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Ellen Craft By Stephanie Mccurry: A Literary Analysis

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Many environmental influences helped shape women's status within society and shaped their dependency, regardless of race, age, marital status, or place of birth. Women, whether free, indentured, or enslaved regardless of race faced oppression through laws that shape the treatment of the different classes and women of color. However, enslaved women faced a far worse oppression in many ways. The continued oppression was an everyday struggle for enslaved women, and created an environment where they fought frequent objectification due to gender and race. The molding definition of gender in regards to race will determine how different races interact and coexist. National ideology will begin to mold perception of women and their worth among the new European economy. By having little ability to be an independent individual women are deemed property of men. African women and the …show more content…

The foundation of a man’s freedom and manhood was established by his ability to be independent. Stephanie McCurry states, “arguments about female submission not only naturalized slavery; they confirmed masculinity” (McCurry p.9). The story of William and Ellen Craft, a married couple who escaped slavery, shows the importance of gender and race, and how they utilize it to achieve their freedom. Ellen Craft, daughter of a slave and white plantation owner, dresses up as a white man, and her husband William pretends to her slave in order to Travel North to Philadelphia. On their journey to freedom they encounter law enforcement at a train station where William’s master, his wife, is asked to show proper paperwork to travel out of Baltimore to Philadelphia with a slave. Ellen spoke “in a voice and manner that almost chilled [their] blood” (p.229) when speaking with the authorities, and with persistence and rights of a white man Ellen and William were able to board the train to

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