Autobiography Of Harriet Jacobs And Frederick Douglass, An American Slave

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Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass Autobiography
A Comparison without Borders Everybody knows about the story of Harriet Jacobs’s “Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl;” and Frederick Douglass’ “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass’s, an American Slave.” In this paper I will be comparing and contrasting the differences in opinion and gender in each of the stories. Both of these stories are autobiographies from two slaves, who went through the same kind of punishment specific to gender; they talk about some of the same stuff, but it’s crazy how it is the same yet still so different. The main focus on the comparison of these two authors, how and what they wrote about, is gender. The difference in gender takes it from a completely
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Her main focus was family, family is what go her through the tough times. She grew up very close to her family, it impacted every decision she ever made and of all those family members the most influential one was her grandmother. When she was fifteen she was trying to escape being a mistress so she entered into a sexual relationship with Mr. Sands and birthed two children. From then on out her main focus was her family and how she could keep their best interest in mind. She differs a lot from Douglass because she acts in a more selfless manner; rather than focusing on her freedom just for herself she wants to have her entire family free with her. She says it perfectly and shows how passionate she is when she says, “I knew the doom that awaited my fair baby in slavery, and I determined to save her from it, or perish in the attempt (Jacobs Kindle Location 1480)”. Douglass, continues his journey towards freedom but in the meanwhile he is distancing himself from his family. Family was never a big thing for him because he didn’t know much about them. Most people would say that he is cold and distant lacking emotion, he wasn’t an open person, he didn’t talk a lot to people he didn’t know and nobody really knew if he was married with children or …show more content…
They are talking about the same things about how they were treated and how it made them feel, what their perseverance was and what they were leaning on the whole time they went through this. They show their pain and emotions and they talk about the other gender and what they went through. Seeing that they are the opposite sex, they only talk about what they think the other gender is going through, it is not until you see the others view to see what really happened and what each of them endured in each of their lives. Douglass’ story was more about his quest for his manliness and the physical battles won, he plays more of a hero in his own story. “During the first six months, of that year, scarce a week passed without his whipping me. (Douglass, pg. 58).” Jacobs however, does not play as much as a heroic figure in her story, it is more along the lines of a confession where she says, “I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp of the demon Slavery; and the monster proved too strong for me (Jacobs pg. 800).” She eventually stands up to her “owner” and tells him that she will no longer be his sex slave, she also feels empowered like Douglass and is finally

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