Comparing Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Our Time Essay

Soul Writing in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Our Time Real writing, individual writing is dangerous there is an intrinsic, gut-churning element of risk within the process of disuniteing the truth, a risk that yields an adrenaline rush that parallels skydiving and skinny-dipping. The thrill of ones give truth displayed nakedly in little black letters on a white page is scary and beautiful, both chaining and freeing. The issue for authors, like skydivers, is that after(prenominal) they jump out of the plane (start writing) the fears dont disappear. The diver-author asks herself, Should I really be doing this... What if my parachute doesnt work... What if Im misunderstood? Harriet Jacobs and John Edgar Wideman undergo this free-fall, these fears. In the telling of their stories, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Jacobs) and Our Time (Wideman), each author is self-conscious. Both authors tell about a minority in their stories Jacobs speaks of the female slave and W ideman speaks of the African-American gangster. Because they tell the story of a minority to a majority, they cant afford to be misunderstood. They also cant afford to write solely in metaphors because they not only must ground their competence through reserved analysis but also must appeal to the hearts and minds of their audience. The authors must bring middle class white readers as close to the slave plantation or the Ghetto or the prison cell as possible. For this reason, both authors refer to the reader with questions. This rhetorical device forces the reader to shopping mall herself in the situation of the main character. For example, when discussing the abuse she took from her master, Dr. flint, Jacobs asks, But where could I turn for protection?(47... ...nd unresolved, not because the authors be incompetent, but because the issues that they write about dont have resolutions. The readers are left with the same frustration as the authors. Past cant be erased, roles cant b e traded, and sympathy cant be transformed into empathy. But the sheer act of writing and create their stories is a resolution. While to jump off the plane is terrifying, and wind stings the face as one falls, once on the ground the writer can sense resolution purely in the explanation itself, even if it ends unresolved. Works Cited Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. sweet York Mentor, 1987. Wideman, John Edgar. Our Time excerpted in Ways of Reading (4th edition), David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky, eds. (Boston Bedford Books, 1996).