Investigating the metamorphosing black body in Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin & Dred: A Tale of The Great Dismal Swamp

According to John Wood Sweet, at the turn of the nineteenth century, “the number of African captives transported to North America constituted less than 5 percent of the total volume of this trans-Atlantic diaspora.” (3) Even as international slave trade grew , the overall number of captives which or...

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Main Author: Singh, Tejash Kumar
Other Authors: Christopher Peter Trigg
Format: Thesis-Master by Research
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/170616
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1706162023-10-03T09:52:45Z Investigating the metamorphosing black body in Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin & Dred: A Tale of The Great Dismal Swamp Singh, Tejash Kumar Christopher Peter Trigg School of Humanities cptrigg@ntu.edu.sg Humanities::Literature According to John Wood Sweet, at the turn of the nineteenth century, “the number of African captives transported to North America constituted less than 5 percent of the total volume of this trans-Atlantic diaspora.” (3) Even as international slave trade grew , the overall number of captives which originated from Africa and were sent to work in North America were comparatively low. An increasing number of slaves were being conveyed across the Southern Atlantic world, with slaves often being focused upon statistically on the Northern Atlantic trade. Such a lowered percentage reflected the growth of slave families which were born into America itself, while recognising the continued accruing of new slaves on the American continent. In the early nineteenth century, some activists began to argue against the institution of slavery more vociferously . These abolitionists as they were termed, sought a complete emancipation of enslaved people. Viewing it as a stain upon the Declaration of Independence’s ideals of equality, abolitionists sought to sway public opinion against what they deemed to be the evil institution of slavery. Even as abolitionists voiced out their opinions, the complexity of their arguments were varied, with some choosing to focus on practicality rather than morality. This thesis explores the figuring of black bodies within notable abolitionists’ texts. I will consider how Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as well as Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp and Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave challenged the notion of inferiority attached to the African American race: in extension to this argument, racial consciousness is tied to the identity of the black slave body. I will examine the ways in which racial consciousness is investigated within Stowe’s works as a white abolitionist author. I will then address Douglass’ autobiography as inspiration for Stowe’s own work and discuss how he propagated different ideas of racial consciousness as an African American abolitionist author. The slave body is black first, before other biological and ideological markers separate them accordingly. To explore the concept of the black body in relation to the abolitionist texts, I will draw on the modern scholars Hazel Rose Markus Markus and Paula M.L. Moya, particularly their work Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21st Century’s perspective of modern ethnicity and race. Master of Arts 2023-09-22T03:00:51Z 2023-09-22T03:00:51Z 2023 Thesis-Master by Research Singh, T. K. (2023). Investigating the metamorphosing black body in Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin & Dred: A Tale of The Great Dismal Swamp. Master's thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/170616 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/170616 10.32657/10356/170616 en This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Humanities::Literature
spellingShingle Humanities::Literature
Singh, Tejash Kumar
Investigating the metamorphosing black body in Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin & Dred: A Tale of The Great Dismal Swamp
description According to John Wood Sweet, at the turn of the nineteenth century, “the number of African captives transported to North America constituted less than 5 percent of the total volume of this trans-Atlantic diaspora.” (3) Even as international slave trade grew , the overall number of captives which originated from Africa and were sent to work in North America were comparatively low. An increasing number of slaves were being conveyed across the Southern Atlantic world, with slaves often being focused upon statistically on the Northern Atlantic trade. Such a lowered percentage reflected the growth of slave families which were born into America itself, while recognising the continued accruing of new slaves on the American continent. In the early nineteenth century, some activists began to argue against the institution of slavery more vociferously . These abolitionists as they were termed, sought a complete emancipation of enslaved people. Viewing it as a stain upon the Declaration of Independence’s ideals of equality, abolitionists sought to sway public opinion against what they deemed to be the evil institution of slavery. Even as abolitionists voiced out their opinions, the complexity of their arguments were varied, with some choosing to focus on practicality rather than morality. This thesis explores the figuring of black bodies within notable abolitionists’ texts. I will consider how Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as well as Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp and Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave challenged the notion of inferiority attached to the African American race: in extension to this argument, racial consciousness is tied to the identity of the black slave body. I will examine the ways in which racial consciousness is investigated within Stowe’s works as a white abolitionist author. I will then address Douglass’ autobiography as inspiration for Stowe’s own work and discuss how he propagated different ideas of racial consciousness as an African American abolitionist author. The slave body is black first, before other biological and ideological markers separate them accordingly. To explore the concept of the black body in relation to the abolitionist texts, I will draw on the modern scholars Hazel Rose Markus Markus and Paula M.L. Moya, particularly their work Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21st Century’s perspective of modern ethnicity and race.
author2 Christopher Peter Trigg
author_facet Christopher Peter Trigg
Singh, Tejash Kumar
format Thesis-Master by Research
author Singh, Tejash Kumar
author_sort Singh, Tejash Kumar
title Investigating the metamorphosing black body in Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin & Dred: A Tale of The Great Dismal Swamp
title_short Investigating the metamorphosing black body in Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin & Dred: A Tale of The Great Dismal Swamp
title_full Investigating the metamorphosing black body in Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin & Dred: A Tale of The Great Dismal Swamp
title_fullStr Investigating the metamorphosing black body in Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin & Dred: A Tale of The Great Dismal Swamp
title_full_unstemmed Investigating the metamorphosing black body in Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin & Dred: A Tale of The Great Dismal Swamp
title_sort investigating the metamorphosing black body in frederick douglass's narrative of the life of frederick douglass, an american slave, harriet beecher stowe’s uncle tom’s cabin & dred: a tale of the great dismal swamp
publisher Nanyang Technological University
publishDate 2023
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/170616
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