Essay On Dehumanization In Slavery

Slavery in the United States appeared throughout the 16th and 17th centuries and beyond. Fredrick Douglass wrote a detailed narrative of his experiences in slavery, throughout which we see one of the terrible effects slavery has on both slaves and slave owners: dehumanization. Several examples of totalitarianism exist throughout history, one of the most notable being the period of time Adolf Hitler ruled Germany. In Hannah Arendt’s Total Domination, where she describes totalitarianism, what makes it possible and the effects is has used examples of concentration camps and three different totalitarian regimes, we see that one of ramifications of total domination is dehumanization.

Dehumanizing someone means to take away his rights as a human.
Seeing this objective and the use of concentration camps for total domination, we can see that people are not thought of as human beings, and that dehumanization is not only a side effect, but also a
In order to see the dehumanizing effect of slavery on slave owners, we must first consider another meaning of dehumanization. It means to take away, or in the case of slavery demolish, the qualities that make us human. Knowing this meaning and the qualities that make us human, we can clearly see the dehumanization of slave owners illustrated in Douglas’s description. Douglas describes Mrs. Auld initially “A women of the kindest heart and finest feelings.” (159) Mrs. Auld was not like other white women that owned slaves; she was generous and sweet according to