Slavery, Douglass and Stowe

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how, within 19th century American literature, two works on slavery that helped to bring about the abolition of slavery were Frederick Douglass' "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave" (1845) and Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1851). It looks at how these were two of the most important books of the antebellum era and how both contributed, due to their strong impacts on the hearts and minds of the American public, to the eventual abolition of slavery in America. It also examines how both works depict, in detail, the south's "peculiar institution" of slavery, and its extreme inhumanity and cruelty.

From the Paper:

"However, Douglass' Narrative further describes how Frederick, soon undaunted, and by now enormously thirsty for additional knowledge, continues learning, against the odds, to read and write, anyway. He accomplishes this by enlisting white neighborhood boys his age to help him with his letters in exchange for handouts of bread from the Auld kitchen (Douglass, p. 2017). It is Frederick's duty to be an obedient slave to his Baltimore master, Hugh Auld, but Frederick's desire to learn to read, despite its being illegal, clearly wins out.
Later, Douglass, as a young man seeking freedom, as he also writes in his Narrative, ran away first to the North, and then to England (when he was already a known author and speaker worldwide). "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Douglass, F. (1998). Narrative of the life of an American slave. In The Norton anthology of American literature, 1. 5th edn. N. Baym et al. (Eds). New York: Norton. 2000-2057.
• Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811-1896. (2000) Books and writers. Retrieved April 24, 2006, from: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hbstowe.htm.
• Stowe, H.B. (1998) Uncle Tom's cabin. In The Norton anthology of American literature, 1. 5th Edn. N. Baym et al. (Eds). New York: Norton. 1645-1766.

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• Essay # 33850 : "Stowe, Jacobs, Douglass and Women's Place in Society"
• Analytical Essay # 58695 : "Slavery"

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