Similarities Between Mark Twain And Frederick Douglass

Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass are two American authors who use very different, yet similar narrative techniques in their novels. Both authors have a very strong background in slavery. Maybe not the same experiences, but they both know that slavery needed to be stopped. Mark Twain grew up in Missouri which was known to be a slave state. During the summer, Twain would visit his uncle, John Quarles, who owned about 20 slaves. Twain had witnessed first-hand how poorly the slaves were treated which is a main reason that he became an anti-slave activist. Another anti-slave activist is Frederick Douglass. Unlike Twain, Douglass was a slave. He escaped from his home in Maryland around the age of 20, changed his name, and declared himself free. Douglass had then written many autobiography’s about his time as a slave and is now a very famous American writer. Although they both have a background with slavery, the ways they wrote about it differed due to their personal experiences.

He used humor in his writing’s to lighten up the mood but also remain realistic while doing so. For example in Twain’s memoir “Life on the Mississippi” he says, “When his boat blew up at last, it diffused a tranquil contentment among us such as we had not known for months.” Here Twain is using irony to add a sense of humor in his writing. Unlike Twain, Frederick Douglass was not as humorous in his writings. In contrast Douglass was talking about such a personal and controversial topic he had to be extra careful about what he wrote. He didn’t want to come off as a person who was over exaggerating on his experiences because if people thought he was stretching the truth, they wouldn’t take what he had written seriously. This is why he tried to stray away from the humorous technique while writing his