Post for 4/6/11

I think there are a lot of similarities between the content of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. But I think one of the big differences between them is the writing style; while Jacobs’s used sentimental-feeling exclamation points, like “Dear Mrs. Bruce!” (154), it seemed to me like Douglass was really trying to write intelligently – specifically, to use an intelligent voice, and to prove that he was an intelligent man. As well he should; but even for that, I found it a little bit harder to believe his narrative than to believe Jacobs’s, perhaps because we talked in class on Monday about the question of memory in writing such a story. Douglass seemed much more committed to using details than Jacobs; he attempts to use names, street names, and dates wherever he can. Jacobs used names too, but Douglass goes so far as to admit when he can’t remember a full one, saying, “I have had two masters. My first master’s name was Anthony. I do not remember his first name” (14). Which is fine; he’s trying to be truthful. But isn’t it a little bit strange that the horrible overseer’s name is Mr. Severe (17), and that another’s name was Mr. Gore (22)? And that a man who owns a wharf if Baltimore is named Mr. Waters (34)?

Maybe this is nothing, but Douglass’s attention to detail seemed to draw attention to it – even when it was wrong. For example, he talks about being very impressed by a speech he found in the Columbian Orator: “In the same book, I met with one of Sheridan’s mighty speeches on and in behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice documents to me. I read them over and over again with unabated interest.” But in the footnotes, we learn that the speech wasn’t really written by Sheridan; rather, it was written by a man named O’Connor (32). Granted, we learn that both are Irish, but if the speech was so important to Douglass, shouldn’t he have remembered whose it was? Of course, maybe his mistake can be laid up to his reading ability at that time. And of course, he can’t remember everything. But his self-conscious attention to detail made it hard for me not to pay attention to it too, and to notice when he made mistakes.

In one of my favorite books though – Tobias Wolff’s memoir, This Boy’s Life – he says something in the beginning like, he wrote to be true to feelings and not necessarily fact. I’d have to have the book to know exactly what he says, but I always mention that when thinking about memoirs and writing based on memory, because I think it makes sense. And because I believe both Jacobs’s and Douglass’s memoirs to be truthful, I have to make the same allowance for them.