Freedom Regardless Of Gender Essay Research Paper

Freedom Regardless Of Gender Essay, Research Paper

Freedom Regardless of Gender

The novel Uncle Tom s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, as well as the narratives such as Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, all deal with the sufferings of slaves and their determined struggle to obtain freedom. Mindful of the obvious oppression of the blacks under slavery, as well as the liberation that comes with freedom, the question of whether or not slaves hold distinct visions of freedom due to their gender arises. Of course, before this question can be arrived at a conclusion, there must be clarification as to what constitutes freedom. Once the definitions of freedom are identified, they must be applied to both male and female slaves to show the different expectations of freedom, or lack thereof, as a result of gender. The examination based on these stories and narratives, thusly, of this issue shows that gender does not alter what slaves consider freedom. The definition of freedom, then, is universal to both men and women.

What, then, are the definitions of freedom? A very basic principle of freedom is free will. A person that is free has the ability to choose in matters regarding work, family, leisure, to name a few. Hence, to be considered free, a person must have the power to choose how to live his or her own life. However, that is not the only consideration regarding the definitions of freedom. In a society, a free person not only has the right to personal liberty, but also the right to protect property and family, whether through personal power or institutional laws. Therefore, another aspect of being free requires the means to protect ownership and familial structure. Also, freedom is not limited to only physical freedom, as emotional freedom is important to being one s own master. The feelings of security, as well as self-respect play an integral part to independence, in addition to being free of physical bondage. These definitions of what freedom signifies are valid because slaves were denied such freedoms, and because of these aims they risked their lives to escape slavery, whether they were men or women.

As mentioned above, one of the basic principal that freedom entails is having the power to choose how to live one s life. Slaves, on the other hand, cannot choose what they can do because their masters own them. Hence, their everyday actions are not what they choose to do, but rather what they are told to do. One example of the lack of free choice can be found in the second chapter of Uncle Tom s Cabin, with the situation dealing with George and his master. George, with the consent of his master, is sent to work in a factory, and because of his intelligence, he invents a machine that saves a lot of work. As a result of his ingenuity, the owner, as well as the workers, of the factory esteems him highly and George can hold his head up among the whites in the factory. However, the master, seeing that his slave can walk with pride and being so highly regarded by his co-workers, senses his inferior to his slave, and decided to have no more of it. He abruptly takes George away from the factory, and when confronted by the factory owner, he simply replied that George is his property, and he has the right treat his property however he wants (p.11). This example shows that despite his ability, George cannot decide what to do with his life because he is a slave. However, after he ran away from his master and settles in the free city of Montreal, he has the power to choose his job, and he decides to work with machines once again. Hence, free will empowers people to choose their desired ways of live. However, free will does not apply to work only, but also to all decisions regarding personal matters. One such right of being one s master is deciding the future of one s children. For how can a person considered completely free when someone else controls the fate of his or her children? In the Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Linda, while a slave, not only cannot obtain her children s freedom, but she also has very little power to decide how her children live their lives. For example, when her little girl Ellen is sent to New York to live a Mrs. Hobbs, Linda is promised that Ellen would be enrolled in school and get an education. However, after Linda ran away and arrives in New York, she discovers that Ellen has not been educated properly because Mrs. Hobbs deem her to be too valuable a waiting-maid to be sent to school (p. 483). Although she has been deceived, Linda cannot do anything about her daughter s situation because she is a slave, and thus her daughter s future is at the whim of the Hobbs family. Only with the help of a friend, who purchased Linda s freedom, can Linda finally claim legal custody of her daughter, and she is finally able to sent Ellen to school. By this example, free will also gives a person a power to decide what is best for the child. To sum quickly, by obtaining their freedom, George can now choose to support his family in his own way and decide his family s lifestyle. The same can also be said of Linda and her family.

Besides free will, another definition of freedom is the right to protect property and family. Under slave laws, slaves are property themselves, and thus they are not allowed to hold property. Hence, the wages and life-savings that rightfully belong to the slaves