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Frederick Douglass Research Paper

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How Gender Values and Purpose Influenced the Black American Slave Narrative: “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” and “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” Compared
Throughout the abolition movement, both men and women slaves were trying to escape from slavery, and find their way to freedom in the North. Many wrote their stories down. Some with the aid of ghost writers, and often under pseudonyms to protect their safety. These personal narratives spoke of the sufferings and horrors of the slave experience in America. However, since black men and black woman experienced slavery differently, they wrote about them differently. Those differences can be seen in a comparison of Frederick Douglass’s, Narrative of the Life of Frederick …show more content…

He learns the alphabet from his mistress. However, she has to suddenly stop teaching him when his master declares “If you teach that nigger to read, there will be no keeping him. He will forever be unfit to be a slave” (Douglass 960). Hence, Douglass recognizes that education means power. The path to freedom and equality is paved by education. Immediately after, he “… set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read” (Douglass 960). The laws and consequent restrictions meant to prevent him from learning serve only to fuel his passion to acquire the knowledge he needs to become a man. Douglass lets nothing prevent him from learning, and continues to cleverly find ways to learn to read and write (Levine 935). His desire for the self-respect that an education will give him is very clear in the writing style of his autobiography. Even the words in the title “Written by Myself” is a statement of education. It says, I am literate, I am human, and the equivalent of any person in my audience. For this purpose, he persistently uses the bible and political documents in shaping his intellectual views. He knows how important validating his thoughts and ideas with sources are in establishing ethos and logos. Accordingly, as Douglass continues to further his own …show more content…

He shows some emotion in the earlier accounts of his family life, but as he grows older his related memories about family grow distant. Granted, the memories of his childhood are told in the breathless and helpless remembered voice of a child, but as Douglass’s life continues the details about family relationships are less descriptive and emotional. For example, little is ever said about when he is married or about his own children. Jacobs quest is about establishing and protecting her virtuous right to womanhood through the credibility of motherhood. Whereas, Douglass is searching for the holy grail of manhood, through self-respect, education, and societal status. His lack of emotion over the natal alienation of his family relationships is not an indicator that Douglass does not care about these things. Douglass and Jacobs are simply writing from two acceptably different gender perspectives on slavery. One is archetypal of the female slave narrative, while the other is exemplary of the male slave narrative. Both are in conformity with the expected general prose narratives, and gender roles for woman and men of the time. Jacob’s publication of sexual abuse is shocking for her time, thus her voice is cloaked under the device of novelization that the Victorian moral sensibilities of her female readers find acceptable. Douglass, on the other hand, uses the voice of the enlightened self-made man –

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