Autobiography

‘A Slave among Slaves’ by Booker T.

Washington

E121 Introduction to Literature

Dr Nour Dakkak
Aims and objectives:
• Introducing the autobiography genre
• Discuss the features of autobiography
• Discuss the differences between biography and autobiography
• Discuss Booker T. Washington’s essay ‘A Slave Among Slaves’ as an
example of autobiography.
• Discuss the themes that dominate Washington’s essay.
• Explain how the autobiography genre can be used to amplify the
voices of the oppressed.
What is an autobiography?
 Autobiography
A person’s own account of his or her life. Unlike private records such as
journals or diaries, autobiographies are always written for a public
audience.
Indeed, autobiography is ideally understood by both its authors and its
readers to be autobiography exemplary, as a reliable and true portrayal
of a life from which others can learn.
What’s the difference between autobiography and biography?
 The difference between autobiography and
biography
A biography is the life history of an individual, written by someone else.
An autobiography is the story of a person's life, written by that person.

How do you think this affects the way we understand the written text?
What are the features of autobiographies?
Features of autobiographies:
• Autobiographies can take many different forms based around different types of writing -
they can be based thematically, religiously or written purely for personal reasons, for
example.
• Autobiographies are written in the first person from the author’s point of view.
• They recount the events of the author’s life in chronological order, although they may
sometimes use flashbacks for added effect.
• Autobiographies are usually very personal because the writer is connected to the events
that they are writing about. They include personal thoughts, feelings and opinions about
the events and often describe how the events in their childhood or early life influenced
them as a person. To describe these events, they also use literary devices such as
adjectives, similes and metaphors
Different forms of autobiographical writing:
• Diaries: daily and immediate record of personal events
• Journals: daily and immediate record of public events
• Memoires: delayed record of events in personal and public lives
• Confessions: religious accounts, detect the growth (spiritual growth)
of a person
Examples of autobiographies
Graphic novels
 ‘A Slave among Slaves’

From

Up from Slavery: an Autobiography

by Booker T. Washington
Questions to think about when reading the
text:
• Where can we find the features of autobiography in the text?
• What is the narration style like in the text?
• How reliable is Washington’s account?
• How is writing using the autobiography’s genre affect the information
conveyed in the text?
• To what extent can we use this text as a historical evidence to the
slaves’ lives in the united states?
 How to read the text?
• Narration
• Style
• Themes
• Images
• Historical context
 Main ideas that could be gathered from the
text
• Lack of knowledge of heritage and ancestry
• Description of the living conditions (the cabin)
• Description of the working conditions and the author’s childhood
• Community and connection (grape vine)
• Civil war and tensions: suffering of the whites
• How the author blames the institution
• Details about the civil war
• Close analysis of black and white reaction to war
• Black people’s trustworthiness and reliability
• Difficulty for both races at the changed way of life