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Frederick Douglas and Benjamin Franklin Slave owners and their sympathizers described blacks in terms of negative stereotypes to justify treating them as property. These stereotypes provided the foundation for the idyllic mythology of the plantation. Slave owners liked to think of themselves as the paternalistic masters of a class of inferior, childlike people who simply could not survive without the kindly guidance of their white superiors. According to the masters' mythology, slaves sang out grateful praise for their bondage. From the great big house of the plantation owner all the way down to the fields where the slaves toiled, all was good and right in heaven and on earth. Because slaves were classified as inferior and not quite human, the legal system judged them as less credible than their masters.
In the courts, the testimony of a black witness was never equal to that of a white witness. The slave's law began and ended with his oppressor. No beating was unfair or too severe unless the master said so. No coerced sexual activity was rape unless the master said so.
No killing was murder unless the master said so. Even if the master decided in the victim's favor, he treated such incidents as crimes against his property rather than violations of the slave's rights. It was illegal to educate slaves. The enforced institution of illiteracy did the double service of robbing the victim of his voice and of his access to alternative ideas regarding his condition.
The slave owner did not want his slaves to know that many Americans saw their bondage as a moral outrage. Nor did he want his slaves to provide first-hand evidence against his prettified picture of slavery, which would give the abolitionists more rhetorical ammunition against him. He wanted to be the center and origin of the "truth" about slavery, both for slaves and for non-slave-owning whites. In light of these concerns, it is no surprise that the quest for identity is a prevalent theme in the work of Afro-American writers. Racist myth-makers seek to silence their victims by naming them in negative terms. Former slaves struggled hard to reclaim the right to define their own identities and the echoes of this struggle persist.
To name oneself is a weighty act, carrying with it the assertion of the right to tell one's own story. Therefore, establishing one's identity on one's own terms is far more than an abstract, intellectual matter. For Frederick Douglass, establishing his identity on his own terms was crucial to both his career as an abolitionist and his own claim to freedom. In 1845, the year he published his Narrative, Douglass was already a respected abolitionist orator. As a fugitive slave, he was considered by many to be an authentic source for the truth about slavery. However, others found it hard to believe that such an intelligent, articulate man could ever have been a slave.
To answer these doubts, he wrote his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. To make his point even stronger, he added "Written by Himself" as a subtitle. Douglass presented his book as the slave's side of the story. Douglass was still a fugitive slave and in danger of being recaptured. When Douglass first settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, he changed his name to avoid being caught. But his autobiography contained enough details to identify him.
By deciding to publish such a detailed account of his life, Douglass was taking an enormous risk. The risk was necessary for him to assert his right to define his identity on his own terms and to authenticate his Narrative as a first-hand account of the reality of slavery. Undoubtedly, the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is riddled with faults. It is very muddled, particularly towards the end.
It was not written in a continuous stretch, but rather pasted together out of separate fragments that were written years apart from one another; often, the author could not remember what he had even written in the previous sections. The work often takes an arrogant, condescending tone, yet it praises the virtue of humility. And perhaps most egregious of all, the part of Ben's life with the most historical significance -- the American Revolution -- is entirely omitted from the work. There is no real mention of events after 1760, 15 years before the outbreak of war. At that year the Autobiography simply stops. A natural questions to ask, then, is, "Why are we still reading this tangled, sometimes difficult and frequently esoteric work over 200 years after it was written?" There are several reasons, one of which is because it establishes in literary form the first example of the fulfillment of the American Dream.
Franklin demonstrates the possibilities of life in the New World through his own rise from the lower middle class as a youth to one of the most admired men in the world as an adult. Furthermore, he asserts that he achieved his success through a solid work ethic. He proved that even undistinguished persons in Boston can, through industry, become great figures of importance in America. When we think of the American Dream today -- the ability to rise from rags to riches through hard work -- we are usually thinking of the model set forth by Franklin in this autobiography. A second reason why the Autobiography remains a classic is for historical reasons. The work was one of the premier autobiographies in the English language.
While they abound today in Barnes and Nobles all over the world, the autobiography as a literary form had not emerged at the time Franklin lived, at least not in non-religious format. His autobiography defined a secular literary tradition; he established the autobiography as a work that is meant to not only tell about a person's own life but also to educate the reader in ways to better live life. This format has been modified throughout American history, but it is safe to say that such classics as Frederick Douglass' Narrative and Henry Adams' The Education of Henry Adams owe much of their style and format to the tradition established by Franklin. Part Two of the Autobiography, complete with its list of virtues and ways in which one can achieve them, has influenced millions of readers over the last two centuries. It also helped spawn the genre of the mainstream self-help book. Also, the Autobiography tells us today what life was like in 18 th century America.
Naturally, the story is told from the perspective of only one person, but in an age when literacy was low and writing not widespread, any surviving documents are of value to historians who wish to learn how people lived from day to day. Specifics of life in colonial America abound in the book, and this is invaluable information to anyone wishing to learn more about that time period. Of course, one must always keep in mind that life for Franklin was not like life for everyone else; he represents only one person out of many thousands. Franklin's Autobiography is also a reflection of 18 th century idealism. Often called the Age of Reason, the 18 th century was the age of men such as John Locke and Isaac Newton. Intellectualism flourished along with scientific inventions and advances in political thought.
Many people held to the optimistic belief that man could be perfected through scientific and political progress. Franklin ascribes to these beliefs partially, and Part Two of the Autobiography shows him trying to live them out. Perhaps the Autobiography has most endured because, despite its muddled nature, it is the preeminent work that mythologizes a hero of the American Revolution. Franklin is often introduced to elementary school children as a Renaissance man, someone who seemed to master all fields of knowledge -- he was, among other things, scientist, inventor, statesman and writer. The Autobiography is the only enduring token that enshrines all the facets of his diverse nature; it presents Americans today with a great hero from the past who helped establish the tradition of the American Dream. Numerous critics have often called Franklin the "first American"; his autobiography provides a good example of why.
Even though the documents by Frederick Douglass and Benjamin Franklin were written by different authors, who came from different backgrounds and had completely different destinies, they still show the hardship that those people had to go through in order to become who they managed to become. It is a great blessing that people a couple of hundreds years ago have an opportunity to read the documents, which not only tell about the times and authors, but also are precious guides for life for everybody. Bibliography: Douglas, Frederick; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Franklin, Benjamin; Benjamins Franklin Autobiography Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, Microsoft Corporation, 2002
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Research essay sample on Frederick Douglas And Benjamin Franklin
