Paper questions on "Celia" by Melton McLaurin

Here are are some questions you may use in writing papers on Melton McLaurin's Celia: A Slave?

1. Compare and contrast Charlotte Temple with Celia. Are their situations as powerless women fundamentally similar, or are their differences of race, legal status, class, time, place, etc. more important? Explain your answer thoroughly.
2. Melton McLaurin writes that “the case of Celia, a slave, reminds us that the personal and the political are never totally separate entities” (p. xiv). How are Celia’s experiences a reminder of the link between the household and politics? Does this suggest that slavery is a continuation of European patriarchy, or is there something fundamentally different that separates American slavery from European monarchy?
3. Compare and contrast Celia's experience with that of another male or female slave by reading one of the many other published narratives by escaped slaves. Possibilities include the narratives of Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Harriet Jacobs, and others. [You will need to clear your choice with Prof. Pasley or your T.A. in advance.] Explain how differences of gender, situation, place, and time shaped the experience of slavery.

Hope to have additional choices later . . .