Voice in the slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Solomon Northrup

It is the thesis of this dissertation that multiple levels of voices are imbedded in the slave narratives. These voices perform functions which I call solipsistic (spiritual/religious), interior (meditative/brooding), recollecting (narrative), exteriorizing (propagandistic/ideological), simulating (persuasive/sympathetic), and dissimulating (concealing/indirect/ironic).;The dissertation is divided into five chapters and an epilogue. The first chapter gives a brief historical background on African civilization, on slavery in Africa, and my approach to the use of voice. The second chapter discusses the slave narrative as a genre, with its influences and components. The third, fourth and fifth chapters discuss voices in the respective narratives of Equiano, Douglass, and Northrup.;This work attempts to answer the questions: what are the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual concerns of these men? What are their views of themselves and the world? What did they hope to achieve by writing their narratives? I argue that the six voices all have two principal themes: human freedom and human salvation. All concerns are distilled into these two issues. These men portray themselves as unjustly oppressed in an evil system run by people who, more often than not, are cruel, hypocritical, and ignorant. These men's world view depicts how black people must struggle to overcome the darkness of slavery, ignorance, illiteracy, poverty, in order to attain the light of freedom, knowledge, literacy and their place in society. This process results in an affirmative re-creation of their lives in the slave narrative genre.;Equiano's Narrative is a tale of marvelous adventures written by a master of dissimulation who loudly proclaims a religious faith. Douglass's Narrative is a direct and forceful jeremiad by a master of Abolitionist oratory and political rhetoric. Northrups' Narrative, while interspersed with the additional voice of his editor, David Wilson, ultimately speaks with a voice which is unique because of his captivity experiences and painfully gained insights. These magnificent slave narratives remain as signposts along the way which a people have traveled, as warning to a civilization against systematic oppression of its own citizens, and as symbol of the transcendence of the human spirit.