Slaves as Animals

There are many references to the slaves as animals throughout the novel, likely because imagery such as this echoes back to the idea that slaves are property and far less than human. The images of animals are strongest in the first section, but carry throughout the entire novel. When the images first occur, the animals are small: a mosquito, a baby bird, a fish, and then a full-grown chicken. The animals are always dead and frequently bloody as the mosquito smashed to death, the baby bird fallen out of its next, the fish being de-scaled, and the chicken plucked. These comparisons are set up to express the way society viewed the slaves as insignificant. The constant juxtaposition of the masters sleeping with their slaves with the scenes of the slave women preparing meat all feed into the theme of consumption. The white masters take what they...