Slavery - "Beloved" and "Voices of Slavery"

             Slavery was a conventional practice during the early days of the Roman Empire as the Greeks were often enslaved. During the late eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, slavery was an important and controversial issue in the United States. Inevitably, it played a substantial role in the evolution of the modern world economy as well as produced a legacy of inequality and bitter race relations which remain to be significant problems (Mohawk, 199). By definition, slavery is a societal institution based on the ownership, dominance, and exploitation of one human by being another human's property. Committed from the depths of the darkest parts of the human soul, numerous accounts of slavery have been documented in the literature and adapted onto the screen. The reality of slavery is best perceived from the perspective of the slave and as John Little, a fugitive slave who had escaped to Canada, says, "Tisn't he who has stood and looked on, that can tell you what slavery is – 'tis he who has endured" (Yetmen, 1).
             In the midst of the nineteenth century, slaves were used as domestic servants and performed laborious work on plantations in the Southern United States. Most of the slaves consisted of Africans who were seized from their native land and then sold into lives of servitude into a foreign land. They often received the fundamentals of life: shelter, food, and clothing. However, even under the best conditions, slavery was brutal and dehumanizing. Slaves lived in terrible housing conditions and were forced to work long hours. The children of slave women were likely to continue to live as slaves as they were often sold to other slave owners. Slaves were not only severely beaten, whipped, or tortured, but slave women also experienced sexual exploitations and were threatened or raped by their masters. Essentially, slavery was about submission based on race.
             In "Beloved," a movie that is based on a novel by Toni Mor...

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