Reading Assignment Topics

Frederick Douglass
Instructions: Write a page (minimum) in response to each of the following topics. Be as detailed and as
thoughtful as you can. This is not a research exercise. The aim is to encourage close reading and specific
thinking about the texts as part of your preparation before coming to class. You must be clear and coherent,
but thought, attention to detail, and willingness to play with reasonable possibilities of meaning will all
count more than either “expression” or “correctness.” Handwritten responses are acceptable. Late
responses will not be counted.

1. How do Douglass's personal and public objectives in writing the Narrative come into conflict?
What is his purpose in writing and how is that purpose reflected in both the way he writes and what
he writes about?
2. As compared with either Equiano or Thoreau (or both), how does Douglass differ in terms of both
the meaning that freedom has to him and the means by which he obtains it?

Bonus: (Not required)

3. What is the significance of the “root” given to Douglass by Sandy? What does Douglass seem to
suggest by including this detail?
4. In what ways is Jacobs’s slave experience different from Douglass’s? In what ways is her account –
both what she recounts and how she recounts it – specifically gendered?

Due: Monday, November 16