When we think of African American slaves, the first thing that usually comes to mind is how they worked extremely hard and how they were beaten. You may also think about male slaves being bought based on their physical attributes. When learning about slavery throughout my life I was never taught the hardships of the women. Frederick Douglass gives us a glimpse of how the women were treated. When he recalls the incident with his aunt Hester getting raped and abused, it opened my eyes. I realized that the women had it even harder the men. African American women were looked at as real estate, and nothing more than that. The film “The Birth of a Nation” gives us insight into the lives of the African American women during slavery, and it shows us through the life of Esther, a slave who was horribly raped and treated like absolute garbage by her master. This article speaks about the deeper meanings of the film such as the gender gap, and the power of women. As quoted in article: “she represents countless black women who have been and continue to be violated. Women without a voice, without power. Women in general. But black women in particular.” I truly believe that this film was speaking out against rape and against sexual abuse of women. The director is using rape of African American women during slavery as a vehicle to relay a deeper message. That being the issue of rape, which is still current and happening as we speak.

The story of Frederick Douglass, is an amazing story that we can learn lessons from for generations and generations to come. Frederick Douglass is the story of a man who saw it all. Douglass was a pioneer who stood for what he believed in, and made an impact for everyone around him. Douglass started his life as a slave, and ends it as a free man. Although it was a pretty amazing accomplishment, the story is not about that. The story is about the Douglass’ Journey, and his mindset and how he never gave up on what he believed in. This book gave us insight into the mind of Frederick Douglass. As a reader I was able to see what Douglass was thinking in every situation throughout his wife. Douglass first realized what it was like being a slave when he saw his Aunt Hester getting beaten. I believe this moment left a mark on his life forever. This was a traumatizing moment for young Frederick, that ultimately left a mark on his life forever. As Douglass grew up and started to become educated he realized how bad the slave life was. Douglass eventually became free. That is not what made him great. Many slaves escaped slavery and became free. Douglass saw meaning in his life and sought to make a lasting impact to the lives of others. After becoming free Douglass didn’t end his journey and relax. He continued his journey to promote freedom and demote slavery throughout the country. That is what made Frederick Douglass the icon he is today.

Metamorphosis by Kafka, tells a story of a human turned creature, and its interactions with society. Gregor Samsa, was an average salesman. There was nothing really special about him, until one day. A day that ultimately changes his life. Samsa wakes up as gigantic human sized insect. He reacted to it as if he was in a dream, until he realized it was a reality. Gregor, blew off work and remained in his room. His family, and his boss became worried. As soon as the chief clerk saw him he went into shock and became horrified. Everyone, except his sister Grete began rejecting him, because of his odd and scary physical appearance. Everywhere he went people got scared, and immediately fled his presence. His parents rejected him the most, they were disgusted and dismayed by their son, and they insisted to get rid of him. All of this rejection and hatred took a toll on Samsa, which ultimately led to his death. Right off the bat this story reminded me of the story of Frankenstein. I believe the underlying message with both of these stories is society’s rejection of differentness. In both these stories odd creatures are rejected and humiliated by society. I believe as humans we must be accepting of everyone, and not reject them based off their physical appearance. That is the main message I learnt from this story.

The article about the film ‘Birth of a Nation’ helps me to see the role of women in Douglass’s autobiography by giving another look at how prominent the issue of raping women of color was. In both the movie and the autobiography, the raping of slaves had a significant impact on both male protagonists. Douglass had seen the abuse of women in his life from the very beginning; he was conceived through rape from his master and then he witnessed the women in his life being raped right before his eyes. The rape of women of color is what pushes these characters to want to change their circumstances and ultimately rebel against the institution of slavery. Douglass only begins to understand what slavery is after witnessing the horrors of his aunt being abused, although he was only a child the image of his aunt stuck with him. He wrote “It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass” (Douglass 15). Here he realized what he would have to face because of slavery and how he can do nothing but watch. In both these stories the women were subjected to constant abuse and had no say in what was happening to them, they could only stand by and suffer. Just when Douglass began to have a positive relationship with a white woman, Mrs. Auld, she quickly changed her ways when her husband forbade her to teach Douglass how to read. Again this led him to further understand slavery and just how his master would use anything to get the upper hand. He wrote “I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty— to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man” (Douglass 33). These experiences with women help him realize that he wants freedom and that he needs to put an end to slavery.

