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Similarities Between Mark Twain And Frederick Douglass

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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. …show more content…

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

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Irony is one of the rhetorical devices in which it it uncovers the difference between the truth and something expected. Predominantly, it detects the misconceptions or the unfairness of a specific situation. (http://figurativelanguage.net/Irony.html) Most of the time, Frederick Douglass used irony in order to uncover the defect in the reasoning of the issue of slavery. For instance, in the third chapter, Douglass made a description about the obssesive care of his previous master named Colonel Lloyd on his horses.

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247 Words | 1 Pages

Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass both have interesting ways of writing. There are similarities and differences in their writing. They each have their own personal preference toward their style, tone, and perspective. Each story was a remembrance of boyhood written in first person. As evident, Twain’s story takes place as a boy in a town on the Mississippi River.

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Lincoln and Douglass were self-made, self-educated, and ambitious, and each rose to success from humble backgrounds. Douglass, of course, was an escaped slave. Douglass certainly and Lincoln most likely detested slavery from his youngest days. But Lincoln from his young manhood was a consummate politician devoted to compromise, consensus-building, moderation and indirection. Douglass was a reformer who spoke and wrote eloquently and with passion for the abolition of slavery

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478 Words | 2 Pages

‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave’ and ‘Slave Owners’, two texts written about slavery and injustice. I will be comparing and contrasting these amazing texts. ‘Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave’ is a book written by Frederick Douglass and published in the late 1845. ‘Slave Owners’, on the other hand is a text that was written by Ed, Thurston, Thomas, although the publish date is unclear, the date on the letters indicate it was written about 1848 however it was probably written more recently. These two texts are very-well written and accurately depicted.

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425 Words | 2 Pages

The authors and texts were both written in the early 1800’s, and are about each author’s childhood experience. Both strived to be objective. Douglass made his writing with facts and no emotional descriptions, because readers doubted a former slave could be intelligent and write without bias. Twain wrote with honesty and moral superiority. Both authors use details and imagery to create ethos, because the details are evidence to the story’s credibility.

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873 Words | 4 Pages

Although a century apart, Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and Frederick Douglass’s What to a Slave is the fourth of July are kindred spirits. Notwithstanding the many differences in their respective writing styles, deep down the essence of the message conveyed is still very much the same. Both Martin Luther King Junior and Frederick Douglas had similar beliefs and concepts related to the treatment of the African American community. They both describe a tough yet heart breaking situation that makes them question their moral values and doubt the system and its ability to change for better.

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Douglass also used verbal irony to denounce the contradictory and abusive behavior of his masters, which emotionally appealed to anger and ethically to shame; he achieved the same thing through situational irony which logically appealed to an audience well acclimated to sympathizing with a black man. Douglass’ use of irony appeals on multiple levels as he continues to protest slavery and move towards advanced devices, the latter of which will conclude when he recounts

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241 Words | 1 Pages

Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass are both the most renowned writers of their era, but their childhoods differed considerably; Twain's Life on the Mississippi portrays him as a mischievous boy whose deepest desire is to work on a steamboat in the Mississippi River, while Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass provides an insight into the lives of slaves in the 19th century. Twain wrote Life on the Mississippi as a memoir of his life growing up and working alongside the Mississippi River. In order to emotionally connect us to his story, Twain uses colorful imagery, like when he describes a steamboat in handsome detail. Furthermore, his portrayal of his dialect and his use of a first person point of view make the memoir trustworthy

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759 Words | 4 Pages

Douglass had a strong desire to help others. He improved the lives of fellow slaves, and he ran a sabbath school while under the ownership of William Freeland. Douglass wrote and lectured against slavery and also devoted attention to the women’s rights movement. He became involved in politics, and when the Civil War broke out in 1861, he fought to allow black men to fight for the Union. Not long after that Lincoln established the Emancipation Proclamation.

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Douglass, started off his life as a slave and then progressed to an educated and respected writer and speaker and . Douglass examined the importance of individual rights and the right for

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Most of his time was in the movement of the abolition of slavery. He did not want any other black person to face brutality, humiliation, and pain. His arguments became very useful in the anti-slavery movement. It is through his experiences of being a slave that he urged for the abolition of slavery (Douglass, 1845). Douglass’ style of narration makes the reader to be involved in the story emotionally.

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414 Words | 2 Pages

Frederick Douglass, author of the narrative by the same name, was a slave that was not physically free, but he was mentally. While other slaves did not realize that what was going on was wrong, Douglass did. He used his mentally freedom to become free physically free as well. Douglass’ hardships started the day he was born. He was born into slavery, like other African-Americans, and was constantly treated like dirt.

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Two Great Men “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. ”- Thomas a. Edison Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington were both amazing civil rights activists. Frederick Douglas was a runaway slave who worked to end slavery.

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940 Words | 4 Pages

Frederick Douglass was a strong man. He experienced slavery firsthand and had to go through waking up in the mornings and being afraid that he might get beaten to death so badly, that it would be the day he dies. He writes all about his life story in his narrative. He talks about all the struggles he had to go through on a daily basis. Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, never had to experience slavery, but it still had the heart to want it abolished.

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“Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.” Many people remember author Mark Twain for his humoristic style of writing and his stances on issues such as politics and religion, yet few are aware of his thoughts on slavery. Twain was born on November 30, 1835 in the town of Florida, Missouri. By the age of four his family relocated to the nearby town of Hannibal, where he spent the majority of his adolescence. Throughout his years living in Hannibal, Twain was exposed first hand to the practice of slavery.

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