Frederick Douglass was certainly not the only slave who wrote a narrative about his or her condition. Other slaves like Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, and Phillis Wheatley also wrote important autobiographies. Douglass' slave narrative, however, remains the most popular and the most widely studied slave autobiography in high schools and colleges. What are the reasons for Douglass' canonical status? Perhaps the answer lies first in the fact that Douglass' life embodies the American spirit and ideology — that is, in Douglas's story, we have the heroic tradition of the underdog rising to become a success. In fact, Americans are sometimes so entrenched in this dominant ideology that we forget it is not universally embraced around the world.
Second, because other slave narratives do not necessarily espouse and advocate notions which "fit" this American ideology, Douglass' Narrative of the Life of an American Slave succeeds in ways which others do not. Douglass is so appealing because although we may never fully understand his Otherness, his state of being unconditionally outside of the American mainstream of power and privilege, he creates a character who is understandable in our own dominant ideological terms. Most of us may never identify with his sufferings, but we certainly can regard his spirit, values, and heroism as ours. This ideology includes a belief in the value of knowledge, empowerment, and enterprise, as well as the ability to create one's destiny.
For Douglass, knowledge meant — and led to — empowerment. We encounter his credo in the first paragraph of the Narrative. The need for information about himself was important enough to be "a source of unhappiness to [him] even during childhood." This concept of "knowing one's self" is one of the basic tenets of Western civilization. Ever since the ancient Greeks, the West has placed great value on self-discovery and self-knowledge.
