Dehumanizing Slaves Essay Sample free essay sample

The Dehumanization of the Enslave: Frederick Douglass The Narrative of Frederick Douglass. an American Slave. Written by Himself Every homo being should be given the right to an instruction. love and the chase of felicity. A slave is a human. Therefore. the pilfering of a human’s right through the force of human inhuman treatment is an act of dehumanisation for the intent of ownership and free labour. The act of dehumanising a slave is a slave master’s desire. A slave maestro demands control over the head of the enslaved in order to derive free employment. Slavery is a dehumanizing establishment. Slaves are captured. beaten. anguished and traumatise for the intent of free labour. The purpose of dehumanising a slave is to command. manipulate. and coerce the intelligence of a individual into bondage. Frederick Douglass’s. The Narrative of Frederick Douglass an American Slave. Written by Himself and Solomon Northup’s The Twelve Years of Slave give penetration on the intent and the procedure of the dehumanizing of slaves. We will write a custom essay sample on Dehumanizing Slaves Essay Sample or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page To dehumanise a individual is to extinguish the human qualities through use. anguish and human inhuman treatment. Douglass and Northup utilize their personal experiences as enslaves to picture the representation of bondage and how the Masterss overthrow the enslaved by anguish. whippings and even violent deaths. The intent of this paper is to show how the dehumanisation establishment of bondage uses force. power. and individuality larceny to deprive the individuality of slaves. oblige them to animal like features. and disown them of any instruction. A person’s name is non their lone individuality. However. the name alteration did hold relevancy in the procedure of individuality larceny. People personal features. personalities. and qualities assist in the defining of one’s individuality. Kimberly Drakes writer of the essay. â€Å"Rewriting the American ego: race. gender. and individuality in the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs† . focal poi nts on how an enslaved writer such as Douglass creates his new individuality through literature. Frederick Douglass. whose stolen individuality. early in his life. is non cognizant of his day of the month of birth or age and is fearful to oppugn his maestro ( 395 ) . Harmonizing to Jeannine DeLombard article. â€Å"Eye-Witness To The Cruelty: Southern Violence And Northern Testimony In Frederick Douglass. the fearful enslave undertaking is â€Å"not to talk but to stand. listen and tremble† ( 14 ) . or have any concern about his individuality. The intent of individuality larceny is to interrupt the household line of descent and make a paternal power of the maestro to the enslaved. The maestro gives his slaves his household name. In making this. the maestro is positioning himself as a â€Å"father† figure to his slaves and moreover claiming a distinguishable place of ownership over his â€Å"property† . Drake describes it best. â€Å"the child enters into society non as a individual but as an object† ( 6 ) . a slave and for acknowledgment purposes the maestro calls him â€Å"boy† even as an grownup. The slave is non even worthy of being called by his name. holding no acknowledgment or individuality. Douglass is taking from his female parent. while excessively immature to retrieve anything about her and excessively immature to understand fondness ( 395 ) . The paternal separation is portion of the bondage procedure in order to extinguish human qualities such as love. fondness and protection. An infant learns these human qualities from his female parent. This type of separation is pattern in today’s society when a female parent gives up her parental rights to an baby for acceptance. Therefore. the female parent and child’s bond is broken instantly after birth. Northup recalls the separation of a female slave â€Å"Eliza† . from her immature kids ; her spirit is broken and she becomes defeated and full of desperation ( 60 ) . Freeman the slave owner holds no respects at the purchasing and merchandising of Eliza and by force offprints her from her lone staying kid. â€Å"Freeman. out of forbearance. rupture Emily from her female parent by chief force. the two clinging to each other with all their might† . â€Å"Don’t leave me. mama—don’t leave me† is the despairing supplication of Emily the girl to her female parent Eliza ( 58 ) . Human inhuman treatment is more than physical force. but communicating. tone and other unpleasureable behaviour amendss a human’s individuality. The force of force controls the individuality of the enslaves. â€Å" Given that the human appetency for cruel eyeglassess is unabated and that rousing by scenes of inhuman treatment remains portion of the human status. it is singular that punishment† controls the facets of a individuals ideas and actions. ( Zangwill 11 ) The slave maestro shows no regard for his worker’s birth name. parents. household or feelings. Northup claims his individuality is that of a free adult male ; force. whippings and handlocks from Burch the slave owner assures him his individuality is that of a slave. ( Northup. 26 ) After terrible anguish and penalty. a slave learns to accept his individuality or decease seeking to alter it. â€Å"I was merely a nigga and new my place† . ( Northup. 241 ) is apparent that a slave is what his maestro says he is. Solomon Northup whose name is change several times by his maestro to Platt. ( 50 ) Although bondage is abolished today. there is still a negative consequence on African American’s that still remain. For illustration. a female parent is given the right to call her kid and until the kid desire to alter it remains. However. there is still a negative intension associated with the African American name today. The features of a female is of course seen as soft and delicate. The colour of the tegument identifies the adult female. The white kept woman is usually seen as a pure. righteous adult female and the black adult female is seen as enslaved. a kid -bearing machine. The black adult female is depict as the domesticated adult female and her accomplishments become her new individuality. One of the female enslaved responsibilities is to care for the white kept woman kid. She is known for what she can make but is non respected for what she has done. The adult female loses her individuality ; she is a slave with a intent. â€Å"The enslave adult female. while surely dependant on her maestro. was forced to work like a adult male and to engender like an animal† ( Drake. 