Friday, December 08, 2006
Final Thoughts III, Slavery
Katja
ENGL 48A
Journal # 25, Final Thoughts III, Slavery
8 December, 2006
"'Well, I’ll soon convince you whether I am your master or the nigger fellow you honor so highly. If you must have a husband, you may take up with one of my slaves.'" (Harriet Jacobs 1762).
"’Well,’ said Eliza, mournfully, ‘I always thought that I must obey my master [...] or I couldn’t be a Christian.’" (Harriet Beecher Stowe 1674).
"Had he been a man of pure morals himself, he might have been thought interested in protecting the innocence of my aunt; but those who knew him will not suspect him of any such virtue." (Frederick Douglass 2042).
In response to Wednesday’s essay question I chose the three quotes above for comparison. Harriet Jacobs speaks of sexual violence against women, as does Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglss. These three authors want us to perceive how violence against slave women was used as a tool of repression and reformation as implied in the quote from Jacobs above.
In Jacobs’ text the reader gets the notion that if Linda marries one of the slaves approved of by her master, he can of course order his slave to do to her what he says, thus perpetuating another level of abuse. By sexually abusing their female slaves, whether directly or indirectly, owners and traders would keep them "down." Jacobs writes of the right to true love for slaves. The continued rape and physical abuse of slave women may have had the additional ill effect of making them sexually outcast among their peers. Perhaps the mark of a woman’s owner upon her body would render her untouchable in terms of any potential true relationships.
Slaves were taught that it would be "Christian" to obey their masters, as Stowe writes, thus could not reject this form of repression. Indeed, in the scene from Douglass’ text, Aunt Hester does not attempt to fight off her attacker. The evil amalgam of religious obligation and psychological/emotional damage due to repeated abuse translates into these women’s passive acceptance of their torment.
Douglass implies that some slave owners had no particular interest in trying to appear ethical or just, but saw slave-ownership as a sexual free-for-all. Their most important task was to beat the depravity out of their slave women in some twisted attempt at getting them to live up to the moral standards they set for their own wives.
As is evident in these slave narratives, and surely others, sexual violence was a pervasive practice in slavery to the point of being an atrocity that should stand on its own. Generations of women were either directly damaged by this custom or by its legacy, a fact that these three writers tried to give voice to.
ENGL 48A
Journal # 25, Final Thoughts III, Slavery
8 December, 2006
"'Well, I’ll soon convince you whether I am your master or the nigger fellow you honor so highly. If you must have a husband, you may take up with one of my slaves.'" (Harriet Jacobs 1762).
"’Well,’ said Eliza, mournfully, ‘I always thought that I must obey my master [...] or I couldn’t be a Christian.’" (Harriet Beecher Stowe 1674).
"Had he been a man of pure morals himself, he might have been thought interested in protecting the innocence of my aunt; but those who knew him will not suspect him of any such virtue." (Frederick Douglass 2042).
In response to Wednesday’s essay question I chose the three quotes above for comparison. Harriet Jacobs speaks of sexual violence against women, as does Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglss. These three authors want us to perceive how violence against slave women was used as a tool of repression and reformation as implied in the quote from Jacobs above.
In Jacobs’ text the reader gets the notion that if Linda marries one of the slaves approved of by her master, he can of course order his slave to do to her what he says, thus perpetuating another level of abuse. By sexually abusing their female slaves, whether directly or indirectly, owners and traders would keep them "down." Jacobs writes of the right to true love for slaves. The continued rape and physical abuse of slave women may have had the additional ill effect of making them sexually outcast among their peers. Perhaps the mark of a woman’s owner upon her body would render her untouchable in terms of any potential true relationships.
Slaves were taught that it would be "Christian" to obey their masters, as Stowe writes, thus could not reject this form of repression. Indeed, in the scene from Douglass’ text, Aunt Hester does not attempt to fight off her attacker. The evil amalgam of religious obligation and psychological/emotional damage due to repeated abuse translates into these women’s passive acceptance of their torment.
Douglass implies that some slave owners had no particular interest in trying to appear ethical or just, but saw slave-ownership as a sexual free-for-all. Their most important task was to beat the depravity out of their slave women in some twisted attempt at getting them to live up to the moral standards they set for their own wives.
As is evident in these slave narratives, and surely others, sexual violence was a pervasive practice in slavery to the point of being an atrocity that should stand on its own. Generations of women were either directly damaged by this custom or by its legacy, a fact that these three writers tried to give voice to.
# posted by Katja @ 9:41 AM 
