I will begin with a comparison of the two books, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” and “Harriett Ann Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” with their title pages. Douglass’s title is announcing that his entire “life” as an “American Slave” will be examined. While, Jacobs’s title offers a contrast and proclaims that this will not be the story of her full life, but a selection of “incidents” that occurred at specific times in her life. Jacobs refers to herself in the title as a “slave girl,” and not an “American slave,”. It is the voice of a woman telling the story of having survived a horrifying childhood and identifies herself as a slave mother. Douglass’ and Jacobs’ works symbolize the pressure between …show more content…
Douglass’ narrative chronicles his life from childhood to becoming an adult. Factual information gathered from this reading tells us that Douglass was born a slave in Tuckahoe, Maryland, and was born under the master, Captain Anthony. Douglass had no knowledge of his age but does know who is his mother and grandmother are. We also learn that Douglass is aware of the fact that his father is considered to be the master of the plantation. In the later part of Douglass’ life, he is moved to a new plantation, where is owner is Mr. Auld. When he becomes a slave on Mr. Auld’s plantation, Douglass begins to get a true sense and knowledge of the ravages of …show more content…
The novel becomes the result of his speech-making career, reflecting his mastery of a powerful preaching style, along with the rhythms and imagery of biblical texts that were familiar to his audiences. Jacobs modeled her narrative on the sentimental or domestic events that occurred in her life. Douglass focuses on the struggle to achieve manhood and freedom. Jacob focuses on sexual exploitation. The lead character of Douglass’ autobiography is a boy, and then a young man, who is robbed of family and community. He then gains an identity not only through his escape from Baltimore to Massachusetts but through his ability to create himself through telling his story. Harriet Jacobs, on the other hand, was caught between community, family, and
Frederick Douglass wrote his autobiography the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass to tell his story and to help the abolitionist's cause. It provides a window into his world, which is that of a former slave and of a prominent speaker. Douglass was born a slave in Maryland in 1818; his exact birthday is unknown. Unlike most slaves he had a mistress, Sophia Auld, who taught him his letters when he was about 10 and that basis of knowledge allowed him to 'steal literacy' over the years. Douglass was hired out to a slave breaker named Edward Covey in order to make him more subservient. In 1834 Frederick Douglass and Edward Covey had a battle which changed the course of Douglass?s life, and shaped him into a man who speaks and acts out against injustice.
In the earliest part of Harriet?s life the whole idea of slavery was foreign to her. As all little girls she was born with a mind that only told her place in the world was that of a little girl. She had no capacity to understand the hardships that she inherited. She explains how her, ?heart was as free from care as that of any free-born white child.?(Jacobs p. 7) She explains this blissful ignorance by not understanding that she was condemned at birth to a life of the worst kind oppression. Even at six when she first became familiar with the realization that people regarded her as a slave, Harriet could not conceptualize the weight of what this meant. She say?s that her circumstances as slave girl were unusua...
Frederick Douglass emphasizes the dehumanization aspect of slavery throughout his narrative. As is the general custom in slavery, Douglass is separated from his mother early in infancy and put under the care of his grandmother. He recalls having met his mother several times, but only during the night. She would make the trip from her farm twelve miles away just to spend a little time with her child. She dies when Douglass is about seven years old. He is withheld from seeing her in her illness, death, and burial. Having limited contact with her, the news of her death, at the time, is like a death of a stranger. Douglass also never really knew the identity of his father and conveys a feeling of emptiness and disgust when he writes, "the whisper that my master was my father, may or may not be true; and, true or false, it is of but little consequence to my purpose" (Douglass, 40). Douglass points out that many slave children have their masters as their father. In these times, frequently the master would take advantage of female slaves and the children born to the slave w...
Frederick Douglass's Narrative, first published in 1845, is an enlightening and incendiary text. Born into slavery, Douglass became the preeminent spokesman for his people during his life; his narrative is an unparalleled account of the inhumane effects of slavery and Douglass's own triumph over it. His use of vivid language depicts violence against slaves, his personal insights into the dynamics between slaves and slaveholders, and his naming of specific persons and places made his book an indictment against a society that continued to accept slavery as a social and economic institution. Like Douglass, Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery, and in 1853 she published Letter from a Fugitive Slave, now recognized as one of the most comprehensive antebellum slave narratives written by an African-American woman. Jacobs's account broke the silence on the exploitation of African American female slaves.
numerous types of themes. Much of the work concentrates on the underlining ideas beneath the stories. In the narratives, fugitives and ex-slaves appealed to the humanity they shared with their readers during these times, men being lynched and marked all over and women being the subject of grueling rapes. "The slave narrative of Frederick Douglas" and "Harriet Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" themes come from the existence of the slaves morality that they are forced compromise to live. Both narrators show slave narratives in the point of view of both "men and women slaves that had to deal with physical, mental, and moral abuse during the times of slavery." (Lee 44)
As a female slave, Jacobs has a very different story than that of a slave man therefore, her narrative is uncommon in the tales of slavery. She stresses that just like any male slave, women were also hit, starved, or made to work in the hot fields. But unlike men, the women suffer from sexual harassments from their masters as well as the loss of their children to the cotton production. In repeated accounts, she depicts the anguish of mothers whose children were sold and the humiliation of slave girls who where sexually abused by the white man. For the slave women, these experiences were just as hard as any physical punishment the man received, if not more so.
