Comparative

Comparative  Essay Paper  3 African  Americans  writers  have  perfected  one  of  the  nation’s  genres  of  written  literature:  the North  American  slave  narrative.  Frederick  Douglass’s  1845  Narrative  of  the  Life  of  Frederick Douglass:  an  American  Slave  and  Harriet  Jacobs’s  1861  Incidents  in  the  Life  of  a  Slave  Girl embodied  the  tension  between  the  conflicting  motives  that  generated  autobiographies  of  slave  life.  The purpose  of  their  works  was  to  end  slavery  by  reliving  their  experiences  and  reproducing  the  environment that  had  fled.  Although  the  works  were  aimed  toward  the  Caucasian  audience,  Douglass  and  Jacobs made  it  a  means  to  write  an  identity  within  a  country  that  legally  denied  their  right  to  exist  as  human beings,  making  it  far  more  personal  than  expected.  Douglass  and  Jacobs  individualized  their  works  in order  to  keep  their  narratives  true  to  themselves  and  by  balancing  the  aims  and  values  of  their  intended audience. A  comparison  of  the  narrative  of  Douglass  and  Jacobs  focus  on  the  demands  of  being  a  slave and  situations  a  slave  could  encounter.  An  easy  comparison  would  be  the  format  of  their  narratives.  The fugitive  or  freed  or  “ex”  slave  narrators  were  expected  to  give  details  of  their  experiences  emphasizing their  sufferings  under  cruel  masters  and  the  strength  of  their  will  to  free  themselves.  As  Douglass  stated, “yet  a  slave,  ay,  a  fugitive  slave,  -­  trembling  for  his  safety,  hardly,  daring  to  believe  that  one  the American  soil,  a  single  white  person  could  be  found  who  would  befriend  him  at  all  hazards,  for  the  love of  God  and  humanity!”  (1175).  Douglass’s  emphasis  of  the  phrase,  “ay,  a  fugitive  slave”  was  to  intrigue the  audience,  drawing  them  into  a  world  they  have  not  seen.  Douglass  reflects  back  on...