Dehumanizing Effects of Slavery Essay Example

Slavery was such an incidence of fear, dehumanizing, and terrifying instances. Learning about slavery at this point in time, looking back at what people were capable of, gives an idea of what black people went through. Although, it does not seem real to me and is hard to grasp exactly what the victims experienced without the complete knowledge or visual idea of what occurred. Morrison ties this view of slavery into a personal and in depth look of a specific story. We delve into a life and community and shown the effects of the brutality of slavery on life itself and the destruction of any future opportunities. Slavery was so familiar and natural during that day of age, but what was not recognized was the fact that it had severe effects to not only the black people but also to the whites themselves. This terrifying, brutal and inhumane act caused a growing manifestation in every person, invading and ultimately destroying his or her identities. Stamp Paid recognizes this invasion and compares it to a jungle growing within themselves: Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made.