Images vs. Reality

Going off of the discussion about Aunt Hester, I feel like this scene is important because it frames the role of a colored woman during that time, and how different it is compared to white women. There was obviously a big difference between men and women in that time period, but there was an even bigger difference between colored women and white women. The scenes the women were in didn’t seem to be full scenes. It was more like flashes, because the time frame that they were mentioned in was so short. This is ironic to me because that’s how it was in reality. They were never really around unless they were used as “breeders” or if they were being beaten or abused.  An example is when we are first introduced to aunt Hester, we discover “...the warm, red blood came dripping to the floor. I was so terrified and horror- stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and it dared not to venture out until long after the bloody transaction was over” (Douglass 53). Just reading this makes me shudder just as Douglass did. It was all by force, and the women would get punished for absurd reasons.

I feel like women were only mentioned while getting beaten for whatever reason because it is meant to portray the pain, and for the reader to actually see and feel what colored women had to go through at one point in time.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986.