- Reading – This week, we are reading Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (in its entirety) as well as a short excerpt from Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. You can find a link to the Jacobs reading under the “Readings” tab at the top of the blog.
- I have recorded a brief introduction to the reading which you can access HERE. Use the Passcode: x#K6x#x# to access the recording. After watching the video, please share a comment on this post offering one possible motive a slave or former slave might have for writing his/her autobiography. Please share your comment by Monday, March 22nd.
- Choose a passage or quotation from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass that made a strong impression on you in your reading. Post the passage on our class blog and provide a brief (300 word) analysis of its significance. Some things to consider: What does this passage add to our understanding of slavery in America? What does it reveal about Frederick Douglass? What do Douglass’ diction, syntax, and literary style add to his story here? What questions are raised for you by the passage you’ve selected? Please share your response as a “new post” (not as a comment on this post), and include your name in the title of the post. Your post must be up by Wednesday, March 24th in order to receive full credit. Please be prepared to share your passage during our zoom call on Wednesday.
- After reading the excerpts from Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl that I have linked to on our “Readings” page, please compose a two-part response post. Your post must be shared by Sunday, March 28th.
- First, what does Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl add to our understanding of the experience of slavery? How does this narrative connect to or differ from Douglass’? (As you read Jacobs’ description of her attic hiding spot, which she refers to as a “loophole of retreat,” keep in mind that she remained in this hiding place for seven years!)
- Second, please address the following prompt: Although slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865, slavery in various forms continues to be an important Human Rights issue even in our own day. Spend some time exploring the topic of contemporary slavery on the internet, and share three important things that you learn about this subject.
5. Office Hours: I will be holding regular office hours on Monday. You can sign up HERE. This is a good opportunity to meet with me about your essay!
6.. Essays Due: Your paper must be submitted to me as a Google Doc by Friday, March 26th. Please share it with [email protected]. While your essay itself should have an engaging title, please give the file the generic title: Your Name. ENG2850 Essay 1. (As I indicated earlier, you have the option of submitting the essay as late as Sunday, March 28th, but I would encourage you to get it done by the 26th in order to enjoy an unburdened Spring Break.)
One reason why a former slave might write an autobiography might be to encourage other slaves to take a leap of faith also. I think that if slaves were lucky enough to be literate, reading another slave’s life story might give some hope to themselves, maybe even encourage them to do the same and cause a domino effect. But at the same time even if the majority of the slaves were illiterate, just knowing that another slave that has risen through adversity would mean a great deal to them, stories they can anchor their hopes and dreams on.
Yes, it’s quite possible that the earliest slave narratives circulated informally as oral histories long before anyone published a printed slave narrative.
One possible reason why a former slave might write an autobiography might be so that readers would get a point of view about slavery from slaves themselves and maybe understand their point of view. When professor pointed out that Douglas started off his autobiography not knowing his identity and compared it to an animal because of his lack of knowledge about himself, he was telling his truth and pointing out an internal battle that slaves faced even about their identity. Also, Douglass was an activist, so maybe by writing his autobiography, people would understand the horror of slavery and join the fight to abolish slavery.
I think you are right that Douglass was aware of the power of a first-person account to convey to readers what the institution of slavery was really like.
– One of the possible motives a slave might have to write his autobiography is to show privileged people the struggles and difficulties they must go through in their day-to-day life and how they must endure the pain of being looked down upon enough to encourage people to put a stop to slavery. Fredrick Douglass wrote his autobiography in such a way that cleared common misconceptions of people looking down upon slaves as illiterate however his autobiography left everyone shocked and it was clear that slaves can read and write, it was oppression that was holding them down and threatened the slave owners.
I’m glad that you mentioned the issue of literacy. I think it was important for Douglass to show readers what a man born into slavery and denied a formal education was capable of.
Another motive might be of hope to be understood. Maybe they knew that one day racism and slavery will come to an end and their autobiography will help the future generations to understand how much cruelty they had to go through, their living standards vs the living standards of people who enjoyed fruit of their labor. They were reaching out to humanity. Maybe they knew their autobiographies will one day become a symbol and help abolish slavery. That the incidents they share would soften the hearts of many and ignite the human inside of them.
You make two good suggestions here: first, that people’s hearts might be softened by his narrative and thus willing to work toward abolition and second, that his work acts as a testament to convey to future generations what slavery was like.
One reason why a former slave might write an autobiography is to that the reader gets a better understanding of slaves and how hard slaves have to work. Frederick Douglas was an activist and wanted to abolish slavery. Slaves worked very hard and they don’t know who they are and they didn’t have an education because their were slaves. The author want the readers to understand that slavery was something that needed to be stopped and abolish slavery completely.
Yes, I think that Douglass and those who helped him to publish this work hoped that it would awaken readers to the injustice of slavery.
One reason why a former slave might write an autobiography is to present the reader with a point of view of how terrible slavery is. A former slaves point view could help bring change, inspire new laws and abolish slavery. The next generation can read an autobiography and bring change to slavery so people can understand that no one should be treated this way. It’s important to show the world experiences of some hardships so the world can truly understand how awful those experiences were.
Yes, I think that you are right that one hope that Douglass probably had was that this work would help to bring about real change in the world.
I believe one of the main motives these narrators had to share their stories and their experiences was in order to make themselves understood and connected to other slaves or former slaves. Most, if not all African Americans that underwent slavery went through the same experiences as portrayed in the texts therefore it was a way to keep them connected and reflect with each other so they know that they were all in this together and that one day it will be over.
This is a really interesting suggestion. I love the idea that writing his narrative gave Douglass a meaningful way to connect with other enslaved Americans or with other African Americans.
One reason slaves would publish an autobiography of their lives would be in an abolitionist effort to reveal the horrors and pains of slavery, and so that the people of America, particularly in the North where the experience of a slave was largely oblivious to people, could see what the typical life of a slave was. By highlighting the heinous experiences in their lives, a slave’s motive might have been to arouse attention and even sympathy for their situation, so that there might be more of an effort to end slavery.
Yes, this is certainly one of his primary goals. I wonder if Douglass had other motives for writing his autobiography that were more about his own internal or psychological needs than about working towards political change.
I think one motive a slave or former slave might have for writing his/her autobiography is because they know how to slave was miserable, and how the slave’s life going, as Douglass’s experience as a slave hw knows it, and hw wants to change the slavery period, he want to end the slavery period.
Zijie, Yes, but how do you imagine that writing his autobiography would be a way to end slavery? How would that work?
One possible reason that a slave might be inspired to share his or her story was because many slaves did not know how to read or write in the first place. Because Douglass was one of the fortunate people who did know how to read and wrote, it was important that he use this skill to spread awareness about the harsh conditions him and many other slaves went through. History has a way of repeating itself and by writing down his story, it helps to educate the future generation of these atrocities and inspire them to make a change. If Frederick didn’t write this autobiography, many people would be blind to the harshness of slavery. I also think he wrote this as a way of taking control of his life and having it being told from his own words instead of someone else’s.
Fiona, There are lots of excellent ideas here. Two points you make here are particularly insightful: first, that perhaps because Douglass is literate, he feels like it is incumbent on him to put his story into writing since so many of his fellow slaves do not have the ability to do so, and second, that writing his autobiography is a way of taking control of his own life. I think that is so important; telling his own story is itself an act of self-determination and empowerment!