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Frederick Douglass and Harriet’s Jacob’s Narrative are fundamentally similar from numerous point of view. Significantly, both Douglass and Jacobs recount the corruption of enslavement. Douglass is fiercely beaten and Jacobs is always sought after by a white master, whose wife considers her in charge of her master's desire. Like Douglass, Jacobs is putting forth her account as confirmation to the revulsion of enslavement, and she, in the same way as Douglass, had her validity addressed by numerous white audience. It is without uncertainty a much politicized narrative, similar to the account of Douglass, who tried to utilize his story to make the white audience abolished slavery as it is horrible and damaging such as the separation of family. …show more content…
One noteworthy distinction is how Jacobs and Douglass expressed their sexuality through slavery. Douglass assaults and physically harms Mr. Covey, an occurrence depicted as a triumph and the minute when he established his manhood. Linda is compelled to have sex with Mr. Sands as a result of having his children. She encounters great anxiety over this choice, and is made to feel remorseful by her grandmother; her grandmother told her that she was a disgraced to her decease mother and torn her mother’s wedding ring from her fingers. Linda’s grandmother told Linda to go away and to never come back. Frederick Douglass and Harriet’s Jacob’s Narrative are fundamentally different from a male slave and female slave’s perspective. They were made at a similar time; however Jacobs was hesitant to disperse hers unlike Douglass, who made a couple of structures out of his story more than a drawn-out period of time. While they impart that fundamental theme in their story, each of them has an exceptional perspective and voice which is reflected in their stories. In Douglass's Narrative, it is told from a man's perspective; his voice is more cleaned than Jacobs's, as he was a profitable speaker about his own specific account. He has been empowered by his experience. On the other hand, Jacobs' story is structured from a women's point of view. While she unquestionably endures physical-ill, her story is a passion one; she needs to appraise as her essential claim is to the women. She is embarrassed about herself when elucidated the deals she expected to make with the end goal of her children and her life as a slave that had sex. Jacobs and Douglass made the female and male renditions of enslavement; they are assorted viewpoints of the slave system; their voices are dissimilar- one is quiet, calm and remorseful while the other one is uproarious and strong. Douglass demonstrated the horrors and injustices of the slave-holding system in which he focused on manhood as he refuses to be in enslavement in which he experienced enslavement himself.
To change white people conjecture about slavery as a system, Douglass assaulted stereotypical white attitudes toward slaves as subhuman, a race fit just for enslavement. His brief for the full humanity and respect of people with dark skin in a way that he spoke for himself in addition of other salves. He wanted to do two things by apprehending the standard and practice of human bondage while demonstrating at the sane time the limit for freedom and citizenship. On the other hand, Harriet Jacobs gave a record of the shades of malice bondage held for women, a perspective that has been kept a mystery from people. In composing her narrative, Jacobs focused on the abuse on account of race to a substitute kind of human bondage. This kind of enslavement is not asserted from women by their husband, father, siblings, and children. Moreover, this is recognized and spread by the women themselves, who fashion the enclosure that holds them in servitude. She guided of the torments an enslaved women is subjected to the subjugation of bondage to the ladies of the North to get affectability for their sisters that were abused in the South. Harriet Jacobs' slave narrative is a strong women extremist
substance.
The book The Classic Slave Narratives is a collection of narratives that includes the historical enslavement experiences in the lives of the former slaves Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, and Olaudah Equiano. They all find ways to advocate for themselves to protect them from some of the horrors of slavery, such as sexual abuse, verbal abuse, imprisonment, beatings, torturing, killings and the nonexistence of civil rights as Americans or rights as human beings. Also, their keen wit and intelligence leads them to their freedom from slavery, and their fight for freedom and justice for all oppressed people.
Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like.
In sum, all of these key arguments exist in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” because of the institution of slavery and its resulting lack of freedom that was used to defend it. This text’s arguments could all be gathered together under the common element of inequality and how it affected the practical, social, and even spiritual lives of the slaves.
