Compare And Contrast Mark Twain And Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass, a self-taught abolitionist and the most important black American leader of the nineteenth century, was born into slavery in a big plantation in Maryland. He suffered inhumane treatment from the hands of his owner and endured harsh living condition. On the contrary, Mark Twain, one of the most important and influential writers in American history, was born in a tiny village of Florida, Missouri. He lived a carefree and free-spirited life. Their background affects their writing style and we can clearly observe the differences in their writing approach by comparing their two narrative stories – chapter five from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and chapter four from Life on the Mississippi. Both are first person narratives of their childhood but Frederick Douglass uses formal diction and objective description in his writing to make the readers understand the horrors of slavery. In contrast, Mark Twain uses informal diction and subjective description to casts a comedic light on stories and make the people entertained.

“My mother was dead, my grandmother lived far off, so that I seldom saw her. I had two sisters and one …show more content…
He indulges in expressing his opinion and emotion; other boys in the village might not have the same opinion of the boy. He also exaggerates when he compare the boy’s status to his. “But when he came home the next week, alive, renowned, and appeared in church all battered up and bandaged, a shining hero, stared at and wondered over by everybody, it seemed to us that the partiality of Providence for an undeserving reptile had reached a point where it was open to criticism.” Unlike Frederick, Twain made fun of the providence and hinted that perhaps providence has made a mistake of choosing the boy for he does not deserve