For centuries, slave narratives were ignored by literary scholars and historians, and according to John Sekora, it was not until after World War II that historians have reassessed their position on these early examples. of African-American literature (Sekora 482). Until then, these accounts were “denied as misleading, inaccurate, or flawed,” which was somehow unworthy of being taken seriously (Sekora 482). Contemporary historians have examined these accounts and, as Sekora notes, the “factual validity and authenticity” of the slave accounts have been proven (Sekora 483). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In Sekora's essay, "Black Message/White Envelope: Genre, Authenticity, and Authority in the Antebellum Slave Narrative," he argues that slave narratives are not really a subgenre of the autobiography due to the circumstances in which they were written. His arguments were evaluated by Robert S. Levine, who responded with an essay titled "The Slave Narrative and the Revolutionary Tradition of American Autobiography." In this essay, Levine rejects this definition of slave narratives, raising critical questions raised by Sekora's argument. I agree with Levine's argument that the literary tradition of slave narratives should fall into the category of autobiography. Slave narratives deserve their place as a subgenre of autobiography simply because they were written by their subjects and they detail the events that shaped their writers' lives. Slave narratives are among the earliest examples of African American literature in our history, and whether or not their writing was influenced by white audiences does not discredit them. In his essay, Sekora explains that slave narratives are not a subgenre of autobiography for multiple reasons, first stating the definition of an autobiography: Traditionalists and post-structuralists agree on the fact that autobiography is born when remembrance engages memory. Remembering involves people, things, and events that are apparently fragmented and unrelated; as an essential part of its activity, remembering provides sequence and/or relationship to the enormous diversity of experience; it traces the stages of the subject's journey towards individuality. Meaning emerges when events are connected as parts of a coherent and complete whole. (Sekora 509)This definition of an autobiography, however limited, still encompasses slave narratives in the general sense of their literary tradition. For example, The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass details significant events in Douglass' life: seeing his aunt get beaten, moving to Baltimore, and teaching himself to read and write are just a sample of the events of the story that gives it life. . These “seemingly fragmented and unrelated” events and the “enormous diversity of experiences” that Douglass details in his narrative ultimately come to fruition in the image of the man we find in Fredrick Douglass. This “coherent and comprehensive whole” has a very specific objective: to detail the effects of slavery on a person and to serve as a resource to support the abolitionist movement (Sekora 509). Each of these characteristics is also fulfilled. by Our Nig by Harriet E. Wilson; or, Sketch of the Life of a Free Negro. Although this book takes the form of a fiction novel, it is an autobiographical account of Wilson's life working in the Bellmont household. Although this story takes the form of a novel, we still seeanecdotes from Wilson's life told. She's basically dropped off at the Bellmont household and left by her mother to live with this family, Mrs. Bellmont beats her and expects her to do the housework, and she ends up becoming a poor, lonely woman struggling to make it . The novel ultimately sends the message that abuse and neglect causes irreparable harm to a person, and shows the experiences that African Americans faced during the era of slavery, whether free or enslaved. This narrative has a coherent meaning derived from a series of anecdotes spanning a period of time, describing how these events led Wilson's journey to selfhood; the characteristics that Sekora points out that all autobiographies should have are present. This book also takes up the formal components of a slave narrative that Levine highlights in his essay, notably "the absence of a clear sense of filiation, accounts of separations from family members, representations of brutal masters and overseers” (Levine 1). The novel even has a preface and appendix written to soften the opinions of its white audience, which is also characteristic of slave narratives. These works by Douglass and Wilson fall into the two domains of slave narrative and autobiography. These characteristics, however, are important in the world of slave narratives. Many published slave narratives contain a preface or an appendix, or both. Unfortunately, as history tells us, the vast majority of literati in this era were white. Many African Americans were still enslaved and, as Douglass points out in his narrative, the general mindset among slave owners was that "learning would spoil the best n______ in the world" (Douglass 40) . Since the majority audience is white, these prefaces and appendices act as a sort of “buffer,” providing credibility to the author of the story. Sekora's argument continues to say that slave narratives are not examples of autobiography because "the stated purpose of the slave narrative is very different from the creation of a self, and the overall form of this story is mandated by people other than the subject” (Sekora 509). His argument is that these prefaces and appendices are evidence that the voices of African American authors are being taken up and imposed by their white editors and sponsors. He is not entirely wrong in this statement either. The narratives take the form of traditional white authorial prose and voice, attributed to white editors. Sekora argues that “the introductory letters can be seen as causal in relation to the narratives they precede. The slave is the primitive other whose silence allows white sponsors to describe the grace, the beauty of their own civilized voices” (Sekora 510). On the other hand, however, we could argue that these are just some of the earliest examples of the African American Voice. In Douglass's account, the struggle to achieve literacy is a problem unique to African Americans. His desire to learn is matched only by the refusal of his master, Master Hugh, to let him learn. Douglass eventually learned to write from Hugh's son's old notebooks and poor white children who lived in the same neighborhood – essentially appropriating the white voice and language, making it his own. These types of stories about literacy appear in several other accounts, more than thirty of which are listed on the website published by Documenting the American South (“Guide”). Douglass's narrative also contains concepts of African American spirituality. There is a part of the story where Douglass goes to the home of Thomas Auld.