An Analysis of The Narrative of Slavery Through Literary Works

One of the most atrocious actions humans have done to one another was slavery. Judging and persecuting others because of their skin tone to then forcing them into doing unthinkable tragedies and abuse, to make a profit is the most cruel and unbelievable act. Slavery effected millions of people and created trecherous lifestyles for most African Americans throughout this time.

Slavery and servants throughout America were a multitude of races, however, African Americans were the most discriminated against. Since the first slaves that started to be shipped to the colonies, African Americans started to become and be thought of as the inferior race. With this mindset, this created many problems and unbelievable difficulties to assimilate normally into our culture, that even today people of color are still battling. There were many painful, humiliating and inhumane ways that were employed to maintain slaves status and keep them working for the rich white man. All of the many families that were effected by slavery had an extremely difficult family life that was shaped and influenced by oppression. These families were constructed and and the will of their malicious masters and paid heavily consequences for their actions that their masters deemed inappropriate. An awful reality that torn this family life apart, was that children were sold away to other places and torn from their families only to be put to work at extremely young ages. From these young ages, these slave owners made sure that their slaves were illiterate, and that they could not read or write from fear of a resistance if they learned these skills. Some slaves were able to escape these barriers and did learn basic literacy skills. Not many were able to, but those that did shared their gruesome stories and allowed true treatment of slaves to be known to the rest of the world.

There are an insurmountable amount of cases and stories that come out of this time period that involve stories of mistreatment, abuse and the over atrocities that slavery has brought. All of these stores contain vital information of the past and a look on how terrible these people were treated. However there are two very well-known and important stories that are shared and carried on through time as to understand better of what really went on. The first known and passed down story is called “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. This narrative shows the oppression and the details of it that Fredrick Douglass had to endure on his escape to freedom. Throughout his narratives, he introduces the reader to his firsthand account of all the brutality he endured along with the humility and pain that all slaves are put through. He identifies the inhumane practices the malicious masters and slave owners performed on slaves, including himself. A large point that he brings up is how the only crime this mass of people committed to becoming slaves is being born with a different skin color. Many times he describes the pain and suffering that him, along with all others, had to endure, and how he went about his quest for freedom to get away from this terrible treatment. A tremendous struggle that he persisted through to gain literacy. This was one of the most difficult tasks, because from the youngest age, slaves were taught to forget about their origin or anything else that revolved around this such as family and even as far as making them forget when they were born. This was instilled into the slaves for the same purpose and illiteracy was, to make it inconceivable to form an uprising or rebellion with other slaves. Douglass elaborates on how masters were the utmost cruel to their slaves and forced them to go without necessities such as clothing, food and even sleep. He shows the true depth of this cruelty from the beatings with no offences and how the American industries flourished taking advantage of slavery and not treating these pepole as humans, but rather as property. He does touch on the barbaric actions masters would even take to rape their slaves and force them to bear children with terrible punishments if they did not abide. It is a true feat that Douglass was able to endure all of this to a point where he was able to expose slavery for how it was and share his personal life experiences.

The next novel that truly outlines the horrific actions of this time is an autobiography by Harriet Ann Jacobs called “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”. This autobiography encompasses her narration of her experiences she endured as a slave, but how she was determined to share her struggles to educate the rest of the African-American community along with showing the world the abuse that was really happening. This truly allowed for those to think again and start to pursue the decline of slavery. She aimed to gain sympathy and show white people what slavery was truly doing ot those of color. She uses an alias, Linda Brent, to be able to write about her own experiences and show the world what its actually like to be a slave and so she doesn’t expose her true identiry for showing the true side of slavery. Along with Fredrick Douglass, her story shows the true butality of slavery and how slavery and slave owners destroyed the lives of countless individuals and families. She gets into and addresses much of the same cruelty that Douglass stated. From the gruesome masters who abused their slaves and imposed unthinkable punishments and living conditions.

Slavery has been one of the most inhumane acts that humans have done to one another that is permanently life altering and changes lives. With the terrible intentions of not teaching slaves to read or write for rebellious purposes, there is not a plethora of these stories that exist of what life was really like in these times. So the stories we do have that survived this time period are very important in learning how slavery truly was and how it changed peoples lives.