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Book Review of Celia, A Slave

Celia, A Slave
reviewed on + 145 more book reviews


This book is well written and will hold your interest.

However, I think what is significant is what isn't looked at.
The book is profoundly ignorant in ways such as the author uses modern rape studies to guess what Celia must have must thinking when her master first came to her bed. Someone who was raised in slavery will not see herself or the world the same way as a modern feminist who is raped in a parking garage.
He does not think or seem to consider about the effect of bondage on her perception. If one is raised to think her purpose in life is to serve and to please the master, what will be the effect on her psyche if he wants sex. Contemporary sources report that being the master's concubine was a position of status. Celia may have thought that she had it made. Or she may have been even more in despair because she knew she was bound to this man until she displeased him enough to make him sell her.
Other parts of the book show similar lack of deep thought on the issue.