In Chapter VII, Harriet Ann Jacobs describes how slaves are taught lies about the north to make them think negatively of it. According to Jacobs, slave-owners would return from trips to the north and tell stories of seeing their former slaves, who were starving and suffering as free men. The slave-owners would claim that they begged to be taken back to the south, but their former owners would refuse it. Harriet Ann Jacobs was aware that these white men were telling lies. She reflects, “I admit that the black man is inferior. But what is it that makes him so? It is the ignorance in which white men compel him to live” (Jacobs, 68). This idea is also shown in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick
To change white people conjecture about slavery as a system, Douglass assaulted stereotypical white attitudes toward slaves as subhuman, a race fit just for enslavement. His brief for the full humanity and respect of people with dark skin in a way that he spoke for himself in addition of other salves. He wanted to do two things by apprehending the standard and practice of human bondage while demonstrating at the sane time the limit for freedom and citizenship. On the other hand, Harriet Jacobs gave a record of the shades of malice bondage held for women, a perspective that has been kept a mystery from people. In composing her narrative, Jacobs focused on the abuse on account of race to a substitute kind of human bondage. This kind of enslavement is not asserted from women by their husband, father, siblings, and children. Moreover, this is recognized and spread by the women themselves, who fashion the enclosure that holds them in servitude. She guided of the torments an enslaved women is subjected to the subjugation of bondage to the ladies of the North to get affectability for their sisters that were abused in the South. Harriet Jacobs' slave narrative is a strong women extremist
The story of Harriet Jacobs paints a broad picture of life as a woman, victim of abuse, and Black American in the south during the early to mid Nineteenth century. However, in the story, each of these identities are put through the lens of her being a slave, an experience and identity that colors and dominates each other one. Harriet Jacobs may not have significantly impacted the world, the nation, or even her state during her time as a slave, but by looking at her experiences through her eyes, the reader gains an empathetic understanding of many things they may not have, and may never truly experience.
Reader Response: In this chapter, Douglass speaks about his relationship with his mother, and the possible whereabouts of his father. He pleas to our pathos by detailing the “whispers” of the possibility of his master being his dad. He reveals the way slaves are treated, and the lack of knowledge they are given about their life. For instance, Douglass mentions he is unaware of his birthday or exact age. He also includes a brutal description of the first time he witnessed someone being beat, and the blood. We as readers feel sympathy for the terrible inhumane upbringing that he and other slaves face.
Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like. Charles Ball’s Fifty Years in Chains and Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl were both published in the early 1860’s while Kate Drumgoold’s A Slave Girl’s Story came almost forty years later
In sum, all of these key arguments exist in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” because of the institution of slavery and its resulting lack of freedom that was used to defend it. This text’s arguments could all be gathered together under the common element of inequality and how it affected the practical, social, and even spiritual lives of the slaves.
During the era of American Slavery, most slaves were illiterate, and therefore couldn’t capture their wrenching experiences down on paper. The ones who did created emotional slave narratives, autobiographies detailing their lives as slaves, and how they escaped to freedom. Two of the most famous slave narratives, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl represent different styles of writing that were used to write these narratives. Douglass’s narrative was brief, and detailed the events leading up to his successful escape to the North. Jacobs was able to go into much more detail about her ordeals during her enslavement and even her after her initial escape. The
Frederick Douglass was a slave who won his freedom and went on to write his autobiography to inform people about the hardship of slavery and to deal with the trauma he suffered as a slave. He writes his narrative in a factual and straight forward way, making it easy to understand and empathize with. For certain characters, such as Mr. Covey, Douglass includes more detail than he does for other characters. This shows that they were more important in his life than others. The point of the narrative as a whole is to cultivate abolitionist, anti-slavery ideas in the minds of the audience.
The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass can be referred to as a memoir and writing about the abolitionist movement of the life of a former slave, Fredrick Douglass. It is a highly regarded as the most famous piece of writing done by a former slave. Fredrick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer, statesman, orator and writer in the United States. Douglass believed in the equality of every individual of different races, gender or immigrants.