Slave Narratives

(Shorter Version)

From 1760 to 1947, more than 200 book-length slave narratives were published in the United States and England, and more than 6,000 briefer slave narratives, some as short as a page, are known to exist.  Slave narratives have a place in American literature, both as literary artifacts and as effect propaganda in the abolition movement.

The influences on the slave narrative in American literature were many:

• The King James Bible
• The traditions of New England sermonizing
• The aims, fervor, and rhetoric of abolitionist orators
• Devotional books, lives of saints and martyrs, and religious allegories such as John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678)

These influences affected not only the former slaves whose lives were the subject of narratives but also those white abolitionists who assisted in the writing of many slave narratives.  Particular attention might be paid to elements of traditional autobiography, storytelling, adventuring, and sermonizing that lent effectiveness to the slave narratives.

The 19th-century "ante-bellum" (the period before a war) slave narrative:

• Generally attempted to arouse the sympathy and humanitarian impulses of readers.
• Emphasized traditional Christian religious ideas.
• Showed the acceptance of the ideals of the dominant white society.
• Emphasized the cruelty of individual slave owners.

However, the black narratives of the 20th century:

• Make little overt effort to arouse the readers' sympathy and humanitarian feeling
• Reject traditional white values
• Celebrate the power of black people
• Concentrate on the racism and cruelty of society as a whole rather than on the racism and cruelty of individuals

Slave narratives are sometimes compared to "Rags-to-Riches Tales," which are akin to parts of Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography and the Horatio Alger “Ragged Dick” series.  Usually, a poor boy goes to the city, makes the most of his chances, encounters good fortune and events to prove himself, and advances to inevitable success.  The conventional rags-to-riches story contains:

• An early life of deprivation and hardship or of benign simplicity.
• An abrupt departure from family and friends.
• Travel to unfamiliar places.
• Confrontations with different cultures and different customs.
• Reports of innocence encountering sophistication, disregard, and cruelty.
• Triumph over adversity through hard work and the help of friends.
• Achievement of financial success and public esteem.

Slave narratives traditionally:

• Are episodic in form, like picaresque tales.
• Are marked by passages of emotional rhetoric and fervid appeals (often in the form of direct address) to the conscience of the narrative reader.
• Emphasize the narrator’s rise to greater understanding, greater self-reliance, and greater awareness of self-worth.
• Serve a propagandizing function by arousing sympathy for the individual narrator and antipathy to slavery in general.
• Give detailed descriptions of the cruelties of slavery and the harm done both to whites (in their spiritual corruption) and to blacks (especially in their physical punishment, in their lack of freedom, and in the breaking up of slave families).
• Contrast the kindness of some individual whites to the cruelties of other individual whites and of the system of slavery as a whole.
• Contrast the brutal reality of slavery to the benign ideals of the nominally Christian society in which it exists.

Slave narratives were popular because of:

• Their lurid scenes of horror and violence that served as an acceptable gratification of the popular appetite for sensationalism
• Their religious emphasis and thus their usefulness as didactic stories and moral lessons
• Their interesting descriptions of life in the South and of the institution of slavery
• Their usefulness as propaganda in the abolition movement
• Their usefulness as propaganda weapons in the sectional political battles in the Unites States before the Civil War

Douglass' narrative has been called a "landmark in the literary crusade against slavery," one of the "most influential pieces of reform propaganda in American literature."  Its popularity is accounted for by its:

• Story-telling tone
• Readability and simple and direct prose
• Believability
• Power to evoke sympathy and arouse emotion
• "Sharply etched portraits" (such as that of Covey)
• Timeliness

Douglass' narrative is typical of the "traditional American autobiography" (again, think Ben Franklin) because it:

• Not only describes the life of an individual
• But also stands as a guide to life for others
• And is a report of the discovery of the self

(Discussion Question: Which of these three qualities is most prominent in Douglass' narrative?)

Douglass' narrative is also often compared with the "Indian Captivity Narrative" of Mary Rowlandson.  For example, each author:

• Is abruptly brought from a state of protected innocence to confrontation with the evil of slavery and captivity ("ruthlessly snatched from the hearth of a fond grandmother")
• Suffers from forced existence in an alien society
• Is unable either to submit or effectively to resist
• Balances the yearning for freedom against the perils of escape
• Sees his or her condition as a symbol of the suffering condition of all the lowly and oppressed
• Grows in moral and spiritual strength as a result of suffering and torment

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