Slavery and Literature

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how Jacobs's "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" and Douglass' "Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass" are narratives riddled with philosophical mishaps and plagued with obvious inconsistancies. It discusses how, throughout both narratives, the authors are consistent in obfuscating the truth - Jacobs ignores previous developments of emotions, Douglass ignores the underlying Platonic fallacies in his rhetoric. Thoughts are clouded, events are clouded, issues are clouded and rhetoric is made clear - the truth about the horrors of slavery made clear - at the cost of other truths.

From the Paper:

"Jacobs also has problems with anti-slavery arguments based on racism. Jacobs states that "the colored race are the most cheerful and forgiving people on the face of the earth." (Jacobs 78) Yet, in an earlier argument against racism based slavery, she proclaims "What a libel upon the heavenly Father, who "made of one blood all nations of men!" And then who are Africans? Who can measure the amount of Anglo-Saxon blood coursing in the veins of American slaves?" (Jacobs 40) Clearly Jacobs believes she can, and on sight at that, as she seems to be able to make judgements of a person's character based on the color of their skin. How is the generalization that colored people are more cheerful and forgiving possible if they are one with all nations of men? What libel upon the heavenly Father indeed, who would not enjoy his scripture used in hypocrisy. "

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