Final answer:
Douglass and Hurston aim to show the contradictions of slavery with the nation's ideals, leveraging powerful writing and testimony. Douglass's urgency from the contemporaneous legality of slavery bolsters his argument against it, while Hurston's personal narrative offers a direct witness to the system's brutality.
Step-by-step explanation:
The authors of "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" and Barracoon: The Story of the Last 'Black Cargo' aim to inform their audience about the moral and ethical contradictions of slavery. Frederick Douglass, in his speech, questions the hypocrisy of celebrating freedom while endorsing slavery, using powerful rhetorical questions and pathos to evoke the audience's conscience. Zora Neale Hurston, in Barracoon, provides a personal account of the last known survivor of the Atlantic slave trade, using first-person narrative to give a voice to those who had been denied one.
Douglass's work comes at a time when slavery was still legal in America, adding urgency and relevance to his arguments. His narrative testimony and eloquent writing style were aimed at shedding light on the brutality of slavery and convincing his readers of the need for abolition. The appendix, with its detailed argument, rhetorical devices, and targeted appeal to the audience's sense of justice, underscored the inherent evils of slavery. Hurston tells the story of Cudjo Lewis, a survivor of the Middle Passage, reinforcing the unimaginable cruelty slaves faced and the long-term psychological and social effects of such a system.
In both works, the authors highlight the systemic issues of slavery, including the destruction of family bonds and the concept of human beings as property. Douglass and Hurston's contributions provided deep insights into the complexity of slavery's impact on both the enslaved and the enslavers, drawing attention to the inhumanity and injustice rooted in the system of human bondage.