Similarities Between Mark Twain And Frederick Douglass

Mark Twain and Frederick Douglas are known as two of the greatest writers in American History. Both writers write about the past as a way of sharing their stories about a dark time period, one plagued by slavery. Even though both writers excel in their abilities to capture the reader’s attention, they achieve their purposes in different ways. While Frederick Douglas attempts to remain objective, Mark Twain’s writing is filled with subjective prose, eliciting the ways in which authors can take either approach and still have writing that engages the reader.

To begin with, Frederick Douglas attempts to remain an objective narrator. Though he often writes about subjects that are very emotional, he attempts to remain neutral by only leaving the necessary details. When Frederick Douglas finally manages to leave for Baltimore, a city that represents hope and freedom for him, he still attempts to remain objective by purely writing the necessary details. He writes, “I then placed myself in the bows of the sloop, and there spent the remainder of the day in looking ahead, interesting myself in what was in the distance rather than in things near or behind.” …show more content…
When writing about the Mississippi river, Twain uses a lot of imagery to paint a better picture of the past. He writes, “The great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun.” This statement is packed with a lot of emotion, clearly letting the reader know that the Mississippi River was much more than a river—it symbolized hope for the people who sought to work on the steam boat. Having this amount of subjective detail also helps place a better picture of history because it lets the reader know how people in the past felt about certain things, and not just the details. Subjective writing helps the reader understand the motions, rather than just the