Shedding Light

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Recommended: Analysis of the narrative of Fredrick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an American writer, focusing on his time in slavery and life after being freed. In 1845, he published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American. Before Douglass though, another man wrote a narrative. A personal narrative explaining the times, while trying to bring light to his religion, his name was Jonathan Edwards, and he published in 1740. While Edwards lived a fruitful, and relatively laid back life, Douglass lead life that was harder than Edwards, yet, easier than most slaves. While Douglass found his freedom from slavery, one could argue that Edwards too found freedom in religion.

While on the contrary, these men couldn’t be more different, or have different accounts in their toils of life; they were each searching for something. While again, Douglass was searching for humanity, and Edwards was search for a higher being, the two were both equality motivated.

Wanting to keep creditability within audiences, both men tried reaching out in several ways. While Douglass needed more to reach out to the white audiences, they showed skepticism. Edwards on the other hand want to reach as many people as possible to save their souls.

Growing up was strikingly different for the men, Frederick Douglass was a slave born in the south. While his heritage is somewhat a mystery, most believe his father was his master from early life. Slavery was a huge part of American culture and widely accepted in the south. Jonathan Edwards on the other hand was raised modestly, very comfortably. He was a priest, preaching loudly far and wide trying to help as many people as possible. Religion was a huge part of society, widely accepted everywhere too, and challenged the way people acted and thou...

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...from hell. Douglass however believed he was in slavery hell, and wanted to fight so that future potential slaves would be free. Douglass continually kept his faith with God, and relied heavily on Him in rough times.

While Edwards wanted to use spirituality to convert the nonbelievers, Frederick Douglass saw faith as a way to question the morals of human bondage. While Douglass was a believer, he saw hypocrisy in the self-proclaimed Christian slaveholders.

Aside from the surface differences between Jonathan Edwards and Frederick Douglass, they both believed in separate causes, and stopped at nothing to be heard. The two greatly influenced today’s society, and their own times helped with prejudices and morals.

Works Cited

Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine, eds. The Norton Anthology: American Literature. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2012. Print.

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