jaredpence 's review for:

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave & Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs, Frederick Douglass

4.0

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While it is hard to rate these narratives as I would works of fiction as the experience of reading them was not (and I believe was never meant to be) enjoyable, both of these narratives movingly illuminate the appalling reality of slavery and the difficult and painful lives of two people who escaped their enslavement. Reading them in their entirety this time (I've read Douglass's narrative and selections from Jacobs's more than once before), it was particularly significant to me how even in the "free" North, both people encountered continued inequality, cruelty, and racism.