Slavery: Scene Analysis

Many people dream of being able to live the American Dream and sadly, many people fall in the wrong hands and get cheated on a fake American dream. Although, America is always advertised as “The Land of the Free” slavery is still going on and no one seems to be aware of it or concerned about it. Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter talk about slavery in The United States, in their article, Slavery In The Land of the Free. In this article, Bales and Soodalter talk about how slavery is still happening in the country, but in many different ways. Bales and Soodalter use stories, statics, and comparisons of every slavery case there is in America. However, most of the stories they told were about Hispanics being in slaved, and did not really include stories of other races

It was a most terrible spectacle.” This allows for Douglass to convey the severity of slavery onto his audience and poses the argument that the brutality slaveholders impose upon their slaves as they mercilessly beat them are best representative of the cruelty Douglass and his aunt feel as they are shackled to the despondent chains of slavery. By providing Douglas’ first-hand reactions to witnessing the physical abuse of his aunt and other slaves, he elaborates on slavery’s potential to crush the morale of those on the receiving end of violence and suggests the potency of force by alluding to its embodiment of “the entrance to hell of slavery.” Towards the end of the chapter, Douglass provides further details of his master’s cruelty by utilizing a series of declarative sentences. The declarative sentences emphasize his master’s cruelty by providing heinous details of the injustices Douglass witnesses as they are inflicted upon his fellow slaves, and subtly hints at his master’s abhorrent capacity for violence. Douglas, in portraying the horrific endeavors of a black slave serves the purpose of proving his overlying

When Douglass is a child he is the under Mr. Plummer. His Aunt Hester is constantly whipped by Mr. Plummer. Once when she was seen with Lloyd Ned, a person she was fond of, Mr. Plummer became extremely furious. “Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen and stripped her from neck to waist… He then told her to cross her hands, calling her at the same time a d--d b--h… and after rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood came and dripped to the floor,” (Douglass 948). Douglass does not express his feelings when he’s describing the beating of Aunt Hester. He is very direct and factual with his writing. By writing objectively, he is allowing the reader to envision the scene and come up with their own beliefs on slavery. However, because the scene descriptively shows a gruesome act, the reader is indirectly swayed into believing that slavery awful and unjust. In addition, Douglass also uses subjective writing when he describes his feelings when staying with Mr. Covey. He states, “I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished… the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute,” (Douglass 973). By displaying his feelings to the

Slavery was a system of forced labor popular in the 17th and 18th century that exploited and oppressed blacks. Slavery was an issue in the US that brought on many complex responses. Slave labor introduced to the United States a multitude of issues that questioned political, economical, and social morals. As slave labor increased due to the booming of cottage industries with the market revolution, reactions to these issues differed between regions, creating a sectional split of the United States between industrial North and plantation South. Historiographers Kenneth Stampp, Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, and Eugene Genovese, in their respective articles, attempt to interpret the attitudes of American slaves toward their experiences of work as well as the social and economic implications of slave labor.

As a young child, Frederick Douglass was introduced to the acts of violence towards the slaves including the all too common whippings. He says, “I have often been awakened at the down of day by the most heart-rendering shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood.” One could only imagine the horrid pictures that slaves would have seen on a daily basis of other slaves nearly being beaten to death by their masters. For the black children growing up on the plantation, the master was seen to be a man of great power and not to be taken lightly. This was exactly

He explains, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it” (1). This is one of the first signs that someone would realize they are a slave, or being brutalized by a master. Douglass uses the rhetorical appeal, pathos, throughout his narrative. For example, he reveals, “After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose” (4). This experience was of Douglass’ aunt being whipped severely, until there was a pool of blood flowing out from inside her.

Issues of freedom vs being enslaved did not stop with whippings. Douglass has memories when it was time to eat, "our food was coarse corn meal boiled. This was called mush. It was put into a large wooded tray or trough, and set down upon the ground. The children were then called, like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush; some with oyster-shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with naked hands, and none with spoons. He that ate the fastest got most; he that was strongest secured the best place; and few left the trough satisfied" (Douglass 957). This moment they have of them eating a meal could be that of rats fighting over garbage. This was no way to treat hardworking people that had worked all day long. Douglass experiences the discomforts of hunger and cold during his time as a slave.

For a child not knowing the day that’s supposed to be the most joyous day of the year couldn’t of been very easy but those are just some of the things slaves were deprived of sadly. Douglass in his narrative includes many instances involving the cruelty and punishments of slaves not only taken place but how they had began to become institutionalized through things that are supposed to grant them freedom. He’s referring to things such as politics, religion, and social practices that were enabling people to have their way with slaves and treat them as if they weren’t human beings ( paragraph 3). Not being a child anymore and as naive Douglass began to understand the unfair treatment he and many other colored people in his community were being dealt with. Later he had increasingly began hearing the word “ abolitionist” around town and thoughts of running away and gaining freedom seemed to be the only thing on his mind( paragraph 3 ).

This is Douglass first time seeing such a graphic event and of a family member. Douglass was such use to seeing different views when living with his grandma who helped raise the slave holder’s children. This graphic scene frightened Douglass so much he hid in a closet, and dared not to venture out after seeing the consequences. “I was so terrified and horror stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, I expected it would be my turn next. It was all new to me,” (5).

Douglass also carves the vivid picture of dehumanization into the reader's minds when he writes about the whippings slaves endure. When Douglass is a young boy, he witnesses for the first time a slave getting whipped, "he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back entirely naked. He made her get upon the stool, and tied her hands to the hook." Douglass hides in a closet, thinking that he would be the next victim. This is Douglass's first encounter with the extreme cruelty of slaveholders. "She now stood fair for his infernal purpose...after soon rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood (amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping to the floor" (Douglass 42). As it turns out, the slave

Slavery is unfortunately an issue throughout the world today, and that is exactly what my picture seems to be depicting. A woman clad in loose fitting garments is chained to a tall cement post. The woman is secured at the ankle, and she’s leaning against a crumbling cement wall of a nearby building. The woman’s long, dark hair is loose, and judging by her expression, she is frightened or angry. It’s understandable, looking at the situation she’s trapped in. The woman in the foreground isn’t the only one in the picture. A second woman is in the background, wearing similar clothing. Unlike the first woman, she can move freely, but is looking away from the camera. It makes me wonder if this takes place in a country where women

What the average person does not know about slavery is all of the inhumane behavior that was tolerated. To describe these acts as cruel would be an understatement, Douglass does not hold back on the tragedies he witnessed and he does not hold back on sharing them with the world. For so many years slave owners comforted themselves in the thought of the romantic image of slavery, claiming it was God’s will to let these people suffer, claiming that it was not an extreme environment. The only

During the video Kevin Bales says that there are about 27 million slave but this video is about 5 years old. Even though there are 27 million slaves plus the world have the smallest percentage on slaves it has ever had. Even with the lowest percent of slaves compared to the world population, it is still sickening to think that slavery still exist so widely throughout the world. If you were to ask me before this I would have guess a number far less and I would have said the United States had no slaves. This video has shown me how ignorant I am to the topic of slavery.

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.

The daily life of a slave in North Carolina was incredibly difficult. Hard workers, especially those in the field, played from sunrise until sundown. Even small kids and the elderly were not exempt from these long work hours. Slaves were generally granted a day off on Sunday, and on infrequent holidays such as Christmas or the Fourth of July.