Salamishah Tillet’s “How ‘The Birth of a Nation’ Silences Black Women,” an editorial from the New York Times about the new film Birth of a Nation, helps us see the role of women, particularly women of color, in Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” Right from the beginning of the autobiography, Douglass tells us he believes his father is his master and that he never saw his mother, who was a slave, more than four or five times in his lifetime. Women slaves played a role of just producing more property for the slaveowners.“The children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers; and this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable” (3). He explains that slaveowners often rape and impregnate female slaves for profit as it increases their number of slaves. Douglass also recalls waking up in the middle of the night to the loud shrieks of his Aunt Hester, who was violently whipped by the master. She would be “tie(d) up to a joist, and whip(ped) upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood” (5) if she ever disobeyed his orders or absent when the master desired her company. From Douglass’s narrative, we can see that women slaves had no voice and was raped and whipped whenever the master desired. Similarly, in Tillet’s editorial, women are “doubly marginalized.” “First, they are silenced by the violations against their bodies and then sidelined to the plot of Turner’s realization of his own manhood in the horror of slavery.” In Mr. Parker’s film, a slave named Esther who was raped played a silent role, communicating her emotions with just her facial expressions. This is a powerful statement as women slaves, like Douglass mentions in his narrative, did not have a voice.

Both the New York Times Article and the Douglass ‘s Autobiography gave me a sense of how women in color were treated, and I think those women were the most suffered during the slavery period. They must be so painful. In the article, the author stated more than one time , that the women in color were silenced. I think this is an expression of the patrilineal society, where women had no right and freedom. That’s why women in Turner’s story is not so important to focus. Turner’s wife who was a slave “belonged to a different master”, how can we imagine what happened to this poor woman.In the Douglass’s Autobiography, it was different, where he told the real lives of the women in color. There were three important women.  The first woman was Douglass’s mother, who was raped by her master. Douglass had described his mother in the first chapter, which we can found out how important that he thinks about his mother’s encounter. This poor woman gave birth to her child but cannot spare anytime with her child, because she was a slave and had to work. Second woman is his Aunt, who was tortured and couldn’t  tell. In the novel, his mother and aunt didn’t say anything, but we can feel their sorrow and sadness of being slave women. They were no easy to survive in the crucial time period. The third woman is the master’s wife who had taught Douglass study for a while. She stopped to teach Douglass after the disagreement of her husband. In Douglass’s mind, the evil and bad always were the men. For women, he keeped his respect and felt unfortunate for them .

“How ‘The Birth of a Nation’ Silences Black Women” relates to many of the women that are portrayed in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. The film aims to bring to light the nature of rape during slavery and how this fueled Nat Turner’S revolution. It also takes into account that even though Nat Turner may have been the hero, black women weren’t allowed to voice their mistreatments. Frederick Douglass wrote about both white women and of black women and how they differed greatly but also how eerily similar their struggles were. Douglass wrote about the slave master’s wife that had taught him how to read. Once her husband found out, he immediately told her to stop and she would suffer the consequences had she continued. Women were treated as inferior to men regardless of their race during slavery and couldn’t do anything about it. Douglass also wrote about his birth mother and how he was separated from her to ensure his inability to form an attachment to a woman. He wrote about the slaves being used as mere tools for procreation. Douglass also wrote about the hardening effects slavery had a white woman’s soul. They would start out as gentle and caring individuals but would turn into cold-hearted women because they were forced to be evil. Women were treated unjustly and forced to conform to the rules of men. Women were the victims of cruelty and Douglass was aware of this unjust treatment. And in many aspects women are still subjugated to the pressures of men.

