Literary works are most commonly regarded as a mirror of society due to their inherent ability to reflect and criticize certain events in society. Specifically, the theme of slavery has attracted substantial attention in literature, with many authors narrating the lives of enslaved people while at the same time condemning such an act. Phillis Wheatley’s To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth, Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by herself, and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an enslaved American. Written by Himself explores the theme of slavery while condemning the act, which is mostly informed by the experiences of the authors with slavery. This paper provides an analysis of these three texts through the lenses of formalism and Marxism in order to further provide insights into them and the arguments of the text. The texts identify slavery as a dehumanizing experience that does not address the needs of the enslaved, as it only intends to fulfill the desires of the enslaved.
Phillis Wheatley’s letter to the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth, expresses her great desire and appreciation for freedom from enslavement through her emphasis that her desires are based on her bitter experiences with slavery. As an enslaved person, Wheatley points out that she had no freedom in her life, having been snatched from Africa at an early age and subjected to enslavement. She writes, I, young in Life, by seeming cruel fate/was snatched from Afric’s fancy happy seat /what pangs excruciating must molest/What sorrows labor in my parent’s breast (Line 24-27). Throughout the text, Wheatley uses a sad tone informed by the use of heavy language that seeks to express her desire for freedom as a person, an aspect that aligns with formalism and new criticism. In the Marxist view, power dynamics are essential in shaping the experiences of slavery. Wheatley identifies herself as being powerless, especially due to the tyranny of lawless hands; hence, she writes to the Honorable William, who is in a powerful position and capable of changing things. Wheatley thus believes that with the right intervention from those in power, she and other enslaved people can find the freedom they deserve.
Similarly, Harriet Jacobs, in The Life of a Slave Girl, explores her experiences with slavery. In particular, she explains how she endured psychological abuses in slavery through the constant beatings and the physical labor that she was subjected to. As enslaved people, she and other enslaved people were never given the basic human rights nor the legal protection that they deserved, as identified through her use of language informed by identification of suffering, cruelty, violence, and rape. For instance, she explains how Dr. Flint subjected her cook to suffering by writing that “This poor woman endured many cruelties from her master and mistress; sometimes she was locked up, away from her nursing baby, for a whole day and night,” an indication that the lives of the enslaved were mostly defined by suffering. The fear of their masters (P. 23). Such a notion creates an image of the suffering that enslaved people tend to go through. In the Marxist approach, fear and suffering were necessary as a way of emphasizing the master’s authority and power, depicting the enslaved as belonging to the lowest social and economic hierarchies.
Lastly, Frederick Douglass further adds to the theme of slavery through the text Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an enslaved American, which offers an account of his journey from slavery to freedom. In Douglass’ view, slavery is harsh and mostly a product of racism, as identified through his struggles as a black man seeking freedom. To him, slavery threatens all aspects of society, mostly endangering the lives of the enslaved through dehumanizing actions. He writes that “it may, perhaps, be fairly questioned whether any other portion of the population of the earth could have endured the privations, sufferings, and horrors of slavery without having become more degraded in the scale of humanity than the slaves of African descent.” (P. 7) The sad tone and the first-person narration enable Douglass to provide vivid insights into the issue of slavery. In the Marxist view, enslaved people were alienated. They resisted in society, mostly used as the key to the economic prosperity of their masters, hence the hardships and suffering that they endured. The morals of the enslavers were corrupt, and they could not stand to protect the enslaved people.
In conclusion, slavery is a common theme in literary works that is founded on the need to expose the challenges that the enslaved people endured. Through the Marxist and formal approaches, it is clear that slavery sought to undermine the enslaved to make them more submissive to their masters as a way of ensuring their economic prosperity. In their texts, the authors provided insights through their experiences with slavery, pointing out the need for its abolishment and valuing humans equally. In a formalism and Marxism approach, the use of language becomes a major informing aspect of understanding how the authors felt about slavery, hence their creation of powerful texts criticizing and providing valuable insights into the issue.
Works Cited
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an enslaved American. Broadview Press, 1999.
Jacobs, Harriet Ann. “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” (2003).
Wheatley, Phillis. “To the right honourable William, earl of Dartmouth.” The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley (1773): 73-75.
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