Similarities Between Alice Walker And Frederick Douglass

Moreover, the works of Alice walker and Frederick Douglass did not only explore the theme of gender roles, but also the theme of race. In fact, slavery and racism are practiced on the basis of one’s own race. As a matter of fact, that’s what Alice Walker tries to reflect in her novel. She sheds the light upon this theme in many scenes. For example, when the mayor’s wife asks Sofia to work for her as a maid and Sofia rejects this racist and humiliating offer she is slapped for daring to refuse, and eventually imprisoned for defending herself. As a black woman, she is expected to be honored and pleased with being a white lady’s housemaid. Hence, Sofia’s skin color was the reason for her oppression, and will continue to be as such as long as her skin color remains black. Furthermore, Celia’s real father was lynched by a white man for being a successful store owner. Moreover, it’s important to note that although Walker did not focus on racism as much as sexism, but she was still able to reflect the fact that what black women went through was, without any doubt, the result of the systematic slavery system created by the white man. In fact, “the text’s ability to expose sexual oppression seems to come at the
Frederick Douglass showed us how slavery can be destructive to both slaves and slaveholders. It can corrupt even the most decent persons as it happened with Sophia, his master’s wife, who changed to an evil person right after being introduced to the system of slavery. Alice Walker, on the other hand, showed us how slavery is indirectly responsible for woman’s oppression. All in all, despite their different approaches in dealing with the subject of slavery, they both aimed to point out that the system of slavery must be abolished, and rebelled against for the sake of its damaging effect on the