Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Life of a Slave girl

Linda is a slave owned by Dr. Flint’s daughter ( or Dr. Flint).  She was raised with certain principles and ideals by her grandmother, who is a freed slave.  But Dr. Flint wants to break those principle and morals not out of any kind of malice for the grandmother, but because of his hormones and ideas of ownership. So of course Linda is disgusted by this idea and refuses his advantages at every turn to maintain her innocence.  At first it is a normal routine for her, but then she tells Mrs. Flint about her husband’s attempts at affairs.  Linda knows that the wife will not sympathize with her, but only be a object of her hate and jealousy.  After this things get worse for her.  Her master strikes her and she is forbidden to marry her love, a free black slave.  Without the ability to marry her love and feeling all her hope is lost, she turns to a kind white man named Mr.Sands and shares his bed.  Dr Flint is furious about this and she goes to live with her grandmother because she is expecting child.  After a few years and another child, Dr Flint has become meaner and still has not given up on forcing some sort of control over Linda.  It is at this point Linda is sent to Dr Flint’s son’s plantation.  After working at the Plantation, Linda finds out that her children shall be sent to the plantation.  She then decides to run away to give her children a chance because she knew that they were being sent because of her.

            I never really had any romantic ideas about Slavery and the south.  There was no (as far as I’m concern) slave eventually falling in love with master after a little while.  It was about survival and trying not to get punished.  So reading this was not very surprising.  I also know that not all white people treated their slaves badly.  So there is an interesting observation that I made.  Now many people sympathize with Linda situation, including her grandmother and the Great Aunt of Mr. Flint (the son of Dr. Flint).  Now the Aunt and Grandmother seem to get along because the Aunt bought the grandmothers freedom.  So I wonder if the pervious generation has more respect for the slaves then the current generation.  It could be possible that the older generation appreciates the slaves more because of the struggle to get them or they remember life without them.  The current generation grew up with them so they became mainly spoiled and this lead to mistreatment.  I also have to question the attachment that Dr.Flint has towards Linda.  It’s obvious that he doesn’t care for her, but obsesses over her because he can’t have her.  Now normal this would lead to a person’s own destruction, but it doesn’t for him because he wants to keep up appearances for everyone else.  I was hoping that Linda would do thing extreme to him, but since she is a slave she can’t physically hurt him.

3 comments:

  1. I feel like Linda getting pregnant by another white man and eventually running away were two very extreme things that she could do towards Dr. Flint to seek some revenge on how he tainted her entire life.

    I was thinking about the people she was writing this to. Many whites do not want to believe stories of master's being awful to their slaves, and certainly don't want to believe that the doctor down the street is sexually abusing his slaves. To get some credit she had to tell her story with the interjections of how she felt. Now we know the atrocious things that were done to slaves and empathize with them, yet the people she was writing to still needed proof and were weary to believe this black girl.

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  2. I think you summarized the nine chapters that we were required to read very well. I did not get the picture of why Dr. Flint's wife was hostile towards her, but now I get that Dr. Flint was trying to make moves on her and she refused. I also like your perspective on the older generations and their slaves. It makes since that the older generation had more respect for them because they knew what life was like without them. Very good observation!

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  3. You guys have a good discussion group going here. Nice work all of you!

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