Authenticity of the Slave Narrative
Only a scarce amount of people would say they were not familiarized with the classic fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” growing up. The story’s most simplistic message is to always be sincere or people won’t believe you when you have something valid to say. This story has been told for hundreds of years and is often utilized as a tool to teach children about the importance of truthfulness. Authenticity is one of humanity's greatest values, so when the genuinity of someone's narrative is questioned, it is often discredited entirely. Historical and literary values in the narrative aren’t even considered to exist when a narrative thought to be true is discovered to be a work of fiction. Slave narratives have often …show more content…
Douglass accounted what it was like to live as a slave in his memoir Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In this narrative, Douglass tells the reader about life as a slave in the South, including what it was like to be denied the right to know his own mother (Douglass 316), how slavery was not only bad for a Black individual but also for White citizens because it made them act in appalling, un-Christian like ways (Douglass 341), and the happiness he experienced when he finally became a free man in New York (Douglass 390). This slave narrative is extremely well known and its effect on the abolitionist movement was …show more content…
Jacob’s narrative discusses the brutality of slavery, and for the first time shows the White abolitionist readers what is was like to be both female and Black. She writes about how her master violated her and whispered vulgar comments that took away an innocence that all children should be able to possess and how no matter if a woman was Black or White, she wasn’t protected from sexual violation (Jacobs 436). Jacobs talks about how many slaves were kept ignorant for the benefit of the slaveholder (Jacobs 454). She tells the reader of the pain and suffering she endured for seven years and how the agony was drowned out by the love she had for her children (Jacobs 560). Expanding on the complexities of freedom more so than Douglass did, Jacob’s also discusses that freedom of the Black individual wasn’t the same thing as equality for Black Americans (Jacobs 604). Her memoir evoked a sense of empathy in the reader and surely strengthened the case to abolish
Only a scarce amount of people would say they were not familiarized with the classic fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” growing up. The story’s most simplistic message is to always be sincere or people won’t believe you when you have something valid to say. This story has been told for hundreds of years and is often utilized as a tool to teach children about the importance of truthfulness. Authenticity is one of humanity's greatest values, so when the genuinity of someone's narrative is questioned, it is often discredited entirely. Historical and literary values in the narrative aren’t even considered to exist when a narrative thought to be true is discovered to be a work of fiction. Slave narratives have often …show more content…
Douglass accounted what it was like to live as a slave in his memoir Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In this narrative, Douglass tells the reader about life as a slave in the South, including what it was like to be denied the right to know his own mother (Douglass 316), how slavery was not only bad for a Black individual but also for White citizens because it made them act in appalling, un-Christian like ways (Douglass 341), and the happiness he experienced when he finally became a free man in New York (Douglass 390). This slave narrative is extremely well known and its effect on the abolitionist movement was …show more content…
Jacob’s narrative discusses the brutality of slavery, and for the first time shows the White abolitionist readers what is was like to be both female and Black. She writes about how her master violated her and whispered vulgar comments that took away an innocence that all children should be able to possess and how no matter if a woman was Black or White, she wasn’t protected from sexual violation (Jacobs 436). Jacobs talks about how many slaves were kept ignorant for the benefit of the slaveholder (Jacobs 454). She tells the reader of the pain and suffering she endured for seven years and how the agony was drowned out by the love she had for her children (Jacobs 560). Expanding on the complexities of freedom more so than Douglass did, Jacob’s also discusses that freedom of the Black individual wasn’t the same thing as equality for Black Americans (Jacobs 604). Her memoir evoked a sense of empathy in the reader and surely strengthened the case to abolish