspect of it. Men claim that their manhood and masculinity are stripped from them, but women deal with their loss of dignity and morality. Females deal with the emotional agony as mothers who lose their children or have to watch them get beaten, as well as being sexually victimized by white men who may or may not be the father of their children. For these women, their experiences seem unimaginable and are just as difficult as any physical punishment, if not more so.

Harriet Jacob was the first African American women to have authored a slave narrative in the United States and was instinctive into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina. Living a good life with her skilled carpentered father and her mother, Jacob didn’t much of being a slave. However, when her mother had passed away, Jacob and her father were reassigned to a different slave owner were her life as a women slave began. Because of this change, she fled to New York where she started working in the Anti-Slavery movement. During this period, she focused more on her family then she did the issue of slavery. Family is an emotional anchor in the Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl because Linda was devoted to her children. She uses symbolism, imagery, and allegory because she wants to demonstrate what families should be like.

Today’s slavery is one of the most diabolical strains to emerge in the thousands of years in which humans have been enslaving their fellows. In the modern global society, there are not just only one kind of human race that specifically victim of human traffic, today it come in all races, all types, and all ethnicities, which became the “Equal Opportunity Slavery” that Bales and Soodalter were mentioned in their book, The Slave Next Door. It is proving itself to be worse than the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade that historically took place from the 1500s to the 1800s.

Prior to the publication of any slave narrative, African Americans had been represented by early historians’ interpretations of their race, culture, and situation along with contemporary authors’ fictionalized depictions. Their persona was often “characterized as infantile, incompetent, and...incapable of achievement” (Hunter-Willis 11) while the actions of slaveholders were justified with the arguments that slavery would maintain a cheap labor force and a guarantee that their suffering did not differ to the toils of the rest of the “struggling world” (Hunter-Willis 12). The emergence of the slave narratives created a new voice that discredited all former allegations of inferiority and produced a new perception of resilience and ingenuity.

In Western culture we are born with the right of autonomy. It is believed that this right can never be taken away from us. We are born into this privilege of liberty and are given opportunities to grow and make our own choices without being oppressed or discouraged for them. We are free, or so we think we are. In the book Slave My True Story by Mende Nazer and Damien Lewis (2003), Mende a 12 year old girl, is stripped of her happiness, childhood and most of all, her freedom.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, a slave narrative written by Harriet Ann Jacobs is highly commended for the portrayal of women during the excruciating times of slavery. Disregarding that the slave narrative was initially written for the audience of Caucasian women, “…, as white women constituted Jacobs’s primary audience at the time she wrote her narrative” (Larson,742) the struggles of being a female slave were emphasized throughout the narrative. Harriet Ann Jacobs elaborates on slave women’s worth being diminished. In the slave narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Ann Jacobs, the theme of the perils of slavery for women was portrayed by women being viewed

Nathan Irvin Huggins, throughout his nonfiction novel, Slave and Citizen (1980), depicts the life of Frederick Douglass from his birth as a slave to being the most well known Afro-American of the nineteenth century. Douglass endures a lifetime of struggles as a black man in America to become a powerful leader for civil rights of both blacks and women. Douglass escapes slavery only to become a fugitive in the North. His determination to become literate and his studies of the Columbian Orator helped him learn the art of argument, where he becomes a powerful abolitionist speaker, orator and writer. Douglass is then inspired to write about his life and publishes his first autobiography, the Narrative. After his freedom is bought, Douglass begins his own newspaper, The North Star and continues his plight for civil rights. Slavery divides the country and the Civil War arrives. During this time, President Lincoln calls on Frederick Douglass for his advice and his help in recruiting blacks into the Union Army. For many years after the war ends, wIth little respect and constant prejudice, he works for the right for blacks to vote and to be considered citizens. As he ages, Douglass continues to fight to get blacks the rights they deserve as he earns leadership positions in the government. He also becomes involved with women’s rights movement and after the death of his first wife, re-marries a white abolitionist. Frederick Douglass’s journey is from “servitude to public celebrity” (pg.

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.

