Born in 1818, Frederick Douglass spent the early years of his life as a slave. After escaping from slavery, he became one of the most renowned spokespeople not only for the cause of abolitionism, but also for that of women's suffrage. The narrative of Douglass's life, which we will spend this week of class discussing, is an important document in both African American and ethnic American literary history. The many tropes Douglass employs in his autobiographical narrative have outlived the work's important political message and become a means of talking about race, history, and agency in American identity proper. How might we read Douglass' story alongside those of turn-of-the-century immigrant writers, such as Anzia Yezierska or Sui Sin Far? How has Douglass' writing influenced subsequent African American and ethnic American literature?
In my opinion, it is definitely possible to read Douglass' story alongside such turn-of-the-century writers as Anzia Yezierska and Sui Sin Far. Although Douglass, Yezierska, and Far obviously came from different backgrounds and had different stories to tell, it is evident to the modern reader that a unifying theme is shared by each of their individual works. In other words, Douglass, Yezierska, and Far each knew what it was like to be considered an outsider to the dominant white society of their respective time periods; each of these authors were thought to be "different" and were subsequently deemed as outcasts. Although their literary works contain different situations and various plots, the thread that unites them is one of misunderstanding, betrayal, and the inability to be accepted. They may have been different people with their own separate problems, but it is possible to view their key themes as the thread that unites them together as ethnic authors.
ReplyDeleteKatherine Burton