Compare And Contrast Frederick Douglass And David Walker

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Both Frederick Douglas and David Walker wrote against slavery. Frederick Douglas used his personal account as an enslaved man to share the evils of slavery and get his voice heard. His work is written like a novel with his commentary on the situations and his beliefs as the story continues. While the slave narrative was a large piece in the abolitionist movement, David Walker chooses a different approach than others. He wrote an Appeal, much like a legal document in which he argued his personal viewpoints against the institution of slavery but with a great deal of imagery. Although both works are abolitionist literature, the content and type of work are different from one another. The works have similarities and differences and also serve to …show more content…

Walker never experienced slavery but was only a witness to the cruel institution. It is in his travels and observations that he becomes convinced of the cruelty of the institution in which he says “inhuman system of slavery, is the source from which most of our miseries proceed” (Walker Page 5). Although he had never been a slave, the racism and prejudices that existed still caused difficulties for him. Appeal: In Four Articles is very striking as it is clearly written by an educated and religious man who calls on the Christian faith and the great intellectual minds of his time to be the basis of his arguments against slavery. He clearly states the hypocrisy of the nation of liberty who allows such rights to only select individuals who are of the correct race. Unlike Douglas’s work, which is a personal account, Walker has a much more forceful tone of outrage, anger, and imagery in his work. This is slightly ironic considering he had never experienced firsthand the hardship that is being a …show more content…

Despite each individual having different circumstances in which they experienced regarding the institution of slavery, both were inspired to take part in the abolitionist movement due to the injustices they witnessed. The result is two very compelling and diverse works that attack the institution of slavery and argue against the reasons the pro-slavery individuals use to justify the slavery

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