Comparing Hillbilly Elegy And The Life Of Frederick Douglass

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Cheer Fund Offering The novel Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance has multiple lessons that are similar to the lessons of literature that we have read in class. One piece of literature that it is connected to is The Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass. The first way that these two pieces of literature are connected is that both authors believe that education is the key to a better life. J.D. would not have been who he was without his education. Almost no one from his town gets a college degree and a lot of these people end up with horrible lives. Vance knows that the only way to give his family a better life is by getting a college degree. Vance often writes about all of the unsuccessful people around him. Vance describes a woman who ruined what little life she had by passing out from drugs and leaving her bathtub running (145). There are so many other examples of unsuccessful people all around Vance during his childhood, from his neighbors to his own mother. He never has someone to look up to other …show more content…

In both of these novels there are children who have to try their best to not make the same mistakes as their parents. In Huckleberry Finn, his father was the town drunk and was cruel to his son. Huckleberry ran away, because he wanted to get away from him. Similar things happen in Hillbilly Elegy, in this novel, Vance is trying to not to make the same mistakes as his mother and virtually everyone around him. Vance states that Mamaw had struggled through her whole life and it was mainly because the odds were against her with a home life like she had. This made him wonder, what would happen to him? (143). Vance is saying how with the type of life he has at home, chances are he is going to end up like everyone else in his family. He worries about this a lot and it is part of the reason that he works so hard. He never wants to have to live a life like his Mom or