Slavery: A Narrative Essay

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Elaine went to the hospital with the intent to get the baby out of her and ended up with a miracle. The baby was alive and well. Elaine gave birth and although the baby had to be monitored for a while, she was healthy and had no traces of drugs in her system. The good thing about hitting rock bottom was that she could only go up from there and that is exactly what she did.

Self-reliance is one of the next characteristics mentioned in slave narratives. Elaine had started making her own decisions and bettering her education. This was her final chance to turn her life around and prove to her family and daughters that she was going to change. Yes, she hit bottom but she now had the drive to do good with her life. She began going to AA meetings, attending Sardis Baptist church, and found role models to set as good examples for her. Elaine stated, “I had to learn to live all over again. Now I needed the same boldness to walk past the dope spot with one baby in the stroller and one by my side into Sardis” (Richardson 191). The odds were finally happening in Elaine’s favor again. She was reconnecting with family, God, and her previous college.

Elaine had attended Cleveland State University once but slipped into a bad crowd and dropped out. Since she was now on the straight and narrow, she petitioned to be readmitted and was accepted back into CSU. “With a six-month-old, a three-year-old, six months of sobriety, and all the support I had behind me, I figured I would put my all into school or die trying” (Richardson 194). Elaine ignited a fire inside herself that was going to lead her to her successful future and nothing was going to get in her way this time.

Like many slave narratives after hitting their lowest point is when they would work toward the resolve to change their own lives. Elaine had tried to change her life around many times. From the first time that she got pregnant, she told herself that she was not going let happen again and that things would get better. Years had passed and she kept telling herself the same thing until the night that she had been pregnant and working the streets just so she could get a little dope money. She had realized that the baby in her stomach at the time was not moving and she figured that she had killed it with all the drugs and drinking she had been doing. Elaine went to the hospital and found out that her baby was alive and well. While she was there one of Dr. Edwards graduate students came in and explained how this baby was a true blessing from god and that she needed to be there for her and her other children. The women suggested going to the hospitals AA meetings for a first step. After she got home she had realized that she needed to get clean and get off the streets, not only for her kids but also for herself.

In slave narratives there is always the flight for freedom and redemption. In Elaine’s case she took baby steps and went to every AA meeting she could. She claimed, “I went to every AA meeting the hospital had. I listened carefully to what every word anyone said about staying sober” (Richardson 187). She had started going to church again because it had helped her learn and forgive her past and know how she had to move on from that part of her life. Elaine realized she needed to get on her own two feet again and be able to support herself and her daughters. She had figured that going back to school again was her best option so she reapplied and was accepted back into her previous college, Cleveland State University. Elaine knew that this was not going to be a cakewalk getting her life pulled together at the age of twenty-seven, but she knew that she had all the support behind her from her family, her three kids, and willpower from six months of sobriety.

Another slave narrative characteristic is hypocrisy and inconsistency by their owners. The only consistency that Elaine really knew was how to work the streets. Almost everyone that walked into her life said one thing and did another. Her boyfriends were her biggest hypocrites. Andrew would tell her she could get off the streets once he had made enough money but then make up new excuses to keep her out there. AC told her that she wasn't allowed to do drugs but then had no problem sneaking off behind her back and getting high “ the strongest drink to pass these lips was Pepsi-Cola, and the only thing I ever smoked was Newport’s”(Richardson 101). Mac would tell her that he loved her and then beat her until she was almost dead if she ever did anything wrong. With hypocrisy comes inconsistency and that’s what Elaine dealt with constantly. With getting new boyfriends and finding new crowds to hang around that meant she never had a stable place to live. Elaine had moved in and out of her boyfriend’s apartments to her friend’s places or even apartments she would get herself for a short time before she had to leave because someone was looking for her. The only stable place she had was her parents’ house and even then her mom didn't want her there while she was taking care of Elaine’s children.

In slave narratives, the author’s expectations are raised, only for them to get crushed. Starting off her first semester of college, Elaine had already had people doubting her and judging her based off her skin color and where she was from. Her first paper was on describing her neighborhood and her professor ripped her paper apart. When she confronted him about it he was very snobbish and just told her to seek help form the writing center. The writing center did about as much help as the professor, they questioned everything she had written down and didn’t care to actually understand what she meant to say and by the time she had finally gotten anywhere with her paper her time was up. The same thing happened everyday just with a new person working with her until she got fed up and signed up for the special studies. She had met up with this woman who understood where she was coming form in her writing and truly wanted to actually teach her how to write papers correctly. No matter how she had tried in this course the professor really didn’t seem to care. Even though she ended with a C in the course she still had to work much harder than all of the other white students to prove herself to this professor.

The next slave narrative characteristic is the loss of family ties. Throughout Elaine’s life she was always going against what her family wanted for her and she managed to let them down on multiple occasions. Elaine went back and forth from her parent’s apartment to her “trick’s” apartments. She would end up back at her parents’ house when things got bad for her out on the streets or with whatever guy she was seeing at the time. Elaine and her father were close when she was younger, as she grew