Dehumanizing Slaves
The Dehumanization of the Enslave: Frederick Douglass The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself
Every human being should be given the right to an education, love and the pursuit of happiness. A slave is a human. Therefore, the pilfering of a human’s right through the force of human cruelty is an act of dehumanization for the purpose of ownership and free labor. The act of dehumanizing a slave is a slave master’s desire. A slave master needs control over the mind of the enslaved in order to gain free employment. Slavery is a dehumanizing institution. Slaves are captured, beaten, tortured and traumatize for the purpose of free labor. The intention of dehumanizing a slave is to control, manipulate, and force the intelligence of a person 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 insight on the purpose and the process of the dehumanizing of slaves. To dehumanize a person is to eliminate the human qualities through manipulation, torture and human cruelty. Douglass and Northup utilize their personal experiences as enslaves to depict the representation of slavery and how the masters overthrow the enslaved by torture, beatings and even killings. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the dehumanization institution of slavery uses violence, power, and identity theft to strip the identity of slaves, compel them to animal like characteristics, and repudiate them of any education.
A person’s name is not their only identity. However, the name change did have relevance in the process of identity theft. People personal characteristics, personalities, and qualities assist in the shaping of one’s identity. Kimberly Drakes author of the essay, “Rewriting the American self: race, gender, and identity in the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs”, focuses on how an enslaved author such as
Every human being should be given the right to an education, love and the pursuit of happiness. A slave is a human. Therefore, the pilfering of a human’s right through the force of human cruelty is an act of dehumanization for the purpose of ownership and free labor. The act of dehumanizing a slave is a slave master’s desire. A slave master needs control over the mind of the enslaved in order to gain free employment. Slavery is a dehumanizing institution. Slaves are captured, beaten, tortured and traumatize for the purpose of free labor. The intention of dehumanizing a slave is to control, manipulate, and force the intelligence of a person 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 insight on the purpose and the process of the dehumanizing of slaves. To dehumanize a person is to eliminate the human qualities through manipulation, torture and human cruelty. Douglass and Northup utilize their personal experiences as enslaves to depict the representation of slavery and how the masters overthrow the enslaved by torture, beatings and even killings. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the dehumanization institution of slavery uses violence, power, and identity theft to strip the identity of slaves, compel them to animal like characteristics, and repudiate them of any education.
A person’s name is not their only identity. However, the name change did have relevance in the process of identity theft. People personal characteristics, personalities, and qualities assist in the shaping of one’s identity. Kimberly Drakes author of the essay, “Rewriting the American self: race, gender, and identity in the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs”, focuses on how an enslaved author such as