Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Race of the American Novel Project:Textual Background and Context
I am going to talk about an essay wrote by Solomon Northup called "A Slave Auction Described by a Slave 1841". In this essay it talks about the horror and treatment or human beings during a slave auction. They are treated like merchandise ready to be prepped and looking pretty for a sale. They are first shaven and cleansed. Usually this was the only time they were treated this way, only to look good for people to buy. They continue on to talk about how they one slave had to play music during it or some had other projects to do. They would then line up and buyers would inspect them and see and test what these slaves were capable of. A couple were bought together so they were happy to at least stay with each other but this one girl Eliza who had a young boy got sold and they were going to be separated and she cried and begged not to go and the new owner told her to knock it off and said he would give her something to cry about. Which then the little boy would say to her that it'll be okay mama don't cry. I think this piece is very powerful and shows the emotion that these slaves went through during an auction, but most importantly worrying about being separated from the ones they love. Which I think is a big theme in Uncle Tomes Cabin is dealing with good things come to an end and that most good things are taken away from you with slavery. For example in Uncle Toms Cabin how it seemed that every good thing would go away like at the beginning with Mr Shelby selling Uncle Tom to which seemed to a good group to be around to Tom meeting a wonderful little girl to only having her die and then eventually having Tom die in the end really put an exclamation point on this theme in the book. I think using this essay helps me understand the impacts of these events and how emotional and terrible being separated from the people you love. I think you cant truly know how it feels by reading it but only through experience you can truly know what its like to have this type of moment running through their head.
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The actions described in "A Slave Auction Described by a Slave 1841" relate to my theme the evil of slavery. As you mentioned, slaves are first cleaned and groomed shortly before they auction- Likely the first time they've been rightfully cared for. This in itself I came to identify as evil because all people are entitled to basic human rights and theirs were denied. Rather than be treated as human beings, they were as you said, "treated like merchandise," in which case the whole entire being was made a mockery of. And that in itself shows the evil of slavery.
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