20th Century Slave Autobiography: Booker T. Washington: A Case Study.

Slaves who wrote their narratives and created their distinct identity in various discourses is an act of bravery and revolution. The revolutionary patterns that emerged through their sufferings and the spirit of overcoming the evils of slavery system. The persistent writings both by men and women contributed to the most influential traditions not only in American literature but also in world literary order. The illiterate and barbaric slaves according to the whites, writing their experiences shaped the form and themes of some of the most celebrated and controversial writing. As a literary genre, autobiography strongly differed from fiction to the memoires inclined towards showing realities from the voices that were the subjects of atrocities. Booker T. Washington portrays his life story in the form of autobiography and gives a detailed description about his life as a slave and how he turned a free man in his autobiography Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (1900) Washington’s autobiography gives us a clear picture about the brutal system of slavery and his own emancipation from a slave to common dignified social member of American society. The autobiography as a genre is the most democratic genre as it gives the writer tremendous scope to speak to his unknown audience with complete faith and confidence. The success of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave: Written by Himself published in 1845 laid down the path for black slaves to put together courage and words for their future generations. This paper attempts to discuss the style, themes and critical analysis of the text and evaluate the text as a genre of literature reiterating the impact of the book on its readers and literary discourse at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]