Similarities Between Jacobs And Frederick Douglass

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.

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.

Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist who altered America's views of slavery through his writings and actions. Frederick's life as a slave had the greatest impact on his writings. Through his experience as a slave, he developed emotion and experience for him to become a successful abolitionist writer. He experienced harsh treatment and his hate for slavery and desire to be free caused him to write Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In his Narrative, he wrote the story of his miserable life as a slave and his fight to be free. His motivation behind the character (himself) was to make it through another day so that maybe one day he might be free. By speaking out, fighting as an abolitionist and finally becoming an author,

Slavery was something cruel and unhuman that many of our brothers and sisters endured. For many years colored men, woman, and children did not have much to live with. The description of the two different narratives of Frederick Douglass and Harriot Jacobs are quite distinct, yet so alike in through their experiences as slaves.

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

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (later known as Frederick Douglass) was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland around the year 1818. He was an African American reformer, writer, and orator. Douglass was one of the few noteworthy heroes who arose from the evils of slavery and impacted the United States and the world in significant ways. After escaping from slavery, he became known for his astounding oratory skills and remarkable antislavery writing. He became an important leader of the abolitionist movement. Northerners found it hard to believe that such an incredible orator had once been a slave. To verify this, Douglass described the events of his life as a slave and his ambition to be a free man in Narrative of the Life of

After the American Revolution, slavery became a more significant component in the American economy. As a result of many slave owners being materialistic, slaves were overworked and treated callously. One such slave was Frederick Douglass. Through most of his life, Douglass was trapped in a typical slave environment. However, Douglass taught himself to read and eventually escaped the desolate life of a slave. After his freedom, Douglass wrote his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, which chronicled his life story. In his book, Douglass details his slave upbringing and how it affected him. His autobiography was incredibly comprehensive which is one reason

Harriet Jacobs’, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Fredrick Douglass’. Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas, both share similarity in the writing of an accurate and descriptive narrative as to what life would have been like as a slave. Jacobs and Douglass depiction of life as a slave differs within gender.

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.

Fredrick Douglass was born Fredrick Augustus Washington Bailey, as a slave in Talbot County, Maryland in 1818 and later became a prolific abolitionist in the human rights movement. According to civilwar.org, Douglass was sent as slave to Baltimore, Maryland to serve the families of Hugh and Ms. Lucretia Auld. While under Ms. Auld’s care, Ms. Auld taught Douglass the alphabet, and how to read plus write. In 1838, after escaping slavery at the age of 20, Douglass traveled to New Bedford, Massachusetts where he met Mr. William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, two well-known slavery abolitionists. Garrison and Phillips encouraged Douglass to write and publish Douglass’s story about his life. Douglass then published his narrative titled “The

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

write. Douglass uses irony and a sense of unawareness in his narrative to describe "the toils of women through his aunt’s afflictions but failed...to accurately address and interpret," (James 34) these strategies attempt to validate his role as a "fugitive American slave narrator, seeking a written document to prove that"(James 27) he has obviously suggested through language the free territory he claims. The connection for Douglass between the wanting of literacy and personal worth is what he focuses on primarily throughout the narrative. Douglass establishes himself as a man who is deserving of freedom, and that itself is a major significance to other slave narratives. This generalization doesn't extend to the slave narrative written by Harriet Jacobs who focuses on the brutality that women slaves face compared to men slaves. She states many times the fact that women slaves are degraded and treated "less than there worth." (Jacobs 29)

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