The treatment of a slave seems much worse after reading a memoir of one who had suffered as much as he did. Its different to read facts about treatment of slaves, since you aren’t experiencing their compassion and cries for freedom. Isaac’s writings were an eye-opener and gave me a chance to compare my everyday life to his. I feel like this story was written thousands of years ago and it doesn’t compare in time to 2006 becuase our lives are each so different and even the poorest person in Greenwich has it better that Isaac Mason did.
“She told me to take off my coat so that she could give me a whipping for going off. According to her orders I obeyed; then she commenced work in right good earnest with her well roasted hickory wottels. Their smarting pains did not feel pleasant on my head and shoulders, so I laid hold of them and contested my strength with the fair feminine tyrant.” This was when Isaac was fairly young, but it makes me shiver to think how strong he was to experience that. If I was to write about some one whipping me, I would describe it as hell, when this is what Isaac explains as “not pleasant.”
Although I only skimmed the majority of the passage, I understand that Isaac was very similar to Huckleberry Finn in that he was always on the go. Isaac was able to escape like Jim, only Jim had a mentor, Huck, to guide him every step of the way. Isaac Mason was basically Huck Finn, but only working to free hiself. Mason was alwasy being chased by some one had had to fine makeshift homes to live in for mearly a night at a time.
Mason was lucky to have earning money at one point even though it was not a good wage. It seems as though Isaac escaped the worst of the life of a slave because his personality was so strong and he was able to push through the hard days and represent the slaves that were capable of more than being “lazy” as they were often stereotyped as.