Slave Narratives Depicting Abuse and Freedom
During slavery, some African American slaves wrote narratives. These writings were autobiographies that used the author’s unique story of slavery to freedom. Slave narratives gave hope to other slaves and shed light on the dark reality that was slavery, but most importantly, they were used as a way to gain sympathy from the whites, and for them to, after reading their narrative, feel compelled and moved enough to join the anti-slavery movement. Harriet Jaccobs and Frederick Douglass were just two of the many who wrote them. The common theme I saw throughout Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jaccobs and the Narrative Of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass was the recollection abuse and mistreatment of slaves that lead up to their escaping. I feel in the past we have focused on more of the emotional and mental abuse the slaves had to endure, but now in these two narratives we read of the horrific and gruesome things that slaves were put through. We are told of two stories of things slaves had to go through physically that made them who they are mentally. Both narratives are similar yet also have many differences as well. There are three literary devices that were used in both the narratives that I feel helped us as readers understand their stories.
The Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl and the Narrative Of Frederick Douglass have many similarities. It goes without saying that they are both African American slave narratives. In order to help the whites sympathize, these narratives where written as autobiographies in the first person. Being written in the first person helps the reader to understand what happened to them in a directly related point of view. It shows an active participation by reading the authors thoughts and what happened first hand from them. Both Jaccobs and Douglass experienced the deaths of their caretakers, whether it be their mothers or grandmothers, etc.,...