Social inequality occurs when certain resources such as wealth, privilege, and social justice in societies are distributed unevenly, affecting more people than we think. Frederick Douglass and Virginia Woolf are two very influential writers who suffered from these inequalities and used their talents in literacy to convey information and reality to their readers in order to change the way people are viewed. Specifically, Douglass wrote an autobiography, A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, with the hope of gaining greater rights for African-Americans, and in A Room of One's Own, Woolf focused on bringing the disparity of treatment of women in public debate. public eye. Aiming to help two different groups of individuals, these two writers still share many characteristics and tactics; as well as the differences when reading their writings. Later in this essay these similarities and differences will be expressed in more depth, and the ways in which these two writers were able to help shape the way people are perceived nowadays. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay. Douglas and Woolf both came from completely different backgrounds, but still found ways to fight for similar causes during the changing years of the world's past. Douglass was born in the 19th century directly into slavery. This allowed Douglass to base his narrative on his past and the personal encounters he faced while held within the confines of slavery. Douglass was heavily criticized for exaggerating the truth, saying that slaves did not fare as badly as he had written. This is made possible by the fact that he was a slave in Maryland, where slavery tended to be less extreme, and was actually secretly able to learn to read and write from the plantation owner's wife. Nonetheless he was still a slave and was treated badly, and faced the same degrading psychological trauma that other slaves would face. In fact, “the white teachers on his circuit patronized him, urging him to focus only on telling his own life story because, Garrison suggested, a black man was incapable of analyzing slavery as a large-scale social problem.” (232). . Douglass broke the boundaries of the Garrison Organization (an antislavery organization) by not sugarcoating the true reality he faced while a slave, then he would not have founded his own antislavery newspaper and may not have been as successful when campaigning to end the school segregation. He didn't let slavery hold him back from trying to help create a better life for African Americans and continued to break many boundaries that many African Americans would attempt to cross. For example, “When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Douglass led the effort to persuade Congress to allow African American men to enlist in the Union Army” (233), this would mean that he was willing to fight side by side with the white men. to help fight for black suffrage against the South. Virginia Woolf was a 20th century feminist writer who also broke many societal boundaries. She went against many social rules that women had to obey, which greatly impressed her readers as she too was oppressed by the boundaries created by men and society. She saw how gender inferior women were to men and built her entireposition on the idea that women will fight to break the restrictions that prevent them from being on the same economic level as men. Specifically, she was very interested in expressing the difficulties that a writer would have to face. “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction, and this, as you will see, leaves unresolved the great question of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction” (339). She also writes about an incident where she was stopped in the library. “A deprecator, a kind Argentine gentleman, who regretted in a low voice as he greeted me that ladies are admitted to the library only if accompanied by a member of the College or provided with a letter of introduction” (342). She believed that women could not achieve the same impact that other successful male writers were able to have, due to the power that men held in society. He wrote that if women had the same resources as men, then there would be female versions of people like Shakespeare. For example, Woolf creates a fictional character, Judith Shakespeare. Imagine Judith as the sister who never had the same opportunity as Shakespeare himself. “That woman, therefore, who was born with the gift of poetry in the 16th century, was an unhappy woman... All the conditions of her life, all her instincts, were hostile to the state of mind necessary to set free all that is in the brain” (367). Like Douglass, she was willing to push boundaries to express the limitations of African Americans and women in the world. As you can see, both of these writers are determined to make a difference in social power, even though they know that they are both focused on two different specific groups, but both can help both causes. For example, Douglass was also a supporter of gender suffrage and not just racial suffrage, as can be seen in the biography of Frederick Douglass: "In 1848 he attended the women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, and emerged as a staunch supporter of suffrage feminine" (233). [ER1]They also share differences in their textual tactics. For example, Virginia Woolf uses her extended essay in a way that is constructed as a partially fictionalized narrative of the events she was going through while developing her thesis. While Douglass on the other hand seems to resort more to nonfiction when describing past personal events, because he is made aware of being angry at the powerful voice of those white writers who had told Douglass that he should not exaggerate his slavery past, which it may imply that he was angry at people who believed in the real evils that slaves face. “The motto I adopted when I started out of slavery was this: “Trust no one!” I saw in every white man an enemy, and in almost every black man a reason for distrust” (284). Even that said, if both writers used pretense or exaggeration in their writing, it helps to grab the reader's attention, which allows others to see their expression of belief. Their ability to encapsulate personal issues from a first-person point of view helps the reader perceive the writer's purpose and ideology from the personal perspective they share. That said, a somewhat fictionalized tone in moments where Douglass or Woolf could hide information that would lead readers to perceive their words in a different perspective, but on the other hand this aspect allows for a deeper insight into their lives. it wasn't for these literary idols that were discussed, then today it may not be what it is. For example, without their publications the horrors of society would not be brought to the public's attention. The idea.