While there are many similarities between the slave narratives ofand Harriet Jacobs,
some of the key differences between the two writers' stories hinge upon their respective
genders. Early on in Douglass' narrative he describes witnessing the whipping of Aunt Hester and
connecting her brutal punishment at the hands of her master to her physical attractiveness and
the role sexuality and rape play in the lives of female slaves. In a way, Harriet Jacobs' story
takes up a perspective similar to Aunt Hester's. Jacobs' life is less directly brutal than
Douglass', but she is subject to a kind of sexualized terrorism and abuse on the part of her
master.
The gender difference also plays out in an interesting way in terms
of the type of persona each writer presents and the sets of values through which they appeal to
readers. For instance, Douglass' story is characteristically American in the degree to which it
is story of Emersonian "Self-Reliance"--Douglass uses cunning and...
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