In both The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and My Bondage and My Freedom, both texts discuss the same events. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was written in 1845, compared to that of My Bondage and My Freedom, which was written 10 years later in 1855. Although both texts are discussing the same events, they are described differently in each text by Frederick Douglass.
“I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed.” (Douglass Ch. 7)
The above quote, from Life of Frederick Douglass and My Bondage, is Frederick Douglass talking about he is feeling as a result of the hardship he is going through with being a slave. The experience was so bad, he had wished that he was’t alive any longer, or rather just didn’t even exist.
“From my earliest recollections of serious matters, I date the entertainment of something like an ineffaceable conviction, that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and this conviction, like a word of living faith, strengthened me through the darkest trials of my lot. This good spirit was from God; and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise.” (Douglass Ch. 9)
The above quote, from My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick is certain that slavery will one day end and he will no longer have to endure the struggle of slavery,
Both of the quotes are describing how he feels as a result of slavery. In the earlier book, Frederick is miserable and doesn’t want to exist any longer because slavery was “killing” him. In the second book, Frederick is much more optimistic and happy, and he believes that slavery will come to an end. I believe the effect of the changes from the first narrative is that Frederick Douglass wanted other slaves, who could read, to read his book and feel more optimistic about being free and no longer dealing with slavery. In his first book, if current slaves, who were already upset and angry and more, read it and see about how awful his life was and he wanted to die, they might feel the same way. But if they read his second book and see he was actually not always so angry and upset and more optimistic, they might feel the same way too.
What’s good:
You’re addressing both texts.
You use quotes.
You try to make sure we know where those quotes come from.
Concern:
I think you want to work on how you’re integrating quotes. Right now you just kind of fling them out there. In a post, that strategy is not so bad, but in a paper it doesn’t work too well.
I see what your point of comparison is and it is interesting. However I worry that you may be risking taking things out of context. In order for your comparison to work, it’s not enough for you to say these two individual passages differ. You need to be able to say that they are exemplary of their respective texts. You need to be able to say (and I don’t know that you can) that in My Bondage and My Freedom Douglass rarely if ever describes a space of such abjection that he thinks about suicide or wanted death. Otherwise your comparison may be a false one based on selected picking rather than an actual trend in the narrative.
When you use two different works by the same author, you use part of the title in the inline citations. So instead of (Douglass, 145) it would be (My Bondage, 145) or (Narrative 145).