William Ape's Looking Glass For White Men And Frederick Douglas What To A Slave

When writing a work of literature, it is important to determine an audience in which the book is intended for. Whether it be by gender, age, religion, or race, it is important to target a group of people because it gives the work of literature an aim. In protest literature, the audience is often either the oppressors or the oppressed. Sometimes is may be a mix of both, however there is a main target in which there is a goal to achieve with the audience; whether it be to inform them or to influence them. There are many examples through many works of protest literature, each differing in their strategy and efforts to achieve their goal among their Audience. Two good examples are William Ape’s An Indians Looking Glass for White Men and Frederick Douglas’ What to a slave is the Fourth of July?. These two works have many similarities with each other, but also have many differences.
With An Indians Looking Glass for White Men, Apes was addressing the audience of the oppressors, which in this case were white Americans. Apes tactics involve him firmly addressing his readers by directly asking them a series of question. From the beginning of his work, Ape’s …show more content…
Douglas’ audience was also white Americans, but more directed towards northerner whites. His goal was to show the wrongfulness of slavery, show that abolition can be acceptable, and he wanted to show that African Americans are not as unintelligent as people perceived. Douglas opens his speech with an apology to the audience. He does this to make the audience not feel intimidated by him standing up there, as well as a means to win them over with his sincerity. If they do not agree with his comments, they may support him because they are sympathetic towards his benevolence. He is constantly sympathetic with his remarks throughout the entire speech to show that he means no harm but is speaking his