Jacobs and Douglas: a comparison
Harriet Jacobs & Frederick Douglas: a comparison.Two stories about slavery, both very impressive but at the same time very different from each other. The stories are written by authors who both where once slaves themselves, but finally gained freedom One was written by a woman and thus giving us a look at how slave women experienced this life, the other written by a man. The first story, Incidents in the life of a slave girl. by Harriet Jacobs, seems to be an autobiographical one, although some critics claim it is fiction. Whether true or not the story had a great impact on me . It gave a good inside look in how the life of a slave woman was, the problems she met, especially the sexual abuse by the master. It astonished me that a master impregnate a slave and that this child followed the condition of the mother, and was thus born a slave (this I did not know before).
He also tells us that the first step towards freedom is learning to read and write, skills that were kept as far a way from slave to make sure they didn't escape. Although slavery is forbidden by law, the thoughts that this kind of abuse is still taking place in some parts of the world makes me sad. courage of Linda for standing they abuse and the things she did to be independent (especially in choosing her own man and not having one forced upon her), such as living in a dark and small place , escaping and not seeing her children, made a deep impact on me. With this story Jacobs made very clear, that although some slave owners were kind, being a slave and being a property of some one is something very wrong and that being once a slave freedom, which Linda finally possessed, was the highest property to have. Douglass had a different look on Christianity, he writes how hypocrite most of his religious masters were, praying all day and claiming to be a good Christian but on the other hand beating and abusing their slaves and trying to justify this by quoting the holy scripts. He also gives a lot of other examples of tricks slaveholders had to prevent the slaves from escaping and protesting. From of the very beginning he made clear that even death was better than being a slave and that he was he sure that once he could escape from slavery and being a freeman at last. Another thing that can be found in both stories is the role Christianity plays, in the story by Jacobs the baptism of Linda's child was very important to her grandmother, a good Christian, who also could forgive Dr. This is also made clear by Frederick Douglas, but in a very different way, his story was harder and the details he gave of the abuse where cruel and gave me the shivers . In both stories it is made very clear that the life of a slave was hard and that slaveholders most of the time were very cruel, not seeing their slaves as persons but as property. Flint, this meaning that although being a slave you should keep your faith. I finally would like to mention that, after reading these stories it was once more made clear to me how ridiculous it is that one person can be owned by another person and having no right and how scary I find it that one person can abuse another person.
Common topics in this essay:
Frederick Douglas,
Harriet Jacobs,
Douglass Christianity,
Dr Flint,
life slave,
harriet jacobs,
story jacobs,
frederick douglas,
|
Acceptance Essays
