They used this excuse to justify the rape and seduction of slave women. In actuality, fear tactics were used to force slave women to feel indebted to her master. If she did not engage in sexual relations with him, she would risk the chance of her family being sold and separated, her husband being beat, or having
A perfect example of this is when Mrs. Auld is told that if Douglass learns he will no longer be useful as a slave, at this time in the book she began to turn very mean and cruel towards her slaves and treating them more like property instead of being somewhat generous as before. Frederick’s family was forced to struggle through the hard times, and had to live a very unusual life, for example: Frederick’s mother was sold to another slave family so it was very hard for Frederick to see his mother, and eventually she passed away when Frederick was seven, although he didn’t seem very effected. Frederick also ends up proving that Covey was extremely two faced by bring up a very valid point, which was owning slaves was unnatural and unchristian like. As for Frederick’s Grandmother, that truly opened his eyes as to how these slave owners really feel about you, regardless as for what you do. She served her masters for years and then when she grew too old to serve them they just tossed her out like a piece of trash and left her for dead.
From reading the book and comparing it to class lectures, we are able to learn multiple things about slavery. Like many slaves, Celia was treated like an inanimate object. She was bought and sold, raped and impregnated just when she was a young teenage girl. There was only a certain amount of abuse she could take until she started to resist. First claiming to be sick and pregnant, Celia eventually full on rebelled and killed her aging master, Robert Newsom.
Jubilee by Margret walker is a novel on the story of vyry a slave who since a child went through many struggles starting with the death of het mother and beging her life journey when forced to move into the " bug house" with her biological father. Miss Salina, Master Dutton’s wife, doesn’t like Vyry because since Vyry is also Dutton’s daughter, Vyry looks as if she could be twins with Lillian, who is Salina’s daughter. Dutton isn’t that hateful towards his slaves. He has conversations with them and everything and there’s this occasion where Vyry forgets to throw out something that Lillian used to pee during the night so Salina throws it on Vyry and another times Vyry is being punished by being hanged by her thumbs in a closet and John Dutton comes and he takes Vyry out of there and he gets mad at Salina. While Vyry is in the Big House, she works with Aunt Sally in the kitchen.
In the ninth chapter of her book, Jacobs mentions that “If a slave resisted being whipped, the bloodhounds were unpacked, and set upon him, to tear his flesh from his bones.” These methods were used to spread fear upon slaves, and lead them to be fearful to try to escape. After I read the part where a slave who had been tortured by her mistress raised her hand and dealt two blows on her dead mistress’ face saying as she was doing it “The devil is got you now!”, I had mixed feelings. I thought it was good for the slave as she was able to ease her pain slapping the mistress; at the same time, I thought it was sad because slavery made the good woman stoop to the level of disrespecting a
Celia was bought at the age of 14 and was first raped on the way back to Robert Newsom’s home. For the next five years, Celia was a slave and a victim, helpless and trapped. Newsom purchased Celia for the sole purpose of having a sexual partner; a replacement for Newsom’s wife, who passed away. McLaurin states that, “Newsom seems to have deliberately chosen to purchase a young slave girl to fulfill this role, a choice made the more convenient by the ability to present the girl as a domestic servant purchased for the benefit of his daughters.” (page 21) As Celia was forced to “play the role” of Newsom’s mistress for the next five years, Celia became sick and tired of this cruel treatment. Although the majority of slaves had no legal protection against rape, Celia took a stand to protect her own vulnerability.
In these lines, Blake speaks about the unfaithfulness of men, who at the time often contracted syphilis from prostitutes and spread the disease to their wives. Children born to mothers with syphilis often went blind due to the unknown effects of this disease. The suffering of an innocent child strikes close to the heart, and truly shows corruption in marriage. Mehta also uses children in her film to send a strong message about the corruption of marriage. By using Chuyia as a main character, Mehta strikes the heart of viewers when this young girl is stripped of her childhood.
Not only are women abused physically, but also emotionally. Women that are abused emotionally are always usually called names such as ugly and fat by their husbands’ because their husbands only see them as domestic slaves and not as their
The condemnation might have started out because they were forced to but eventually the Handmaids enjoy comdemning each other. The Red Centre therefore turns women against each other until the women don’t know who they could trust anymore. This puts the women in constant fear and they are then forced to do what is expected of them to survive. Gilead uses women to control women. At the Red Centre, it is the Aunts that drills Gilead’s messages into the Handmaids’ heads.
Even women who were freeborn could not choose their husbands because that decision was left for her family to make. The lack of ability for a woman to make her own decisions contributed to the ambiguity between enslavement and being freeborn. Clifford, the son of Pa Palaganda, was known for having sexual relations with his female slaves. As Clifford became fond of his slave Ojebeta, he started to view her as a potential wife because she could read, write her name, sew, and cook civilized food. When Clifford disclosed his thoughts of one day marrying Ojebeta he simply told her what would transpire in a fairly non demanding way.