African-American Literature -- Compare and Contrast

The two stories selected for this first comparison, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs and the short letter from Jourdon Anderson, "To My Old Master," are both extremely touching, honest, enlightening and historically precious pieces of literature.

To begin with, Anderson's letter to Colonel P.H. Anderson reveals a number of key things about the life of a male slave during the Civil War. It comes as an almost shocking irony when Jourdon writes to a man who kept him as a slave and tried to kill him. The reader knows that Jourdon is a practicing Christian even before he writes that he would be interested in coming back to work for the colonel. "Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still...
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