Comparison Of Slavery InThe Classic Slave Narratives By Mary Prince And Frederick Douglass?

Throughout the history of slavery, there were undoubtedly many African Americans who suffered under its inequalities and strived to rid themselves from the system. However, within these numbers there were few who succeeded, and even fewer who recorded their journeys in the form of a book. The autobiographies, Twelve Years a Slave and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by Frederick Douglass and Solomon Northup respectively, documented the lives of how their enslaved authors fought their way to freedom. The books portrayed not only the hardships of their lives as a slave but also how they achieved resistance against their masters and slavery itself. Even though they were both oppressed by racism and the system of slavery, Frederick Douglass and Solomon Northup both successfully fought their masters, aided fellow slaves, and obtained freedom.

We can see in both of these two narratives are told using personal stories of their suffering while using other descriptions of other characters to help tell the overall story of the experiences of slaves. Douglass give us many examples of the many horrible way the slave masters and slaves overseers treated their slaves. By showing us the violent killing and beating of slaves by the overseers without even being help responsible for it. One of these

In the 1800’s, slavery was a huge part of America. Slavery helped boost the economy and was heavily dependent upon by Americans. Slaves were treated as if they were not humans, but property. Slaves natural right of freedom was taken away by the white Americans. This oppression occurred in America, while they claimed that their nation was the nation of freedom and liberty. One of the slaves that would help change history was named Frederick Douglass, and he had a lot to say about American hypocrisy. Frederick Douglass was a former slave. He taught himself to read and write at a young age, and years later he started his own newspaper called “The North Star”, and ended up writing and editing most of the articles himself. Another thing he

Douglass threw light on the slave system not only through argument but through his autobiography. Douglass talks about the things he saw as a slave. The text says,” The louder she screamed the harder she whipped.”[Douglass, pg,4] That shows how his book showed some of the torture slaves went through. He then talks about how

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” This famous quote is from a speech given by one of America’s most influential abolitionist speakers, Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery, this great American leader led a life many of us would find impossible to bear. After gaining his freedom from slavery, Douglass shared his stories through impressive speeches and vivid autobiographies, which helped America move forward as a country liberated from racial inequality. Although Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave allows readers to understand what life was like for slaves in antebellum America, the most important and relevant lesson to take away from this narrative today is the importance of perseverance. Douglass’s courage to resist and learn paired with his determination to keep his faith and ultimately find himself, is something to which people from every culture and time period can relate.

Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs narratives are both very similar and yet are very different as they give different points of reference from the hardships African Americans faced during the slave era. Both of Douglass and Jacobs emphasize the need to keep family together and how far someone they knew would go to attain freedom or buy back freedom and how it really never happened. It was emphasized by slave owners to separate families at young ages which is known to be cruel and serves a purpose in the maturation of a slave. Although they both agree that slavery dehumanized slaves and depict gory images, these narratives come from two different perspectives; Jacobs-a female slave who had a happy sheltered child hood which lead to sexual and mental abuse, and Frederick- a male who knowledge was with held from and who was tainted with gory mental images at a very young age of slaves being beat right before him.

Comparing Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Frederick Douglass, author of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, illustrates an emotional and extremely tragic story that describes the struggles of a slave Pre-Civil War in the South. Douglass writes with the sole purpose of showing the truth about slavery and how inhumane the slaves were treated. The slaves treated like animals and fed even worse than animals. Throughout Douglass’ narrative, he uses blunt diction to express how serious the situation is, figurative language to convey imagery to make it more emotional, and ethos numerously to make the story more credible in the hopes of abolishing slavery.

During the eighteenth century, slavery was already well-established section of the American labor system. As the amount of slaves grew in size, they did not receive rights, and were mostly separated from their families. They were mostly needed for agricultural labors and had to work mostly from dusk to dawn. Frederick Douglass’s experiences as a slave was different than that other colonial labor because of the strict treatment he received from his masters, the inferiority to other humans that he felt, and the harsh conditions he lived in.

How did slavery continue to exist despite its inhumane practices? Many of these owners employed the ideas of dehumanizing slaves and religion in order to perpetuate their actions. Dehumanization demoted the societal status of slaves, therefore deeming blacks inferior to their white counterparts. Moreover, although directly opposing religious principles of kindness and avoidance of sin, plantation owners used Christianity as a mechanism to mask their inhumanity and encourage their cruelty toward slaves. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass develops themes of dehumanization and religion, which helps readers understand the techniques slave owners utilized to alleviate their guilt, condone malice toward slaves, and preserve supremacy over colored people in Southern society.

“My mother was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather. My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard speak of my parentage.”

The Heroic Slave a novella written by Frederick Douglass is loosely based on The Creole Revolt of the only documented successful African – American Slaves eighteen who revolt gain their freedom including one hundred ten other slaves, who were set free in Nassau, Bahamas in 1841. (Eschner) Whereas, in The Heroic Slave, Frederick Douglass alters the actual account to introduce ideas to illicit whites to assist in abolition for slavery. (Douglas) In his novel based his story on Madison Washington one of the four slaves who is noted as prominent leader in the revolt.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the

In The History of Mary Prince, an autobiography of a former Caribbean slave Mary Prince, Prince shows readers how she resists slavery and its oppressive rule. Published in 1831, Prince uses her autobiography as anti-slavery propaganda and shows the struggles of every slave. Through the autobiography, Prince portrays her resistance to cruelty and immorality while being enslaved by horrid masters. Although she was not always overtly resistant in her earlier days as a sl, Prince illustrates her rebellion through the publishing of her autobiography, marriage, religious conversion, opposition to removal from England, and physical and verbal resistance. With the help of those that surrounded her in England, Prince exposes her readers to the true,

Douglass gives detailed anecdotes of his and others experience with the institution of slavery to reveal the hidden horrors. He includes personal accounts he received while under the control of multiple different masters. He analyzes the story of his wife’s cousin’s death to provide a symbol of outrage due to the unfairness of the murderer’s freedom. He states, “The offence for which this girl was thus murdered was this: She had been set that night to mind Mrs. Hicks’s baby, and during the night she fell asleep, and the baby cried.” This anecdote, among many others, is helpful in persuading the reader to understand the severity of rule slaveholders hold above their slaves. This strategy displays the idea that slaves were seen as property and could be discarded easily.