It is well known that slavery was a horrible event in the history of the United States. However, what isn't as well known is the actual severity of slavery. The experiences of slave women presented by Angela Davis and the theories of black women presented by Patricia Hill Collins are evident in the life of Harriet Jacobs and show the severity of slavery for black women.
A recurring theme in, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is Harriet Jacobs's reflections on what slavery meant to her as well as all women in bondage. Continuously, Jacobs expresses her deep hatred of slavery, and all of its implications. She dreads such an institution so much that she sometimes regards death as a better alternative than a life in bondage. For Harriet, slavery was different than many African Americans. She did not spend her life harvesting cotton on a large plantation. She was not flogged and beaten regularly like many slaves. She was not actively kept from illiteracy. Actually, Harriet always was treated relatively well. She performed most of her work inside and was rarely ever punished, at the request of her licentious master. Furthermore, she was taught to read and sew, and to perform other tasks associated with a ?ladies? work. Outwardly, it appeared that Harriet had it pretty good, in light of what many slaves had succumbed to. However, Ironically Harriet believes these fortunes were actually her curse. The fact that she was well kept and light skinned as well as being attractive lead to her victimization as a sexual object. Consequently, Harriet became a prospective concubine for Dr. Norcom. She points out that life under slavery was as bad as any slave could hope for. Harriet talks about her life as slave by saying, ?You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of chattel, entirely subject to the will of another.? (Jacobs p. 55).
Harriet Jacob intended to reach white women, women of the north and make them understand the suffering and the pathetic life that women of the south or black women were living in during the slavery. She wasn 't interesting to share her story to get attention, in fact she preferred to remain silent and keep her suffering for herself. But after all, she wanted to help black women like her. Jacobs says “Neither do I care to excite sympathy for my own sufferings. But I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage,
Frederick Douglass, well known for his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and his actions he took to fight for slavery to end. Harriet Jacobs who wrote Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs both escaped from slavery. Both former slaves also wrote their own narratives and autobiographies and made an impact on ending slavery and provoked understanding that they and other slaves down South were people in dire need to be free physically and legally. Their books displayed to the North and abroad an empathetic tone reflecting what they and others around them suffered from day to day. However, both Douglass and Harriet are different people with different experiences while in bondage and
...f Jacobs’s narrative is the sexual exploitation that she, as well as many other slave women, had to endure. Her narrative focuses on the domestic issues that faced African-American women, she even states, “Slavery is bad for men, but it is far more terrible for women”. Therefore, gender separated the two narratives, and gave each a distinct view toward slavery.
In Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, one of the major themes is how the institution of slavery has an effect on the moral health of the slaveholder. The power slaveholders have over their slaves is great, as well as corrupting. Douglass uses this theme to point out that the institution of slavery is bad for everyone involved, not just the slaves. Throughout the narrative, Douglass uses several of his former slaveholders as examples. Sophia Auld, once such a kind and caring woman, is transformed into a cruel and oppressive slave owner over the course of the narrative. Thomas Auld, also. Douglass ties this theme back to the main concern of authorial control. Although this is a personal account, it is also a tool of propaganda, and is used as such. Douglass’s intent is to convince readers that the system of slavery is horrible and damaging to all included, and thus should be abolished completely. Douglass makes it very clear in his examples how exactly the transformation occurs and how kind and moral people can become those who beat their slaves and pervert Christianity in an attempt to justify it.
