I think my theme is a significant part of the book. The book is practically about the treatment of slaves and how their are treated as things, not human beings. The book is about slavery first of all and slavery is basically the treatment of humans as an object. They "owe" this person and that's the biggest symbol of dehumanization in pretty much world history. I will no analyze some quotes from the book that shows such things. "He was possessed of a handsome person and pleasing manners, and was a general favorite in the factory. Nevertheless, as this young man was in the eye of the law not a man, but a thing, all these superior qualifications were subject to the control of a vulgar, narrow-minded, tyrannical master. This same gentleman, having heard of the fame of George's invention, took a ride over to the factory, to see what this intelligent chattel had been about. He was received with great enthusiasm by the employer, who congratulated him on possessing so valuable a slave.
He was waited upon over the factory, shown the machinery by George, who, in high spirits, talked so fluently, held himself so erect, looked so handsome and manly, that his master began to feel an uneasy consciousness of inferiority. What business had his slave to be marching round the country, inventing machines, and holding up his head among gentlemen? He'd soon put a stop to it. He'd take him back, and put him to hoeing and digging, and "see if he'd step about so smart." (10) This quote really shows how even though George was just as smart and hard working as any other white man he still would be considered a thing/object just cause of him being a slave and the color of his skin. George is one of the better workers at the factory and deserves to be in a better situation but because of his status as a slave he is not allowed to make his own choices which really makes a person human and that right is being taken away from him because of slavery. Another quote I would like to use is this one right here ""I hate him!" said Legree, that night, as he sat up in his bed; "I hate him! And isn't he MINE? Can't I do what I like with him? Who's to hinder, I wonder?" And Legree clenched his fist, and shook it, as if he had something in his hands that he could rend in pieces. (373). This line right here shows the mentality of a slave owner and thinking that these human beings are just their property. Legree even says "cant I do what I like with him" which really lowers a persons moral when they are treated like dirty and an object which is really demoralizing to a person when treated like this time and time again.
In our discussions in class I think we touched up on all these different subjects but I think we almost touched on the dehumanization of these slaves. In our fishbowl discussion we talked many different subjects like religion and discrimination on woman. We did touch up on my theme but briefly. We talked about how we haven't had that "Oh Shit" moment in the novel. However, we take that for granted in a book about slavery. In class we talked about how how the treatment of these slaves were inhumane and we all knew this already. We did discuss however, that this book was a good example of such treatment and its a realistic approach on the subject at hand. I assume we all take this for granted when we know that this book is going to be about slavery we raise our expectations of harsh treatment of these slaves when in reality everything in this book is incredible harsh to the slaves and treats these human beings as objects. Reading this book I took this for granted and was expecting more "exciting" type treatment but after thinking about it anything that went down in this novel was terrible treatment of a human being, and I am grateful that I'm not in this situation myself. In my project I saw this terrible treatment in the essay I read about with the auction of slaves. That was really eye opening on how they treat people as objects. They would polish them up and make them look good to sell and they tested each slave on what they could do or their skills. They would also examine them as an object and they would just touch them to make sure they were worth buying. To me that essay was one of the real eye opening experiences throughout that project and probably my favorite read of the class so far.
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