Essay Comparing Frederick Douglass And Harriet Jacobs

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.

Douglass not only describes slaves as animals, but he describes slave treatment as if they were animals to further describe the horrendous lives of slaves. Slaves were fed food in troughs (36). By choosing the word “trough”, Douglass emphasizes the poor treatment of slaves; slaves were not good enough to be fed from bowls or plates, they were no better than animals. Douglass also compares women on the plantations to breeding animals. Women were expected to reproduce in order to increase their masters’ wealth, not to create a family. Women and children were separated before the child was a year old so they would not form familial bonds with one another. When Douglass’ own mother died, he compared it to a stranger dying because he had no connection with her (18). Slaves were not only thought of animals, but also fostered as animals. Douglass describes Mr. Covey as a “nigger-breaker”, Douglass was broken in “body, soul, and spirit” by

In the Narrative of the Life and the Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs both use detailed descriptions to convey the harsh brutalities of slavery and cause a sense of urgency to the problem. In Harriet’s narrative she describes her love for a young, free, black man. She is worried to tell Dr. Flint, her owner, because she knows that he is too wilful and arbitrary to consent to the marriage. Even so, she speaks with Dr. Flint about her proposal and he strongly disapproves. Harriet describes that for the rest of the night Dr. Flint ignored her. He was angry that she thought of marrying a black man instead of being with him. However, “his lips disdained to address me (her), his eyes were very loquacious.

Douglass was young when he found his identity through his escape from Baltimore to Massachusetts. Jacobs, on the other hand, became trapped in her community, family, and domesticity. She was “domestic” where she worked, as well as a slave with children. Jacobs expressed, "Slavery is bad for men but it is far more terrible for women." Jacobs’s narrative was explicit and frightening for herself and for the woman of her time because of the involvement with her master’s forced sexual interactions. Jacobs’s narrative is the sexual exploitation that she and all other woman who were slaves at the time had to face and endure. In comparison to Douglass, Jacobs was determined to fight for her freedom. Although, Douglass showed his audience “how a slave became a man” by being in a physical fight with a superior, Jacobs’s gender demonstrated a different perspective. She was pregnant with the child of a white man when she was fifteen and believed that it would encourage her master to sell her and her child. Once she was became mother with “ties to life,” her concern for her children had taken over her own self-interest. Throughout Jacobs narrative, she is not only looking for freedom but a home to protect her children.

Since the beginning of writing, literature has played a pivotal role in shaping the history of the world. The same holds true when referring to the early American history topic of slavery. Many abolitionists wrote in hopes that their views will persuade people in America to take a stand against slavery. While there were many authors that led the anti-slavery movement, the most successful writers were the slaves that lived through this atrocious time period and were able to recall their experiences. Two prominent authors during this time period were Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs. While the two writers shared many common experiences due to their time being a slave, they also had had a variety of differences. Harriet Jacobs wrote mostly wrote in a way that appealed to people’s emotions and focused on what a woman goes through as a slave; whereas Douglass focused on freedom and manhood.

Women were not only used for their labor, but were also exploited sexually. Slave owners felt they had the right to use black women for their own sexual desires, and felt they had the right to use their bodies for slave breeding. This obscenity between the master and slave were not only psychologically damaging for black women, but would also lead to physical abuse. In her narrative, Ms. Jacobs gives us a firsthand description of the abuse that would occur if she were to upset her master, “Some months before, he had pitched me down stairs in a fit of passion; and the injury I received was so serious that I was unable to turn myself in bed for many days”

Both Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs had similar experiences in regards to their owners getting more involved with religion resulting in a change in the treatment of their slaves. Frederick Douglass’ slave-owner in 1832 was a man called “Captain Auld” by his slaves. Douglass describes him as a “slaveholder without the ability to hold slaves”. However, after attending a Methodist camp-meeting and experiencing religion, Auld becomes crueler. Douglass had the slightest hope that Auld’s involvement with religion would incline him to emancipate his slaves or—at the very least—be more humane and kind. Douglass was disappointed. “Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” The man became more involved in religious activity; it became a part of his everyday life. Douglass provides an example of his master’s usage of religious sanction for cruelty and brutality. Douglass witnesses Auld tie up and whip a young woman while justifying his actions with a passage of Scripture— “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” Harriet Jacobs had a comparable experience. “When I was told that Dr. Flint had joined the Episcopal church, I was much surprised. I supposed that religion had a purifying effect on the character of men; but the worst persecutions I endured from him were after he

As a young child, Frederick Douglass was introduced to the acts of violence towards the slaves including the all too common whippings. He says, “I have often been awakened at the down of day by the most heart-rendering shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood.” One could only imagine the horrid pictures that slaves would have seen on a daily basis of other slaves nearly being beaten to death by their masters. For the black children growing up on the plantation, the master was seen to be a man of great power and not to be taken lightly. This was exactly

Men and Women’s treatment has been different as long as the two have been around to notice the difference. Even in the realm of slavery women and men were not treated the same although both were treated in horrible ways. Harriet Jacobs and Fredrick Douglass’ story is very similar both were born into slavery and later rose above the oppression to become molders of minds. In time of subjugation to African Americans these two writers rose up and did great things especially with their writing. Both Douglass and Jacobs’ experienced different types of slavery, it shaped their perspective on everything and it also shows the importance of their freedom.

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 experiences, memories and treatment in any situation are viewed upon differently between a man and a woman. Obvious in the case of slavery, the two sexes were treated differently and so therefore their recollections of such events were-different. In the following short essay, we look closely at the perspective of the female slave, Harriet Jacobs in “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, and respectfully compared to that of a man slave, Frederick Douglass in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. Although both experienced their freedoms despite facing great

During the 1800s, slaves received treatment comparable to that of livestock. They were mere possessions of white men stripped of almost every last bit of humanity in them. African-Americans were constricted to this state of mind by their owners vicious treatment, but also the practice of keeping them uneducated. Keeping the slaves illiterate hindered them from understanding the world around them. Slave owners knew this. The slaves who were able to read and write always rebelled more against their masters. Frederick Douglass, author of "A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," and Harriet Jacobs, author of "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," were prime examples. Both slaves had been taught how read and write at a young

Slavery was a horrible institution that dehumanized a race of people. Female slave bondage was different from that of men. It wasn't less severe, but it was different. The sexual abuse, child bearing, and child care responsibilities affected the females's pattern of resistance and how they conducted their lives. Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, demonstrates the different role that women slaves had and the struggles that were caused from having to cope with sexual abuse.

Slavery was brutal for both men and women, both Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs narratives characterize ways that men and women experienced slavery. The two authors highlight ways slavery was oppressive from two different point of views, one from a woman on a plantation and the other, a man who was mostly a slave in the city. Douglass portrayed how slave women were treated poorly even by his

Douglass doesn’t talk about women very often and usually associates them with suffering. The south was at that time period and place where women were “supposed” to be shielded from danger. He made a special point that female slaves being beaten, abused and