¶ … life of slaves in Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and the lives of the mentally ill in Victor LaValle's Devil in Silver
The theme of freedom and escape was common in antebellum literature written by former slaves -- and is also common in narratives of the lives of the mentally ill today. Both Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl and Victor LaValle's Devil in Silver chronicle unjust imprisonments: in Jacob's case, the narrator's life as a slave; in LaValle's novel, the horrors perpetrated upon the mentally ill. These texts indicate that those who are marginalized in our society are selected in an arbitrary fashion based upon categories such as race or class rather than have intrinsic properties that make them uniquely different. Over the course of the narrative, both protagonists overcome the societies of fear and tyranny that are created by their oppressors and liberate themselves physically and spiritually from their bonds.
Jacobs memoir relates her life in bondage and finally in freedom. She was born to a relatively kind mistress and looks back upon her early years with fondness. However, her mistress died and willed Jacobs to a young girl, making Jacobs' effectual master a hard, cruel man named Mr. Flint. Jacobs relates the capricious life of a slave, whose existence is entirely dependent upon the person into whose hands he or she is sold. "To the slave mother New Year's day comes laden with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns. She may be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has a mother's instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother's agonies" (Jacobs 26). Jacobs states that slaves are not inferior beings intrinsically, but the state of slavery makes them so mentally and morally degraded they are hardly recognizable at such. Yet still, human feelings exist -- one of the cruelest aspects of slavery...
Equiano (Benin, 1745-1799): Travels ( slave Narrative). Report written Ductive format. Also research Assimilation In many ways large and small, Equiano's Travels: The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, is a remarkably fascinating read. This autobiographical account of a African slaves triumph over the forced bondage of chattel slavery that eventually results in his becoming an internationalist abolitionist of both slavery and the slave trade that propels
Crime is Not Just a Criminal Justice Issue Introduction The issue of mental health in the criminal justice system is important because, as Stringer (2019) notes, the US Department of Justice has admitted that nearly 40% of individuals in prison have a history of mental illness. Unfortunately, the criminal justice system does not appear to be focused on addressing the situation in a way that benefits people convicted of crime. The prison
A jumped from one work to another which did not last for a week. A week was the most that I could stay in a workplace. I had work in the laundry mat, and various restaurants. But I was either fired, or I went AWOL. I would either fight with my bosses, could not get along with people in the workplace, or if I did not feel like it, I
Did Bertha not subscribe to the "cult of true womanhood" in which a real woman was believed to be without any sexual feelings, to be responsible for the man's sexual behavior, to be religious, obedient to her husband, and to provide a serene haven for him? After all, the man had to do business in a dangerous and corrupt world and needed rest and regeneration in a serene and
Racial Discrimination and the Death Penalty The United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that at the end of the year 2000 that there was 1,381,892 total number of prisoners under the jurisdiction of federal or state adult correctional authorities (State pp). During 2000, the prison population rose at the lowest rate since 1972 and had the smallest absolute increase since 1980 (State pp). Relative to the number
Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in relation to man's dual nature Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley when she was only nineteen years of age is considered to be one of the most fascinating novels in our literature. Such a fact is imaginatively approved in a strikingly fresh adaptation by Jonathan Pope for the Glasgow Citizens that takes off the congealed veneer of the horror film industry and makes
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