In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author subjects the reader to a dystopian slave narrative based on a true story of a woman’s struggle for self-identity, self-preservation and freedom. This non-fictional personal account chronicles the journey of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) life of servitude and degradation in the state of North Carolina to the shackle-free promise land of liberty in the North. The reoccurring theme throughout that I strive to exploit is how the women’s sphere, known as the Cult of True Womanhood (Domesticity), is a corrupt concept that is full of white bias and privilege that has been compromised by the harsh oppression of slavery’s racial barrier. Women and the female race are falling for man’s
Harriet Jacobs wrote a moving slave narrative where she describes in great detail how her master constantly verbally and sexually harassed her. She was scared for her life many times when both her master, and his wife, threatened her. She tried many methods of escape, including becoming involved with a white lawyer who lived next door. Reading of her affair with a white man was completely shocking to northern white women. At the time, women were supposed to be pure by keeping their chastity. If you were pure, you had something to offer a future husband. By having this affair, Jacobs loses her purity, which was very important for women to have at the time; without it you weren't a woman. Jacobs appealed to her white readers saying, "You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom.... You never exhausted your ingenuity in avoiding the snares and eluding the power of a hated tyrant." (Jacobs 506) She couldn't find protection anywhere, from anyone. Her master was continually after her, finding new tricks to bother her, and attempt to seduce her. Not even the master's wife was willing to help. She was so lost in her jealousy, that she became blind to the fact ...
...d labor, had made herself a comfortable home, was obliged to sacrifice her furniture, bid a hurried farewell to friends, and seek her fortune among strangers in Canada. Many a wife discovered a secret she never known before-that her husband was a fugitive, and must leave her to insure his own safety. Worse still, many a husband discovered that his wife had fled from slavery years ago, and as “the child follows the condition of its mother,” the children of his love were liable to be seized and carried into slavery” (155) Extremely pity, sorrow, and shame is projected throughout Jacob’s book which covers not only her life, but also the common misfortune of many victims of slavery. Undoubtedly the women slaves were repeatedly abused, discriminated, and harassed not only by the society but also by the sadistic masters becoming the most mistreated of a slavery society.
Slavery has existed in America since the country was first founded. Slavery died down and then it began to become heavy in the south during the 17th century. The invention of the cotton gin made white men in the south determined to have slaves help build their economy up. They knew that cotton would help them, so slavery began once again. There were millions of Africans sold into slavery. Many of the African Americans were treated cruelly by their owners. Many were beat to death or wiped. The woman were sexaully assulted and families were tore apart. Two influential people who freed themselves from the bitter south became inspirational. Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass became the voices of the south. There were many key differences and similarities to both of their slave experiences.
“The slave girl is reared in an atmosphere of licentiousness and fear”. Harriet Jacobs says this because she was subjected to unspeakable horrors and abuse from the time she was a young girl until the time she reached womanhood. Fear ruled her life; she was a slave to both her master and the ideology that she would never be more than a slave. Her fear was crippling, but luckily there was a remedy to this fear. Her children gave her the strength to break free from both the physical and mental slavery she endured at the hands of Dr. Flint. She longed to give them a home to call their own, and to provide a future for them that did not include any notion of slavery. This longing displayed Harriet’s desire for the maternal responsibilities that were normally expected of white women at this time. The ideology of domesticity was cleverly found within the pages of Harriet’s narrative to appeal to the young white women of America. Domesticity in this narrative can be seen as 1.) A paradise in regards to her longing for a home to call her own, and 2.), A prison for Harriet when she is isolated in Martha’s secret room just inches from her unsuspecting children. These divergent views of domesticity set the stage for abolition and antislavery acts because white women came to desire what the female slaves had in regards to the responsibilities of the home.
As female slaves such as Harriet Jacob continually were fighting to protect their self respect, and purity. Harriet Jacob in her narrative, the readers get an understanding of she was trying to rebel against her aggressive master, who sexually harassed her at young age. She wasn’t protected by the law, and the slaveholders did as they pleased and were left unpunished. Jacobs knew that the social group,who were“the white women”, would see her not as a virtuous woman but hypersexual. She states “I wanted to keep myself pure, - and I tried hard to preserve my self-respect, but I was struggling alone in the grasp of the demon slavery.” (Harriet 290)The majority of the white women seemed to criticize her, but failed to understand her conditions and she did not have the free will. She simply did not have that freedom of choice. It was the institution of slavery that failed to recognize her and give her the basic freedoms of individual rights and basic protection. Harriet Jacobs was determined to reveal to the white Americans the sexual exploitations that female slaves constantly fa...