Passage 1 :
This period of carefree idleness was due to end soon. The fierce old woman who looked after the children kept telling Minta that things would change.
Whenever she saw the little girl stop to look at the trees, the sky, she repeated the same harsh-voiced warning: “Overseer’ll be settin’ you a task any day now. Then you won’t be standin’ around with your mouth hangin’ open, lookin’ at nothin’ all day long. Overseer’ll keep you moving.”
–Harriet Tubman,
Ann Petry
Passage 2:
When I was nearly twelve years old, my kind mistress sickened and died. . . . I prayed in my heart that she might live! I loved her; for she had been almost like a mother to me. My prayers were not answered. She died, and they buried her in the little churchyard, where, day after day, my tears fell upon her grave.
I was sent to spend a week with my grandmother. I was now old enough to begin to think of the future; and again and again I asked myself what they would do with me. I felt sure I should never find another mistress so kind as the one who was gone. She had promised my dying mother that her children should never suffer for any thing; and when I remembered that, and recalled her many proofs of attachment to me, I could not help having some hopes that she had left me free. My friends were almost certain it would be so. They thought she would be sure to do it, on account of my mother's love and faithful service. But, alas! we all know that the memory of a faithful slave does not avail much to save her children from the auction block.
After a brief period of suspense, the will of my mistress was read, and we learned that she had bequeathed me to her sister's daughter, a child of five years old. So vanished our hopes.
–Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,
Harriet Jacobs
Read the two new excerpts from the texts by Ann Petry and Harriet Jacobs. Select two statements that would help a reader best compare or contrast the purposes of the passages? ( SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. )
Jacobs persuades the reader that her childhood was relatively lucky.
Petry informs the reader that Tubman’s childhood was exceptionally difficult.
Petry persuades the reader that Tubman was an American hero.
Jacobs informs the reader that the mistress she loved eventually betrayed her.
Petry informs the reader that people around Tubman knew that her carefree life would not last.