4. illustrates how the undertaking of the adult females is dictated by the establishment of bondage. The whipping of a female slave receives equal anguish. terrible whippings. colza and even slaying. The first whipping Douglass witnesses is that of Aunt Hester. for disobeying her maestro. Douglass claims â€Å"the more she hollered the worst her beating† ( 398 ) . The thought that Douglass witnesses a female being beaten clarifies that the enslave has no features. no individuality or quality. Dehumanizing the adult females. cut downing their qualities of being a adult female mirrors the thought of human anguish for the master’s personal addition. Douglass describes witnessing a adult female being whipped. â€Å"causing the blood to run half an hr at the clip in the thick of her weeping kids. pleading for their mother’s release† ( 400 ) . Pasty. a female slave. crush because of her beauty and so anguish because Mistress Epps is covetous is an illustration of how the enslave adult female is treated. Pasty receives no favouritism as a female or adult female but receives harsher inhuman treatment from her maestro. her master’s kept woman and even from Northup because the maestro demands it. ( Northup. 199 ) Douglass describes witnessing a adult female being whipped. â€Å"causing the blood to run half an hr at the clip in the thick of her weeping kids. pleading for their mother’s release† ( 400 ) . The communicating. whippings. and intervention by slave Masterss and superintendents to the enslave analogues with that of animate beings. Northup describes having covers similar to those â€Å"use upon horses† ( 29 ) and Douglass description of the separation of babies from female parents before the babe reaches the 12th month. ( 395 ) analogues to the separation of Canis familiariss from their puppies. Mr. Epps. a barbarous slave owner is known as â€Å"a nigga breaker† ( Northup. 138 ) for his terrible inhuman treatment on the enslave and his perceptual experience that a coloured adult male holds no value except as â€Å"mere unrecorded belongings no better. except in value. so his mule or dog† ( Northup. 138 ) . Like other environmental upbringing transc end from coevals to coevals. the mentality of a maestro follows to his offspring. Young Epps perceives that the black adult male receives the same regard as an animate being. â€Å"to work like his faher’s mules—to be whipped and kicked and scourged through life† ( Northup. 201 ) In the bulk of slave literature. the description of the plantation is rather with the exclusion of the squealing. weeping and crying of the enslaves during a beaten. The sound reflects upon a reader like the sound of anguished animate being. Harmonizing to Nick Zangwill. writer of the essay. â€Å"Explaining Human Cruelty† . depicts that human inhuman treatment was considered the worst inhuman treatment amongst the slaves and the â€Å"inferior race† ( 10 ) . This type of inhuman treatment was usage to derive the societal control of the enslaved. The witnessing of force by the slave maestro on the other slaves leaves an ageless memory and destroys the physiological individuality of the enslave. DeLombard. analyzes the ferociousness in the South and the affect it has on the slaves. For illustration. â€Å"the ocular power of the injured black organic structure to convey ferociousness of the South’s peculiar institution† ( 1 ) . pull a analogue with the dehumanisation establishment of bondage. As Douglass recalls the whipping of Aunt Hester. he describes it as â€Å"the entryway to the snake pit of slavery† ( Doug lass. 397 ) . The thought that Douglass informant ferociousness on a adult female signifies there is no clemency on male or female. Although. Douglass is immature when this ferociousness transpires. the memory lives through literature. The intent of the slave maestro brutal force is to contemn the memory of the current slaves and the younger 1s to come. As Douglass perceives it. â€Å"No words. no cryings. no supplications. from his gory victim. seemed to travel his Fe bosom from its bloody intent. † ( Douglass. 397 ) . The master’s satisfaction appeared by the badness of hurting he inflicted. The slave maestro additions power and complacency through force on the enslave. Regardless of the ferociousness witnessing. many slaves experience fear beyond speech production. The thought of seeing the slayings. colzas. black organic structures badly beaten shocks the encephalon into hushing the lingua. A literate slave is a run-away slave harmonizing to the establishment of bondage. The slave maestro forbids his married woman to educate Douglass because â€Å"learning would botch the best nigger† ( Douglass. 409 ) . The enslave demand no cognition because it causes rebellion and apprehension of the hum an rights. Drake supports the claim. that â€Å"learning how to read and compose provides inexplicit claim to self-ownership and ego possession† ( Drake. 19 ) ; the slave maestro loses his power to an educated slave. If you give a nigger an inch. he will take an ell. A nigga should cognize nil but to obey his master—to do as he is told to make. Learning would botch the best nigga in the universe. It would everlastingly disqualify him to be a slave. He would at one time become unwieldy. neodymium of no value to his maestro. As to himself. it could make him no good. but a great trade of injury. It would do him discontented and unhappy. ( Douglass 409 ) Although. Northup appears an educated adult male before his slave maestro. he is out to utilize right grammar because it embarrasses the slave maestro. The dehumanisation of bondage breaks the human spirit. destroys the human fondness and creates the organic structure into a on the job industry. Northup summarizes. the being of Slavery in its most barbarous signifier among them has a inclination to brutalise the humane and finer feelings of their nature. Daily informants of human suffering–listening to the agonising shrieks of the slave– lay eyes oning him wrestling beneath the merciless lash– bitten and torn by dogs– deceasing without attention– and buried without shroud or coffin– it can non otherwise be expected. than that they should go brutified and foolhardy of human life. ( 157 ) The changeless physical force. painful communicating. household separation and pathetic intervention among the enslaved consequences in decease. desperation. and maestro use. Ironically. both Douglass and Northup relate bondage to the â€Å"agony of hell† ( Northup26 ) .