Similarities Between Twain And Frederick Douglass

Both Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass use many similar narrative techniques in The Boys’ Ambition and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Both Twain and Douglass use formal diction when recounting their personal lives in these narratives. For example, when Twain writes “before these events, the day was glorious with expectancy; after them, the day was a dead and empty thing”, he shows his understanding of high level vocabulary as well as the appropriate usage of a semi-colon (Twain). Douglass also demonstrates his formal diction and educated grammar usage when he writes “I may be deemed superstitious, and even egotistical, in regarding this event as a special interposition of divine Providence in my favor” (Douglass). Another way

Although both Twain and Douglass both lived in the south, Douglass was a slave and, therefore, faced greater hardships than did Twain. While Twain was preoccupied about becoming steamboat captain, Douglass was experiencing more dire troubles such as having “no shoes, no stockings, no jacket, no trousers, nothing on but a coarse tow linen shirt, reaching only to my knees” (Douglass). As a free, white male, Twain’s biggest worry was not accomplishing his goal of becoming a steamboat pilot (Twain). Another difference is the use of joyful and troubling memories. While Twain ends his narrative in despair because he “somehow… could not manage…” to become a steamboat pilot, Douglass ends his narrative in the hopeful and thankful tone of a freed slave. Douglass proclaims “this good spirit was from God, and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise”(Douglass). Finally, another narrative technique that differs Twain from Douglass is that Twain speaks for all of the boys of his town while Douglass only recounts his own experiences. According to Twain, “when I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman.”(Twain). Douglass, although alluding to other slaves, does not depict their desires nor does he show a kinship with them. Douglass’

Both Twain and Douglass use formal diction and grammar, fluidly switch between the objective and subjective tones, and include both positive and negative experiences in their narratives. However, Twain and Douglass also use differing techniques such drawing on their different cultural experiences in the south, ending their narratives on different emotional notes, and writing from an independent perspective versus an inclusive perspective. However, all these narrative techniques in The Boys’ Ambition of Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain and in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass effectively helped create these well-known, masterful personal