Frederick Douglass And Harriet Jacobs Narratives

In this paper I will compare the writings of Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass. I will touch on their genre, purpose, content, and style. Both authors were born into slavery. Both escaped to freedom and fought to bring an end to slavery, each in their own way. Both Jacobs and Douglass have a different purpose for their writings.

While on one end slave-owners did their best to deprive slaves of education, on the other side, Douglass constantly stresses the importance of slaves acquiring knowledge and education in any way possible. While in Baltimore, Douglass comes to the realization of just how important education is. His master, Mr. Auld, becomes angry with his wife when he discovers she is trying to teach Douglass how to write. This is a life changing moment for Douglass and from then on, he understood that education was linked with freedom. He would go to extremes to educated himself. Douglass would walk the streets of Baltimore with a book, and a piece of bread. He describes how he would meet up with young white boys and trade his loaf of bread for tips on how to read (Douglass

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

Slavery (noun): a condition compared to that of a slave in respect of exhausting labor or restricted freedom. Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass were both born into slavery, and both suffered the consequences of American ignorance. Jacobs and Douglass provided a brutally honest truth through their poetry about slavery, and how white Americans interpreted slavery. Everyone was subject to Jacobs and Douglass’ assessment on how differently people interpreted what slavery meant – just a means of labor – in both the free Northern states and the rural South. It was their goal to illuminate the brutality of slavery, and how important abolishing slavery was.

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

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.

These events he saw scarred him for life and scared him enough to have no desire to run away until he learned it was an option for him. Punishment on plantations was horrendous, but punishment in cities was far less horrendous. Douglass detailed some of the punishments he witnessed when he lived in the city. They were brutal, but none were as brutal as those he saw on the plantation. He explains that other slaves in Baltimore may have gotten whipped, but he had gotten few whippings. "Their backs had been made familiar with the bloody lash, so that they had become callous; mine was yet tender; for while at Baltimore I got few whippings, and few slaves could boast of a kinder master and mistress than myself" (Douglass 59). Douglass showed that he was grateful for not being punished like the other slaves. He showed what life was like in the city, and how much better it was than the plantation. People still punished their slaves in cities, but it was nowhere near the brutality that plantation slaves were punished with. Douglass was grateful that he was able to leave the plantation and live in Baltimore. He escaped the abominations of the plantation and was able to gain hope, and less severe punishment, from living in the

Both novels, Incidents in the Life of a Slave girl by Harriet Jacobs, and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, share common slave narrative elements. The main characters Linda Brent, and Frederick Douglass undergo similar experiences dealing with slave owner hypocrisy and slavery's corruptional effects upon their masters. On top of that, both individuals emphasise the weight that knowledge has upon their situational understanding as well as eventual escapes. As a female slave, Brent is subject to sexual intimidation by her master, unlike Douglass; regardless, Brent and Douglass's accounts of the challenges of slavery correspond greatly to one another.

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 red-hot iron of a brand is pressed against cows to show ownership. Reigns on a horse are used to push the animal to work harder. Humans were once treated the same way. Slaves were bought and sold as property, so the buyers had ownership. Slaves were also whipped and beaten to do more for their master. Sound familiar? These slaves were treated as animals; like cows being branded or a horse being whipped to go faster. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs are two well-known, successful authors, and both went through this harsh reality of slavery. Douglass, slave narrative author of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, experiences and witnesses the cruelty of the

Letters From a Slave Girl: The Story of Harriet Jacobs by Mary E. Lyons is historical fiction novel written to portray the story of Harriet Jacobs through fictional journal entries. These entries share the stories of Harriet Jacobs a little girl taken into slavery at a young age. Eleven-year-old Harriet Jacobs begins writing letters to her mother, her first letter beginning as she states that Margaret Horniblow, her first owner, is dying. Harriet hopes that in Margaret’s will, she sets her free. Unfortunately, her wishes were not granted.

Do you really know what happened to African Americans back then? In the text it states,¨Say that long ago in Africa,some of the people knew magic.¨This attention grabber utilizes fantasy like terms but uses them with real world terms. The stories ‘Harriet Jacobs’,‘The People Could Fly’,and ‘The Last Days Of Slavery’ throw light on the American slave system through the personal accounts they endured and how those experiences formed their position on slavery.

Patrick Henry once said, “give me liberty, or give me death.” In the eyes of Frederick Douglass and countless others enslaved, this took on a much deeper meaning to them. “It was doubtful liberty at most, and almost certain death is we failed.” [51] Frederick Douglass was one of the most commonly known slaves to have existed. Slavery has been around since the 1700s, but the subject of slavery is controversial because it not only includes information written from former slaves, but information acquired from historians. The question that has with stood the test of time is, “are these encounters that have been written out, exaggerated or the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” In the early 1800’s Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland, and grew up on Colonial Edward Lloyd’s plantation. Children would be separated from their mothers before they were twelve months in age-Frederick too was separated from his mother. As a result of entering slave-hood at an early age, he did not know his birthdate (like most slaves). Frederick Douglass’s account on slavery could be seen as biased as a result of first hand experiences with being held as a slave. Although, Douglass is able to be direct our thoughts to these experiences in such a light, you feel as if you are witnessing it happen right before you. Because of Douglass’s quest for freedom, his daring attitude, and determination to learn, he shows us the way through American Slavery in his eyes. Douglass provides

When I begin to do my final research project the key terms and concepts that I will be focusing on in from the Reconstruction Era and the keys terms are segregation, nationalism, and realism. I will also be using some key terms and concepts from the slavery and the colonial period. Some of the key terms are racism, slave marriages, slave narratives, and cultural trauma. One concept that I can use is the age of enlightenment. One is the major theme that Harriet Jacobs discusses in her narrative and the how Harriet paints the life of a woman who is a slave. Some of the key terms that I will be using in my research project is focusing on what she wrote in her narrative and the way she wrote her narrative and what her life was like when she was alive. Another concept would be to look at the tone of her narrative.