Text Commentary : My Mother And I Were Separated When I Was An Infant

This is proof that this terrible act was very typical within slaveholding societies. Now, just because this relationship seems usual in the south, it does not mean everyone condoned it. The wives of many slave owners proved they were not okay with a white male and a black female relationship by the way they acted with “anger and resentment” towards other slaves (McLaurin, 26). Wives chose to ignore this behavior simply because if they didn’t, not only would their lives be in danger, but so would their children’s.

For the most part, masters made young, single slaves the objects of their sexual pursuits. They did on occasion rape married women. The inability of the slave husband to protect his wife from such violation points to another fundamental aspect of the relationship between enslaved

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

Sometimes I wonder just how messed up I’ll be for not having a mother around growing up. Other times I am less pessimistic. Regardless, the lack of a stable relationship with a dominant female figure has altered my personality and how I interact with others.

This excerpt rejects Black culture by quoting an abolitionist Southern hymn, in which prostitutes are whipped and slaves are robbed. Unable to physically free himself from the nature of slavery, Douglass liberates his mind in religious duality. A slave is one who consents to be a slave, who participates in the dynamic of the relationship.

In the Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs argues that her master had an undesirable obsession for her. An obsession she did not want, but could not escape. When Jacobs turned fifteen, life changed drastically; she had gained an unwanted eye of her master. Though her master was afraid to have his inappropriate behaviors and impure thoughts gossiped through town or reported to her grandmother, “he was a crafty man, and resorted to many means to accomplish his purpose” (Jacobs, 52). Despite the fact that Jacobs feared for herself, she felt as if she could not escape her unwanted fate. “My master met me at every turn, reminding me that I belonged to him, and swearing by heaven and earth the he would compel me to submit to him” (Jacobs, 53). Due to his undying

In Marie Schwartz’s book Born in Bondage, describes the life as a child during the antebellum era. The most evident struggle of these children is who to have the most loyalty to. Who should the child listen to when it comes to its survival? Should the child be loyal to the Master or its parents? This was the struggle between the will of the Owner and the wants of the parents. The struggle to gain the loyalty of the child typically would go to the parents except in a few cases where the child was raised away from its parents and in the owner’s house. Who has the most influence in the child’s life was a major source of conflict between slave parents and slave owners. This competition for their loyalty created its own problems for the child such as not knowing who to trust more. For the most part one group would exert more influence than the other. While the child’s parents tended to be the group that would exert the most influence, the owners in certain instances would and could exert more influence than the other. One of these circumstances was when the child was raised by its owners.

Slaves’ future lives all depended on who would “win” them and buy them. For Douglass, it was unbearable to observe human beings cry in desperation and pain. Frederick’s mistress was the only person, besides himself, that was able to experience pure dismay; causing them to ache together and understand the terror.

(3) When first reading these narratives one would often assume, by what history tells us, that slave owners were cruel, hated men who often beat slaves severely if they committed even the slightest infraction. While this depiction does stand true for some slave owners, I was surprised to find that most of the former slaves interviewed in the “Slave Narratives” often held their masters in high regards, referring to them as kind and good. Former slave Harriett Gresham even goes as far to say that her master, Mr. Bellinger was “exceptionally kind”. Many slaves in the narratives described their masters as good to his slaves and never whipping them unless it was absolutely necessary. However, when the former slaves spoke of the “paterollers”, white men who roamed the roads in search of runaway slaves often beating them and returning them to their owners, they were described as being very cruel to slaves showing no sympathy to any slave found running away from a

Through his diction, specifically the use of “wicked desires,” “own lusts,” and “cunning arrangement,” Douglass clearly identifies the evil within the master’s acts. Douglass logically explains why “my master was my father,” by presenting the details of what happens to the children of slave women. Within this logos-driven passage, however, is a strong emotional appeal. The factual representation of what happened in these cases is corrupt within itself, and through his wording, Douglass attacks slavery and the acts of his master. Laws themselves made slaveholders the slave’s fathers, and Douglass exposes the inhumane concept of being born into slavery.

White explores the master’s sexual exploitation of their female slaves, and proves this method of oppression to be the defining factor of what sets the female slaves apart from their male counterparts. Citing former slaves White writes, “Christopher Nichols, an escaped slave living in Canada, remembered how his master laid a woman on a bench, threw her clothes over her head, and whipped her. The whipping of a thirteen-year-old Georgia slave girl also had sexual overtones. The girl was put on all fours ‘sometimes her head down, and sometimes up’ and beaten until froth ran from her mouth (33).” The girl’s forced bodily position as well as her total helplessness to stop her master’s torture blatantly reveals the forced sexual trauma many African females endured.

Men and women alike were physically abused by their masters, deserving or not. Not only did women suffer harsh physical abuse, they were also sexually abused. Many of the masters had relations with their female servants. Frederick Douglass's own father was white, and it was rumored that his father was his original master. Douglass believed the sexual abuse that masters inflicted was "done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable" (21).

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave details the progression of a slave to a man, and thus, the formation of his identity. The narrative functions as a persuasive essay, written in the hopes that it would successfully lead to “hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of [his] brethren in bonds” (Douglass 331). As an institution, slavery endeavored to reduce the men, women, and children “in bonds” to a state less than human. The slave identity, according to the institution of slavery, was not to be that of a rational, self forming, equal human being, but rather, a human animal whose purpose is to work and obey the whims of their “master.” For these reasons, Douglass articulates a distinction

Looking at the female slave as a mother, we find that she fetishizes her relationship with her child. Fueling her state of distortion further, we suggest that the mother believes her infant son’s existence is another mistakes. Boldly, the mother takes on the unprecedented role of God and makes a multitude of distasteful decisions about her infant son. Like deeming his fair skin unbearable, predicting that as an adult he will claim a “master-right” over black slaves, and finally ending his life. By all accounts, the mother is unable to make sensible decisions about anything.

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.