The Unacknowledged Legacy of 19 th Century Slave Narratives
time , before he has the good fortune to be returned to Baltimore . Once there , he learns a trade and hires out his own time , passing back to his enslaver his entire wages , “ solely because [ his enslaver ] had the power to compel [ him ] to give it up ” ( 65 ). By then , both Douglass and his readers understood that he is a model of self-reliance in every way but one .
For Jacobs , her time imprisoned in her grandmother ’ s garret is marked by a standing cruelty : the nearness of her children and her inability to interact with them . Forced to be both an absent mother and reminded of her absence every day , Jacobs attempts to work behind the scenes to secure her children ’ s freedom . She recognizes , as always , that her children will be caught “ between two fires ; between [ her ] old master and their new master ” ( 114 ), but chooses the lesser evil and consents to her daughter relocating to New York by way of Washington to serve as a nurse to her “ free-born sister ” ( 114 ). Jacobs writes , “ O , how it tried my heart to send her away , so young , alone , among strangers ! Without a mother ’ s love to shelter her from the storms of life ; almost without the memory of a mother !” ( 114 ). But she did send her , exercising the little agency she had to better ensure her daughter ’ s safety .
As Dolores reaches the end of her story , she , too , finds herself manipulated by her enslavers . After failing to physically defeat the Man in Black and dying in another lover ’ s arms to satisfy Ford ’ s introduction to his new park narrative , Dolores is returned to the lab room where viewers have often seen her being questioned Bernard ( played by Jeffrey Wright ). Dolores and the viewers learn in flashback that she was responsible for killing one of her fathers , Arnold ( also played by Jeffrey Wright ), more than thirty years ago , an act he programmed her to do . As the show ( and Dolores ) have cast Arnold as the benevolent father who sought to save the Hosts
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