Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs: Slave Narratives Essay

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The first half of nineteenth century witnessed the prosperity of slavery institution. The supporters of slaves sought for a single opportunity to justify their rights to use humans for their own purpose. They use religion and legal arguments in order to encourage the slaves. The encaged people were subjected to unendurable tortures and even to the sexual abuse. The master-slave relations that implied enslavement and sexual exploitation gave rise to narratives of ex-slaves that suffered pain and incessant humiliation from their white owners. Regarding that, the stories of Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass reflect the true picture of those horrible events. Both authors highlight the repulsive treatment of slaves that was based on the master’s feeling of hypocrisy and superiority.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the story of the fight for civil fights and racial injustice. Douglass describes the horrible conditions and brutalities that he had to experience. However, his childhood could be described as the most favorable time for him as he lived with his mother and later with his grandmother Betty Bailey. The narration is also about Frederick’s enslaved existence and his escape in 1838. Living in the era of the Civil War and the era of suffering, Douglass presented a bright testimony of those abhorrent events. The book is also a confession about the most painful moment of Douglass’s life. In that regard, Frederick writes: “I had been at my new home but one week, before Mr. Convey gave me a very severe whipping, cutting my back, causing the blood to run, and raising ridges on my flesh as large as my little finger” (Douglass 56). As it could be viewed, these times were the hardest and the most “awkward”. Harriet Jacobs reminds in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl the horrible picture of physical violence and sexual abuse inflicted on female slaves. Incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs is a true story of a young girl that suffered pain so that the main reason for her writing was to awaken the compassion in other women and incentive to rebel. Harriet bravely resorts to the terrible details of sexual violence and women’s humiliation.

In their narratives, both authors describe the grief of the loss of parents as they both were subjected to slavery since their childhood. Hence, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass runs about the hard fate of the slave whose father was a white slave owner and overseer. In that regard, Douglass writes “…the shareholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and farther” (Douglass 11). Frederick was too young to be separated from his family and therefore that was the most upsetting experience in his life. The same doom was destined for Jacobs. In her narrations, discloses the depiction of a parent that loved since due to them she could not realize for long that she was a slave. Her father earned a lot of privileges of a free man so that Harriet felt as if she was free too. After their death, Jacobs states: “I knelt by the graves of my parents, and thanked God, as I had often done before, that they had not lived to witness my trials, or to mourn over my sins. I had received my mother’s blessing when she died.” (Jacobs 101). As we can observe, both slaves lost their family in their childhood. However, what distinguished them was that Douglass was the son of master whereas Jacobs was the descendant of slaves.

Certainly, Douglass and Jacobs tried to compensate for their enslavement and pejorative treatment they endured by the quest of at least artificial freedom. In a desperate search for revealing his tortures, Douglass tries to work as a teacher. In that time, he believed that this was a veritable “pathway to freedom” (Douglass 36). However, this new status granted by one of his numerous masters was far from calling it liberty. Therefore, Douglass decides to flee by canoeing up the Chesapeake Bay. But the attempt failed and Frederique acquired the previous status. His escape to New York, however, opens a difficult path to freedom. In that time, he realized that “[he] expected to have been safe in a land of freedom; but I was covered with gloom, sunk down to the utmost despair” (Douglass 84). His image of freedom did not fully coincide with reality. The freedom that Douglass longed to obtain was too hard to keep. For Jacobs, freedom was a relief from constant acts of violence and sexual abuse inflicted by a much older man with a better education and social superiority. Therefore, freedom was the only way to defend her chastity. However, the loss of chastity for Jacobs does not mean the loss of prides or and dignity. In that respect, freedom was also the compensation for sexual abuse. Jacobs’s aspiration for freedom was still motivated by the desire to set her two children free from the horrible slave experience. Harriet is confident that “nothing less than freedom of [her] children” could reward her horrible sacrifice.

It goes without saying that the institution of slavery had a considerable impact on both African Americans and the white people. The era of feudalism influenced the mental and cultural comprehension of the world. During the Civil War, the North and the South had contrasted images of human relationships. Douglass was confident slavery was an inherent part of their lives; it determined their social and economical status. For Douglass, “slavery was a poor school for human intellect and heart” (10), so that it became the measure of humanity and respect.

Jacobs believed that “nothing annoyed [white people] so much as to see colored people living in comfort and respectability” (Jacobs 69). Her narrations revealed that white people shaped their image by means of the number of slaves. Here, subordinate relations fixed the tradition of superiority of white race. The black population was regarded as property but as humans. Anyway, according to Jacobs, “slavery is a curse for the whites as well as for the blacks. It makes white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched.” At the same time, “shareholders seem to be aware of the widespread moral ruin occasioned by this wicked system” (Jacobs 56). Arising out of it, the consciousness of white people was fixed as they were confident that black people were created to serve them. In addition, slavery greatly distorted America’s adequate view on human right thus affecting the legal system and natural laws. In that regard, Douglass agreed that nothing but slavery forced white men “to cripple their intellects, darken their minds, debase their moral nature” (Douglass 12).

In conclusion, the narrations are a valuable heritage for the American people to comprehend the value of freedom and the pain of enslavement. The books are the evidence of the horrible past and the call for future generations to respect human rights of all people irrespective of race. Douglass and Jacobs managed to render their unique vision of the master-slave relationships and to analyze their influence on American people.

Works Cited

Douglass, Frederique. Narratives in the life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave US: BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008.

Jacobs, Harriet Ann. Incidents in the life of slaves. US: Signet Classic, 2000.

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