Difference between revisions of "Week 10 Questions/Comments-327 09"
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One thing that I was not quite sure about in this article was who slavery was doing the most damage to. While the the descriptions of the beatings of the slaves did make me feel for them, it seemed to me that the point of the article was to show how bad slavery made the slave-owning women become. Were the descriptions of the punishments that the slaves faced more horrendous due to the fact that a women was administering them? Would this writing have been less effective if it had described a slave-owning male? -John Rowley | One thing that I was not quite sure about in this article was who slavery was doing the most damage to. While the the descriptions of the beatings of the slaves did make me feel for them, it seemed to me that the point of the article was to show how bad slavery made the slave-owning women become. Were the descriptions of the punishments that the slaves faced more horrendous due to the fact that a women was administering them? Would this writing have been less effective if it had described a slave-owning male? -John Rowley | ||
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| + | I like the question that John brought up in his post, I think that Angelina Grimke purposely depicted a slave owning female as opposed to male. At least in my opinion it seemed like it would be more shocking to Northern women to read of the cruelty being administered by their southern counterparts. I think her story might have been less shocking if she had depicted a tale of a cruel master. I noticed that the husband (if he existed) of the mistress in question was not mentioned during the story. Beating and whipping definitely appeared as punishments that would be associated with male slave owners and not mistresses.I was horrified that a supposedly gentile woman could administer such terrible beatings. It is much easier as the reader to conjure up an image of an evil slave owner not of his wife. -Emma Peck | ||
I think that Angelina Grimke Weld's account of the treatment of slaves really made me realize the extent to which slaves were abused. They not only had to suffer through physical torture/abuse, but also dealt with verbal abuse, especially by their mistress in this case. I think people mostly focus on the abuse of slaves who worked outside, from the manual labor and the whippings, but I think that the "house-servants", as Grimke calls them, also suffered just as much if not more. What I found odd was how the mistress claimed to be such a devout Christian and prayed and sang praises at the family altar daily, and then a couple of hours later, a slave was taken their to whipped inhumanely. It just didn't make sense to me how someone could be so two-faced and hypocritical. I think Angelina Grimke Ward summed up the mindset of slave holders in one simple sentence: "Slaveholders think nothing of them, because they regard their slaves as ''property'' the mere instruments of their convenience and pleasure." (Woloch, P. 217)--- Alex Mankarios | I think that Angelina Grimke Weld's account of the treatment of slaves really made me realize the extent to which slaves were abused. They not only had to suffer through physical torture/abuse, but also dealt with verbal abuse, especially by their mistress in this case. I think people mostly focus on the abuse of slaves who worked outside, from the manual labor and the whippings, but I think that the "house-servants", as Grimke calls them, also suffered just as much if not more. What I found odd was how the mistress claimed to be such a devout Christian and prayed and sang praises at the family altar daily, and then a couple of hours later, a slave was taken their to whipped inhumanely. It just didn't make sense to me how someone could be so two-faced and hypocritical. I think Angelina Grimke Ward summed up the mindset of slave holders in one simple sentence: "Slaveholders think nothing of them, because they regard their slaves as ''property'' the mere instruments of their convenience and pleasure." (Woloch, P. 217)--- Alex Mankarios | ||
