Benjamin Rush had a dream about him being in a place that only had blacks in there, and they all looked happy and cheerful. He described how when he approached them, panic fell upon them and they all looked at him. Next thing he knew one by one each person came up to him with a story to tell about how life was like as a slave to a white man. He also tells how all of them were asking him that if he sees their master tell him they hope he repents for what he has done. Rush says of how when he tried to speak more people would come up to tell of their story, that he never got a chance to speak.
This particular passage stood out to me because it shows how there was someone during this time of such slave dominancy who had feelings, even a little bit of sympathy, for the blacks who were victims to slavery. More suprisingly that it was a white man who felt that they were treated badly and that it should end. I believe Rush had this dream because all of the burden every white slave owner put on blacks, and to open his eyes to all the emotions they had kept inside from the brutality of slavery.
It's interesting the way you connect "dream" with "burdens" or guilt in other words. Often times guilt and anxiety haunt people in their dreams. This is actually how Sigmund Freud made his name but really it goes back to Plato who talked about the tyrannical man being tortured in his dreams, and always being anxious and paranoid around others. This is by the way, his answer to why its better to be good, than to be a bad person who never gets caught.
ReplyDeleteIn another way though isn't Rush's dream just a nice sentimental to say that people who suffer in this life will be rewarded in the next?