Comparing Douglass And Jacobs Narratives

Words: 565
Pages: 3
Open Document
The Difference between Male and Female Slaves as Evident in Douglass and Jacobs Narrators. Although male and female slaves had a variety of different experiences the narrators of Douglass and Jacobs do reveal some similarities. Fredrick Douglass spent the year 1833 with Covey, while he was frequently and brutally whipped. Douglass starts his Narrative with what he still knows about his birth in Tuckahoe, Maryland and what he does not know. "I have no accurate knowledge of my age," Douglass states; nor can he positively identify his father (p.1). Douglass notes that it was "whispered that my master was my father. . . [But] the means of knowing was suppressed from me" (p. 2). He recalls that he was separated from his mother "before I knew her …show more content…
. . to keep their slaves this ignorant" (p.1). Douglass witnessed brutal and painful whippings of other slaves both male and female slaves old and young as a child. "I had no bed," he writes. "[I would] sleep on the cold, damp, clay floor, with my head in [a sack for carrying corn] and feet out" (p.27). All slaves where laid down side by side on the cold and damp floor covering themselves with uncomfortable blankets. At age seven, Douglass is sent to work for Hugh Auld, a ship carpenter in Baltimore. Hugh Auld wife name is Sophia Auld and she taught Douglas how to read and write even though her husband wanted her to stop teaching him. At age fifteen, Douglass was sent back to his old master to work for Hugh’s Brother and sent to another slave owner. Douglass tried to run away and was captured he was tired of being mistreated, abused, whipped, and overworked ending up with a fight between him and the slave owner Mr. Covey. Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1813. Margaret Horniblow taught Harriet to read, write and sew when she as six. Margaret Horniblow had signed a will leaving her slaves to her mother. Dr. James Norcom and a man named Henry Flury witnessed a later codicil to the will directing
Show More

Related Documents: Comparing Douglass And Jacobs Narratives

Gender Roles In Frederick Douglass

The authors of slave narratives graphically describe the miseries they were forced to endure during their enslavement, entail their flight to freedom, and detail the ways in which newly freed slaves worked towards helping emancipate those still suffering in bondage. Each author illustrates a different perspective about life as a slave and gender is thoroughly intertwined in their experiences. By comparing Frederick Douglass’s “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave,” to…

Words 623 - Pages 3

Comparing Harriet Ann Jacobs And Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

This past week in my american history class we read,” Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl”, a true story about Harriet Ann Jacobs and how she spent her life trying to gain freedom for herself and her children. I’m going to be comparing two stories in this research paper Harriet’s and Frederick Douglass's; to see what happened to them that were similar and that were different. I’m going to mainly focus on the similarities in this this part of this research paper. Both of their stories explains…

Words 400 - Pages 2