Harriet Jacobs Research Paper

Courage is described as “having strength in the face of grief and pain.” This is the exact word I would use to describe the African American writers that have been discussed throughout this course. They have exhibited such a trait by allowing their voice to be heard. There are several different stories and experiences that African Americans endured during their lifetime. Novelists such as Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass and Solomon Northup, just to name a few, have shared their journey in slavery through literature. They have enlightened others on their hardships faced, discriminations, tragedies, separation of families, and even accomplishments.
Harriet Jacobs is known as the first woman to write a slave narrative in the United States. Her story is powerful because readers get to hear about slavery from a woman’s point-of-view. Although Jacobs’ story is personal and true, she creates a retrospective character that plays her role. She skillfully crafts a narrative allusion as if she is telling someone else’s story. Readers learn from Jacobs that slave women had to endure things such as jealous mistresses, perverted slaveholders, and the separation from their children, which proves that women are degraded in other ways than men.

His narrative is not only about slavery, but also he gives his readers something to think about besides slavery; how can the human spirit be set free? The purpose of writing his autobiography was to prove that if people could see what slavery was truly like, then they would understand why it needed to be abolished. Douglass informed his readers that he made himself free and he let them know that freedom is not given, but it is something that one must find within, whether it is through religion or education. He allows one to realize that the battle never stops and then ponder will we ever be fully