Comparing Rowlandson’s Captivity Narrative with Jacobs’ Slave Narrative

us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It's a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other.” While this assessment of human nature is correct, there have been different reasons for this struggle. The Puritans believed that people were sinners who had fallen out of grace with an angry, yet just, God. Their days were strictly regimented with work and prayer, so they could live wholesome and modest lives. The Humanists, on the other hand, believed people were good for the betterment of their society and themselves. They were able to make their own decisions and live their lives because their loving God would understand, rather

Based on the writing of Harriet and John Jacobs, compare and contrast the experiences of male and female slaves.

Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass were both slaves that wrote about their struggles and pain during their years of slavery. Both stories were the same but also very different. Both Jacobs and Douglass were born into slavery. The stories were written by authors that finally gained their freedom from slavery. Jacob’s wrote “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” and Frederick Douglass wrote, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”. Jacob’s wrote it in a woman point of view and gave us a look at how the women that were slaves experienced life; whereas Douglass wrote as a male slave and the brutality.

According to Downing, Rowlandson was writing her spiritual autobiography by going through her lowest points to her somewhat higher points of her captivity. Downing says, “… she interprets her suffering as a result of divine judgment. As she continues, however, she is reminded that she can be saved by humbling herself before God …” (254). Downing said that this was a big turning point for Rowlandson and that she now saw her captivity as a form of chastisement from God rather than being punished for her sins. Downing says that, “this emphasis on chastisement is obviously intended as a lesson not only for Rowlandson herself, but for the Puritan community in general”

Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass both wrote narratives that detailed their lives as slaves in the antebellum era. Both of these former slaves managed to escape to the North and wanted to expose slavery for the evil thing it was. The accounts tell equally of depravity and ugliness though they are different views of the same rotten institution. Like most who managed to escape the shackles of slavery, these two authors share a common bond of tenacity and authenticity. Their voices are different—one is timid, quiet, and almost apologetic while the other one is loud, strong, and confident—but they are both authentic. They both also through out the course of their narratives explain their desires to be free from the horrible practice of slavery.

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Jacobs's narrative signals several significant departures from the literary and social conventions of the slave narrative, a genre that enjoyed widespread popularity in the United States during the 1840s and 1850s. Slave narratives written by men characteristically focused on the heroic struggles of individuals, lone figures struggling against the injustices of the slave system. Issues of family and community were often subsumed

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During the final years of legal slave ownership in the United States, the slave narrative became a popular way for literate enslaved people to express their anti-slavery stance through their own testimony. Two of the most influential writers on the slave narrative topic were the autobiographical authors Fredrick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs. Since Douglas and Jacobs were both born in a similar time period, there are many similarities found in their works. Douglass’s Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave is closely comparable to Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl when analyzing how they represented their enslavement in their autobiographies. The two authors have similar ideas when portraying their struggles with forced ignorance. Their writing also contains parallels with the corrupting power of slavery for the slave owners, as well as the parallels in pointing out the hypocrisies of using the bible to defend slavery. These similarities can be explained in part due to Douglass and Jacobs following the same basic slave narrative outline to maintain the shared goal of abolishing slavery in the United States.

The captivity narrative genre includes writings by or about people captured by an enemy, usually one who is considered by the hostage to be a foreign and uncivilized heathen, and was especially popular in America and England in the seventeenth through late nineteenth centuries. Documents from the time show that between 1675 and 1763, at least 1,641 New Englanders were held in captivity as hostages, though many believe that the numbers are drastically low because of poor record keeping (Vaughan, 53). Regardless of the exact number of hostages, the fact is that thousands of people were profoundly affected by being held captive by the Indians. Some of those people, including Mary Rowlandson,

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."

Being forced into an alien society is one of the most obvious comparisons evident in the Rowlandson and Equiano slave narratives. In the slave narrative written by Rowlandson, she is abducted from her home along with several of her friends and family members. Once she is captured, she is brutally forced to reside with the same Indians she witnessed scalp and slaughter her loved ones. After having spent several days with these Indians, Rowlandson decides in order to survive, she will try to acquire their ways of livelihood. Rowlandson attempts to consume the food that the Indians provide for her, but she soon discovers that the taste of the rancid food is more revolting than she can tolerate, but she continues trying to fit in, in her mind it is the only way she can possibly escape from the Indians alive. Coincidentally, Equiano also has to endure very similar perils. In the introduction to Equiano’s slave narrative, we acquire that he is being forced into slavery by his own people, in order to be sold to the white slave owners in America. For Equiano being forced into slavery was a very horrendous experience. America for Equiano is a very alienated society, and it is unlike any place he has ever seen before. Once in America, Equiano along with other slaves that have also been apprehended are forced to line up in a gated area, which is much like a supermarket for slaves, or a place where the slave owners are able to select and purchase the slaves they desires. While

From the violent and brutal clash between Indians [1], and British colonists in Massachusetts during King Philip's War (1675-6) grew a new literary genre. After their redemption, some colonists who had been prisoners of the Indians wrote autobiographical accounts of their experiences. These captivity narratives developed a large audience, and interest in the narratives continued into the nineteenth century.[2] After her capture and redemption, Mary Rowlandson published what some historians call "America's first best seller," entitled Narrative Of the Captivity and Restoratio;t of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.[3] Through her use of scripture and portrayal of the relationship