The article How ‘The Birth of a Nation’ Silences Black Women from the New York Times brings to light how the horrors faced by female slaves in America are not depicted in our discussions today. Rather, the prospective of the male slave and the emasculative life they endured are depicted instead. The argument that the author, Salamishah Tillet, provides is that in all of the narratives about Nat Turner, the raping of women and the violence they faced was just another factor or source of motivation for his rebellion. Attention is taken away from the rapes and focused more on the effects on Nat Turner himself. When referring to the victimization of enslaved African American women, Tillet states, “…their voices sidelined to the plot of Turner’s realizations of his own manhood in the horror of slavery.” When asked to think of this in the context of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, I think of the raping and torture of his Aunt Hester. The impact this had of Frederick Douglass was evident. He speaks angrily of the event and even says how he feels like the attack on her made him feel victimized as well. This is an autobiography so one would assume Frederick Douglas would just provide the impact these violent occurrences had on him. Even so, he still depicted the “importance” of the events that women had to go through. What the New York Times article is suggesting is that in narratives and movies trying to bring light to the struggles of slaves, the hardships of being a female slave, which were just as bad if not worse than that of men, are often overlooked and silenced by the attention of the victimization of the male slaves’ manhood.

Birth of a Nation:

In Douglass’ autobiography it mentions a few instances of women being silenced and not having a voice. An event that really sticks with Douglas is watching the beating of his dear Aunt. It is described as her being stripped naked and beat hard being told she cant scream. This really disgusted Douglas and is something that he will never forget, all the blood and tears. In the New York Times article it goes more into depth with women in slavery. They had absolutely no voice, they would get raped and not be able to do anything about it. These women would be forced to carry their rapists (typically the slave owner) baby and after the birth be ripped apart from each other before a few months. In the film A Birth of A Nation a woman named Esther had to leave her husband and go inside the slave owners house, knowing what was going to happen.  She walks out and doesn’t say a word you can just see it in her face of what is described as the final blow to her dignity.

The Metamorphosis:

In the novel The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Gregor a traveling salesman wakes up one morning to find himself turned into an insect. I found the whole story pretty confusing and was unclear of the message. In the beginning you see Gregor waking up unclear about what was going on with his body and going into great detail about trying to get out of bed. He also talks a lot about where he works and how much worse his boss is than everyone else’s. When he is able to open the door, to greet his mother father and manager. They are all terrified his mom starts crying and his dad covers his eyes, his manager is utterly confused. Eventually Gregor and his family realize this is their new life, and Gregor can no longer leave his room, scared that he will terrify his family. His sister begins to bring him his food. You can tell that his father is done with him when one day he throws apples at him and one permanently gets stuck in his back. The ending of the story comes with Gregor leaving his room while wanting to hear his sister play the violin. The family has boarders staying with them and they get a sight of Gregor, and leave without paying. Gregors family eventually decides that they can no longer handle this “creature” living with them and realize they have to get rid of him, Gregor over hears this and becomes severely depressed which eventually leads to his death.

Kafka’s Metamorphosis starts out by telling us about a man’s sudden and unexplainable transformation. Instead of harping on this outlandish occurrence, the story immediately shifts to describe the sad life of the man who transformed, Gregor. We learn that he is a lonely man thanks to his job, and that he has to work because of a family debt he has to repay. Gregor’s life prior to his transformation was clearly in a state of despair, and his transformation into a hideous creature doesn’t help. His family, who should be supportive, is terrified of him, with the exception of his sister. Being the only one in his family with an income, you would assume they would treat him better, but because of his transformation he is now useless to them. I would consider Gregor’s transformation something of an expression of his emotions based on what was described about his life as a worker. His job was so detrimental to his life that him being a self loathing monster hated by his own family couldn’t have been much worse. Gregor’s hardships are all brought upon by his own family, and his desire to provide for them. While everyone in his family was clearly able to work, they relied upon Gregor solely, and lived a decent lifestyle as evidenced by their maid. Even at the end of the story, Kafka makes a point to mention Grete the sister’s beauty, implying she could be married, possibly as a source of income.