Introduction: What is Slavery?
Despite the difference in geography and time in Charlotte Temple and Kindred, we are arguing the ways in which the protagonists of each novel—namely Charlotte Temple and Dana—endure unconventional slavery.
We decided to examine the three forms of slavery:
- Emotional
- Physical
- Social
On page 4, titled "Man is the Centre of the Universe" you will find how Charlotte and Dana's enslavement is centered around certain men in their lives they are emotionally attached to; however, Charlotte remains passive while Dana manages to actively fight this enslavement at the end. There is a Gif on the page that depicts how these men are centered in their lives.
On page 7, titled "A Woman's Ruins," you may observe the results of Charlotte and Dana's physical enslavement, where Charlotte loses her life, but is recognised as a milestone in history, while Dana loses a part of her identity as she loses her arm to the past.
On page 10, titled "Denounced," you can see how even though Dana and Charlotte are very different in terms of who they are and where they come from, they both face societal expectations and end up being enslaved to that society. Because of her society, Dana ends up being the slave she fought so hard against being and Charlotte becomes known as a ruined woman because she defied what was expected of her.
As the pages progress, you will begin to see how physical and social enslavement branch out of emotional enslavement. The idea to keep in mind is that the specific men in Charlotte and Dana’s lives initiated the first confinement, which resulted in their inability to physically escape the constraint and the decline of their social status.