The film 12 Years is an accurate and verifiable account of the common slave experience in the United States in the antebellum South. 12 Years a Slave is set in the mid to late 1800s and tells a true life story of the life of Solomon Northup a free Black man sold south into slavery. He was the son of an emancipated slave. Northup was from upstate New York, and was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South. Northup lived, worked, and was married in upstate New York, where his family resided. He was a multifaceted laborer and also an accomplished violin player. He was subjected to the cruelty for the next twelve years while he survived as the human property of several different slave masters, He continually struggled to survive and maintain some of his dignity. Then in the 12th year of the disheartening ordeal, a chance meeting with an abolitionist from Canada he was was finally freed and is taken home. After being unsuccessful in prosecuting his kidnappers, Northup continues upriver to New York, where he is finally reunited with his family and where he meets his grandson, Solomon Northup Staunton, for the first time. In the end, Northup gives one final, powerful argument against the evils of the slave industry, pointing not to rhetoric or debates, but lifting up his own life story as a vivid commentary for viewers to consider. The main idea of the book was to share with the reader and give

The autobiography , Incidents in the Life of a Slave girl, was written by Harriet Ann Jacobs under the pseudonym name Linda Brendt. This book details the life of slavery and how Jacobs’ achieved freedom for her children and for herself. Jacobs’ detailed these painful, and intricate accounts through forty-one chapters. Harriet Jacobs unfortunate experiences as a slave were significantly shaped because of her gender. Jacobs did indeed endure struggles through her race, but her gender is of great significance during her time as a slave. Jacobs used herself as an example to show how enslaved women were manipulated by their masters, the difficulties of being a mother during slavery mother, and how the fight for freedom were all impacted by her gender.

By reading the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, one is able to further their knowledge of certain aspects of slavery that aren’t always talked about. In this work, one is able to learn more about what Frederick Douglass has to face as a slave, and even what he faces once he escapes. There should be absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that Frederick Douglass—and every slave—faces many hardships throughout their lives. Even so, Douglass remains optimistic that what he faces will lead to a better outcome: “Without a struggle, there can be no progress.” This quote applies to many of the hardships he’s faced, as he is often able to take a bad situation and make something good out of it. While

In the book 12 Years A Slave written from a primary source by Solomon Northup based on a true story describes the triumphant journey Solomon Northup goes through as he never lost hope of regaining his freedom and resisted the dehumanization of enslavement in many ways. Solomon was born a free black man in New York in 1808 while his father, Mintus was born a slave and gained his freedom as their master passed away also inheriting their masters last name "Northup". Growing Solomon worked on a farm with his dad and soon after his dad died in 1829 he soon married a women named Anne Hampton in which they soon moved to Saratoga Springs, New York and had three children of their own. They were living like any other free person was and soon Solomon was working in many industries and Anne established herself as a cook and in the 1830 's Solomon had a reputation of being a well played violinist. In 1841 Solomon had became unemployed and was looking for an occupation, he ran into Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton in who then offers him a job in a circus playing the violin. As they arrive in Washington D.C. which is slave territory, he begins to become sick and passes out which was planned by Merrill and Abram to poison and kidnap him in the slave territory and sell him in which he soon wakes up in chains in a slave pen. Solomon 's first master was James H. Burch who he was sold by the two men who had

Slave narratives proved that, despite the probabilities, many slaves managed to escape their humiliation and learned how to read and write. After escaping their captivity and making contacts with abolitionists, they were able to tell their story to others. When the abolitionist movement identified ex-slaves were interested in publishing their stories, white editors followed narratives to the dictates of nineteenth century emotional literature in order to appeal to audiences nationwide. Publishers and editors fortified themes that shocked the nation.

Imagine, if you will, rising earlier than the sun, eating a mere “snack”- lacking essentially all nutritional value - and trekking miles to toil in the unforgiving climate of the southern states, and laboring until the sun once again slipped under the horizon. Clad only in the rags your master provided (perhaps years ago), you begin walking in the dark the miles to your “home.” As described by the writers Jacob Stroyer and Josiah Henson, this “home” was actually a mere thatched roof, that you built with your own hands, held up by pathetic walls, over a dirt floor and you shared this tiny space with another family. Upon return to “home,” once again you eat the meager rations you were provided, and fall into bed