Slave Narratives: Analyze Slave Narratives In-Depth

Use this guide to search for, analyze, and explore slave narratives, an important genre of African American literary and oral tradition

Learning From Different Experiences

Slave narratives include a wide variety of experiences - the experience of a man of color versus a woman, or a former slave under a "kind" slave owner versus a tyrannous one, may present very different narratives.  When analyzing the significance of slave narratives, consider the context of the speakers and how the differences in situation affect their stories and how they tell them. 

Compare: Male/Female

Black and white portrait of Fredrick Douglas

Fredrick Douglas (1818-1895) - Read his autobiography.

Black and white portrait of Harriet Jacobs

Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) - Read her autobiography.

Fun With Text Mining and Data Analysis

Play around with these text mining and data analysis tools to explore and visualize patterns and themes within slave narratives:

  • Voyant/Voyeur - free, online text mining and visualization tool; upload a text file and use different tools to display word frequency
  • Wordle - free, online visualization tool; paste block of text and create word clouds out of most common words
    • Why is this useful?  Word frequency indicates patterns of speech which may raise interesting questions about different narratives.  Consider what themes occur with significant repetition for different speakers (religion, family, escape, freedom, fear, abuse, etc.)
  • Tableau Public - free, online data mapping tool; upload a data set and display as maps, treemaps, bar/line/pie charts
  • Timeline.JS - free, online tool to create timelines; use Google Spreadsheet for customizable timelines
    • Why is this useful?  Use mapping and timeline tools to get the big picture for slave narratives. Try making a spreadsheet of dates or places, then use these tools to look for where events or information clusters and where there seem to be gaps.

 Word cloud from Sojourner Truth's narrative

 

Compare: Benign/Barbaric

See these examples of slave narratives which expressed a viewpoint of life as a slave in a more "positive" light:

  • Gus Smith Compares his own "freedom" to that of neighbors, who he saw as having less. 

Compare with these examples of slave narratives which focused on the inhumane conditions of slavery:

 

Subjects: English
  • Last Updated: Nov 14, 2024 12:39 PM
  • URL: https://libguides.gvsu.edu/slavenarratives