Douglass and Jacobs: Contrasting Slave Narratives by Gender

Introduction: Gender and the Slave Narrative

Female and male autobiographical narratives invariably take different forms because of the different, albeit culturally constructed, nature of male and female experience. This is true of narratives written by free people even today, but it is even more so of the autobiographical accounts left by enslaved African Americans of the nineteenth century. Thus, not only does Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass contrast in its plot and true-life story structure with Harriet Jacobs's tale of her escape from bondage — both works are significantly shaped by the gender of their authors, by each author's intent in writing, and by their intended audiences.

Douglass tells the story of a young man who escaped ignorance and violence through movement. Jacobs tells the story of herself as a young woman and mother seeking escape from sexual exploitation — not through movement, but through hiding. These divergent experiences, and the divergent rhetorical strategies each author employed to recount them, form the basis of this comparative analysis of two of the most important slave narratives in American literary history.

Audience and Abolitionist Intent

Both authors wrote against the institution of slavery and used their own personal experiences of slavery in the South to generate support for its national abolition. At the time, the abolitionist movement was grounded mainly in the Northern states. However, Douglass wrote — and also spoke as a gifted orator — primarily to Northern white audiences. His autobiography therefore employs elements demonstrating how slavery was detrimental to the souls of white people, as well as to those of the enslaved, in order to generate support for the anti-slavery cause. An example can be found in his description of a white woman who was one of the first mistresses of the young, enslaved Douglass:

"But, alas! this kind heart had but a short time to remain such. The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work. That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made all of sweet accord, changed to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon." (Douglass, Chapter VI)

Jacobs, by contrast, wrote not as a polemicist but under a pen name. The tone of her autobiography indicates that she was less intent than her male counterpart on using every incident of her life as proof of the wrongs of slavery. She even notes that as a young girl she did not know she was a slave, and that her first mistress was kind. (This changed, of course, upon the death of that elderly woman — an event that highlights the capricious fate of an enslaved person.) Moreover, the tenor of Jacobs's experiences was not merely one of work-related violence, but of the sexual exploitation she endured in her vulnerable position as an enslaved Black woman.

Physical Suffering Versus Sexual Exploitation

Jacobs's personal experiences highlight the discomforting sexual dimension of Black women's exploitation under slavery. Her master, Dr. Flint, desired and was willing to take full advantage of his physical ownership of her, making Jacobs the target of her mistress's hatred — despite the fact that Jacobs herself found the situation miserable and intolerable. Shame, as well as the subjugating nature of bondage itself, was thus particularly intrinsic to the female slave experience. In contrast, while Douglass endured considerable physical pain of punishment as a slave, that suffering came at the hands of overseers rather than through sexual exploitation. The gendered nature of these distinct forms of suffering is central to understanding how Jacobs's narrative functions differently from Douglass's as an abolitionist document.