Nelson Mlambo

Familial Relations in the Economics of Slavery: a Literary Exploration of Frederick Douglass and Hariet Jacobs' Autobiographies Nelson Mlambo

The thrust of this book is to make an exploration of the literary representation of the black family under slavery. How the family fared under the peculiar institution of slavery was determined by the social system of the Old South that determined how and to whom goods were produced to satisfy human wants. An exploration of this capitalist patriarchal ideology shows that the slave was objectified for economic gains, this causing severe impact on the slaves? familial relations. Therefore, it is the slave who can give an objective account of how the slave family fared under slavery. It shall also be shown that gender based experiences caused the horror of slavery to be more traumatic and difficult to overcome for slave women than slave men. In the final analysis it shall be made clear that despite all the odds against it, the slave family survived the horrors of slavery ?and this resilience still echoes to us in inspirational overtones during our own crises.