Literature as Resistance in the Anti-Slavery Movement Essay

Different Voices, One Message: Literature as Resistance in the Anti-Slavery Movement The pen is mightier than the sword The struggle for emancipation was not one which began and ended with the Civil War. African Americans during the period of slavery had very few options left to them regarding their own freedom. The law that held them in slavery could not be trusted to emancipate them. For those who were fortunate enough to have obtained their freedom, the only power they had they had in the abolitionist fight was the power of the written word. African American writers used varying writing styles to carry their message across. Some used pious and moral instruction, others used political exhortation and social prophecy, but all†¦show more content†¦She writes, I can testify from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extr emity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation. (54)She shows this by describing how she was a victim of Dr. Flints sexual harassment and the measures she had to take out of desperation. She shows how Dr. Flints wife was embittered by knowing that her husband was a philanderer, though there was nothing she could do to prevent him. Jacobs also writes that this is a recurring phenomenon because sons learn from seeing their fathers actions, that abusing their female slaves is an acceptable norm. She also writes that the sanctity of marriage, a God-governed institution, is desecrated because of the adultery that slaveholders commit. As female slaves lives are ruined by slavery, so too are the slaveholders wives. Jacobs writes of slaveholders wives, the poor girls have romantic notions of a sunny clime, and of the flowering vines that all the year round shade a happy home. To what disappointments are they destined! The young wife soon learns that the husband in whose hands she has placed her happiness paysShow MoreRelatedSummary Of Hobomok : A Tale Of Early Times1136 Words   |  5 Pagesown drive and interest was how she gained her education. Her brother Convers, a Unitarian minister, helped to mentor and teach Lydia. Convers was extremely successful, teaching theology at Harvard and participating in the American Transcendentalist movement. In 1821, Lydia wrote the first chapter of her novel, Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times. 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