Frederick Douglass And Harriet Jacobs's Theory Of Freedom

In the early 19th century, American literature witnessed the birth of a new genre by the name of the North American slave narrative. It has often been said that this genre was the byproduct of the pressure from white abolitionist to encourage former slaves to write a formulated narrative that would later be utilized as propaganda. This is important to note in respect to how writers often framed this notion of freedom that is commonly discussed among slave narratives, most notably done by Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs. While both authors appear to find commonality in their understanding of both the systemic effects of plantation life and the importance of this abstract notion of obtaining freedom by mean of literacy, Jacobs also understood freedom to be familial, whereas Douglass understood it to be predominantly ego-literary. Literacy came to Jacob far before it …show more content…
When analyzing both narratives, it’s increasingly apparent that Jacobs views freedom as familial, this is made clear on page 86 of her narrative in which she states, “I could have made my escape alone; but it was more for my helpless children than for myself that I longed for freedom.” Freedom in its essence is understood by Jacobs to be raw humanity, the ability to feel and to do so without boundaries. Her interpretation mimics that of the modern day concept of radical love and one’s’ ability to embody that in a way that contributes to how they move about their daily life. This differs greatly from what Douglass assumed freedom to be, and that is to be rooted in literacy and acquired knowledge, he thought of the ability to read and write as revolutionary and freedom to be individualistic in that one can only obtain true freedom if they conformed to what we now perceive to be a formal