With reference to the Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, what are the implications of considering autobiographies as either historical “truth” or narrative “fiction” of a life’s journey? In your response, think about the goals of autobiographers (specifically Douglass, but also consider your own goals/motives when you wrote about your own “journey”), in terms of why they wrote the piece and who their expected audience would be. Also, does the fact that Douglass possesses multiple narrative voices in this novel - his past voice and his present voice the two dominant voices - highlight the problem of memory and motive in writing autobiographies?
Bring in at least one page of your draft. We will continue our discussions of Frederick Douglass and this question in particular Friday. You will be working on this draft over the weekend and hand in a formal draft on Wednesday.
Those of you who have not had a chance to do a second performance, also practice for your recital!
