Amistad (1998)
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Both Amistad and Sankofa depict the cruelty and injustices of slavery. Both demonstrate the horrific conditions of the Middle passage. Amistad shows how slaves were stripped of all their clothes, squeezed into a small storage area that was damp and dreary, and constantly whipped and beaten for no reason at all. These depictions are important because descriptions of the Middle Passage are usually avoided since the conditions were so inhumane and humiliating to the slaves; scholar do not like to believe that whites could have |
| been so cruel to
slaves. While Amistad only
shows the abuses that occur on the ship, Sankofa goes further to also
demonstrate the abuses that occur on the plantation as well.
Also Sankofa’s theme centers around the importance of going back
to the past in order to understand the present.
Amistad does not focus on this concept but at the end, when John
Quincy Adams is giving a speech to the Supreme Court, he says, “Who we are is
who we were.” He then alludes to
the fact that the Mande look to their ancestors to solve the problems they are
dealing with in their present situation; he urges the supreme court to do the
same. One point that Amistad
and Sankofa differ on is their depiction of the role of Christianity in
slavery. While Sankofa
portrays Christianity as an instrument of white oppression used to manipulate
and control slaves, Amistad shows a slave being inspired by Christianity. |
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Beloved (1998)
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Beloved and Sankofa both discuss slavery and the attempts of slaves to escape slavery at any costs. They also both address the fact that mothers feel especially determined to escape when they are about to have a child because they cannot stand to see their child born into slavery. In Sankofa, one of the characters, |
| Kuta, runs away because she wants her child to be born in
a free land. In Beloved,
Sethe attempts to run away immediately after she has had her third child in
order to prevent her from becoming a slave.
When she is caught, she goes even further-- she kills her third child and
attempts to kill her other two children in order to prevent them from being
slaves. Sankofa and Beloved
are also similar in that both involve the past history of slavery haunting the
characters in the present. However,
Beloved and Sankofa differ in the impact of the past.
In Sankofa, going back to her past allows Mona to become free and
makes her more confident of who she is. In
Beloved, the connection to the past, in the form of Beloved’s (murdered
child’s) ghost drives Sethe insane and results in her sons’ and lover’s
departure.
For
more information about Toni Morrison and her novel Beloved, try the
following link:
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Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979)
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This novel is similar to Haile Gerima's Sankofa because it also tells the story of a black woman who travels back in time and becomes a slave. The book's main character Dana, is a writer who is pulled back in time to save a drowning boy. Unlike Mona from Sankofa though, Dana remains aware of her twentieth century identity. She keeps not only her twentieth century name but |
| her corresponding memories as well. Another difference between Dana
and Mona is that Mona goes back to the past, stays there for a prolonged
period of time and then returns to the present at approximately the same
time as she left. Dana, however, travels back and forth through time
and space several times during the story and time continues to pass in
whichever time period she is not in. While in the past, Dana strives
to improve the living conditions of the slaves on the Weylin
plantation. This contrasts Mona who basically tries to just stay out
of harms way until closer to the end of the film. Both of these
women come out of their experiences more in touch with their ancestry and
what these people were forced to live through. Also, in the end,
both kill their tormenters, although Dana's torments were much more subtle
than those of Mona.
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Bush
Mama (1978), Daughters of the Dust (1991), Roots (1977),
copyright (c) 2001 by Tasmia Shariff Undergraduate at The College of New Jersey
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