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The Wedding Gift


Based on real events, in which a man gifts his black daughter to his white ...
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Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

Created: 09/18/13

Replies: 16

Posted Sep. 18, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert

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Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?


Posted Sep. 22, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
rebajane

Join Date: 04/21/11

Posts: 320

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

In truth the whole story and the fact that this makes a story made me uncomfortable. As someone with family from the south, its an embarrassing part of our history and should make everyone uncomfortable


Posted Sep. 22, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
cynthiaa

Join Date: 04/14/11

Posts: 112

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

All the parts where the masters had free rein to sleep with any of the slaves they wanted bothered me. Also the parts where the overseers could do what ever they wanted including killing the slaves bothered me. Actually, the fact that the slaves did not have control over their own lives bothered me. Yeah, I would say a lot of the story made me uncomfortable.


Posted Sep. 22, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
terriej

Join Date: 07/28/11

Posts: 422

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

All of the parts about slavery and abusing and killing the slaves made me uncomfortable. It also made me uncomfortable that the owner of the property seemed to have no say in how the oveseer treated the slaves.


Posted Sep. 22, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
karenrn

Join Date: 08/29/13

Posts: 102

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

Most of the story made me uncomfortable. It was all so wrong. He owned his daughter who was half black and he gave her to his other daughter as a gift. A lot of slave owners were the fathers of some of their slaves. How could they live with themselves? Many of the slave owners thought of themselves as decent good Christian people. How could they not see how evil their actions were?


Posted Sep. 23, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
rebeccar

Join Date: 03/13/12

Posts: 548

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

I am very uncomfortable with the unnecessary cruelty, the branding, the rapes. I don't mean that I thought of slavery as acceptable. The fact that our country had human slavery is bad, but how could people commit extra atrocities. How could people explain thinking of black skinned humans as less than human but then call for one of their wet nurses to care for the Caucasian babies?


Posted Sep. 23, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
rebeccar

Join Date: 03/13/12

Posts: 548

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

As a postscript, I also was uncomfortable with (in an angry way) the attitude of the men like Cornelius Allen who threatened his own wife if she didn't just shut up and act as subservient as any slave. I wonder how many women back then were as miserable as the female protagonist in Kate Chopin's The Awakening.


Posted Sep. 23, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
Beth350

Join Date: 04/15/11

Posts: 89

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

The first chapter made me so uncomfortable that I had to put the book away for several days and then re-read the beginning on a sunny afternoon, instead of in the evening when unpleasant images stay in my head when I go to bed.

I am always upset when I read about the beatings and family separations involved in slavery.


Posted Sep. 23, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
Beth350

Join Date: 04/15/11

Posts: 89

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

I also agree with the comment above about overseers having so much say and power over the slaves. I suppose that made it easier to "own" people if as the owner one didn't have to do any "dirty work."

I too found Cornelius's general attitude toward women (his wife especially) as unpleasant.


Posted Sep. 23, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
Windsong

Join Date: 05/07/13

Posts: 105

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

I agree with Beth 350. That first chapter was hard to read. The brutality of the overseers is a close second. Theodora's belief that her slaves were treated as family and her wanting to defend her position to the female abolitionist in New York is 3rd.


Posted Sep. 28, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
rosemarys

Join Date: 05/29/11

Posts: 43

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

I would be very worried if this book DIDN'T make the reader uncomfortable! Slavery, the Holocaust, U.S. internment camps, human trafficking, domestic verbal or physical abuse, and other human rights issues are all parts of life. We must write and read about the past and present in order to learn, empathize, and help other human beings in any way possible.


Posted Sep. 29, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
lisa2543

Join Date: 03/14/12

Posts: 6

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

I found the first 60 pages very hard to read and decided that I would not be recommending this book to my book club. I knew these kinds of things happened but I had never read anything so disturbing about slavery practices. Overall I enjoyed the book when I got past the first part but there is no way my book club women would make it that far.


Posted Oct. 01, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
dianem

Join Date: 10/25/12

Posts: 65

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

The abuse of both the slaves and the women bothered me. also the fact that clarissa was allowed to die without medical attention. To me this showed the similarities between the treatment of women and slaves.


Posted Oct. 10, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
jeann

Join Date: 11/14/11

Posts: 56

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

It was the physical brutality, but also the emotional brutality. The terror, the inhumanization of these people was beyond belief. The slave auctions were another thing that was very emotionally upsetting. The separation, or fear of separation, of the slave families hit me hard. I cannot imagine living with that kind of fear- one of your loved ones being sold and never seeing them again or never knowing what happened to them. Not being able to protect your own family.


Posted Oct. 31, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
rebeccar

Join Date: 03/13/12

Posts: 548

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

Something that made me uncomfortable was the phrase "baby girl" I do not doubt that people throughout history may have used these two words together; they are common words. But the phrase as a term of endearment and the fact that this phrase was used several times was like a jolt that seemed like an anachronism to me since I have heard it so often among young adult rappers these days. I had not heard these phrase used as a common term of endearment previously.


Posted Nov. 13, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
cynthiaa

Join Date: 04/14/11

Posts: 112

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

To read about humans mistreating others was very hard to read. Very hard to read. I did not like the way the women were treated. I did not like the way the slaves were treated. I did not like the way that the plantation owner, allowed the overseers do what ever they wanted. They were so cruel. It was hard to read.


Posted Nov. 23, 2013 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
thewanderingjew

Join Date: 07/28/11

Posts: 5

RE: Did any parts of the story make you uncomfortable, and if so, why?

All books about this blight on our history make me uncomfortable in some way. I find it deplorable and incomprehensible that people held other people as captives and treated them reprehensibly. It defies common sense and human decency.


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