Student name Professor name Course Date Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Writing in the favor of black people has always remained controversial from the very beginning. Critics regard such writing as “a highly conventionalized genre” indicating that “its status as literature was long disputed but the literary merits of its most famous example such as Frederick Douglass 's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass…are widely recognized today.” (Ryan:537) Despite of such severe resistance, writers like Douglass have penned down their autobiography to present the misery of their fellow beings. Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass is a masterpiece work depicting poor status of black people through the theme of human exploitation, ignorance and racism and for this purpose, Douglass has used modern techniques of irony and realism in his narration The analysis of the under discussion autobiography indicates a lot of major universal themes and human exploitation is one of them. A reader can see bleak picture of black slavery from the narration of Frederick Douglass who confronts brutal conduct of white masters throughout his childhood. Throughout the narration, Douglass has tried to maintain the flow using the techniques of realism and irony in order to present his themes. The reader can observe his helplessness for misery of the slaves from the quoted incidents. For example in the very first chapter, Douglass recalls the incident of his Aunt Hester who is
African Americans are more than just slaves. African Americans are people that have dreams to pursue anything they want just as white people do. Throughout the novel “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” as written by himself, Douglass writes about his life during slavery and how it changed him into the man he became after he gained his freedom. He provides his own thoughts throughout this novel, which all appeal mainly to pathos. Also, Douglass provides examples of rhetorical analysis, such as chiasmus, loose sentences, and analogy. He wrote this novel to inform fellow slaves and abolitionists to stay hopeful and never give up, just as he did. He maintains a constant tone of depression and hope as he tells about his life story and being a slave. In this narrative, Douglass presents the argument that slavery is inhumane and needs to be discontinued.
In the passage, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American slave, Douglass depicts his experiences as a slave. He uses syntax and figurative language to appeal to his audience.
Slavery is a humongous topic involving both slaves and former slaves. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Story is one such story. Douglass suffered punishments, and watching others get punished, he uses those experiences to make his argument against slavery.Douglass’ tone in the narrative is sarcastic and dark. Frederick Douglass successfully uses vast quantities of rhetorical devices, illuminating the horror and viciousness of slavery, including the need to eliminate it.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass details the oppression Fredrick Douglass went through before his escape to freedom. In his narratives, Douglass offers the readers with fast hand information of the pain, brutality, and humiliation of the slaves. He points out the cruelty of this institution on both the perpetrator, and the victims. As a slave, Fredrick Douglass witnessed the brutalization of the blacks whose only crime was to be born of the wrong color. He narrates of the pain, suffering the slaves went through, and how he fought for his freedom through attaining education.
The “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is an autobiography in which Frederick Douglass reflects on his life as a slave in America. He writes this book as a free slave, in the North, while slavery was still running its course before the Civil War. Through his effective use of rhetorical strategies, Frederick Douglass argues against the institution of slavery by appealing to pathos and ethos, introducing multiple anecdotes, using satirical irony, and explaining the persuasive effects of slavery and reasoning behind keeping slaves uneducated.
In Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, he writes in depth about his life as a slave. His intent for the book is to abolish slavery. He targets the white Northern men by using the three rhetorical appeals: logos, ethos, and pathos, to convince his goal. He also portrays the religious aspect, in Christian values. Narrating his personal experiences with his masters and fellow slaves, he states reasons of the immorality of enslavement. Douglass argues that slavery ultimately dehumanizes slave owners and demonstrates that slavery is immoral.
The novel, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by Frederick Douglass himself, contains his views on his life. He escaped slavery to become a free man in the North, where Douglass became a well known abolitionist who wrote speeches for the anti-slavery campaign. His arguments are persuasive to readers as well as potent. Douglass uses the events in his life and a variety of strategies to build an effective argument against slavery. The strategies for his arguments are to influence readers with emotions, convince readers using logic and to prove that he is a credible, moral person. When writing these strategies into his Narrative, he
During the time of pre-civil war America, southerners believed that one of the most essential means of life was slavery. In the novel, Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass challenges and debunks the idea of slavery being a necessary part of the white lifestyle; many pro-slavery arguments consisted of religion justifying slavery, slaves being “easily manipulated”/ignorant, and slavery keeping the southern economy from disappearing (The Proslavery Argument). Frederick uses personal experiences and other tactics to expose the truth behind slavery to those abolitionists and also to those foreign to the topic. He easily discredits the pro-slavery content by explaining how many slave owners are cruel and evil. In my opinion, Frederick Douglass considers all involved in slavery, and not just those who were slaves, when proving his theory.
Since ancient times historians always examined artifacts and sources of different writings. The purpose of examining artifacts and writings were to find the time period, the place of its origin and whether they are primary or secondary sources. Primary sources are materials produced by people or groups directly involved in the event/ topic under consideration either as participants or as witness. Some examples of primary sources are decrees, letters, newspapers, journals, birth and death registries etc. Secondary sources are those when a person was not present at the time of the event. Examples of secondary sources may include books, articles etc. Now, this brings to our discussion - is Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass a primary source? Even though people may different opinions about the autobiography of Frederick Douglass being a primary source, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass is a primary source because it mentions his purpose for writing, it clarifies the arguments made by Frederick Douglass, and finally, it illustrates the credibility of the author.
“The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is often told with a harsh and unemotional tone; it is this euphemistic style that gives the reader a keen insight into the writer's epoch as a slave in Maryland during the early 1800’s. Douglass never let us forget that his narrative was true, he wanted the readers to understand the truth that was Douglass's life, in addition the symbols and allusions that populate this book showing the intelligence and sophistication of the writer, while the detached writing also gives the reader another look into that time’s attitude and into Douglass’s own perception.
Can you imagine living a life filled with hunger, abuse, and injustice with an almost impossible chance of escaping? In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass writes about his life and experiences as a slave in the 1800's. With this book, Douglass attempts to change his reader's beliefs about what it means to be dedicated to the American idea that "All men are created equal" by revealing the injustices and awful living conditions found in slavery.
Slavery is a lethal poison. 3.9 million African Americans were enslaved in 1860. Frederick Douglass, the author of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, was a victim of slavery. His narrative encapsulates the pernicious effects of slavery, and his journey to freedom. Douglass’s narrative vividly elucidates the cruel institution of slavery; the stories of the slave’s agony provokes feelings of sorrow from the reader. In particular, Douglass utilizes motif and diction in his narrative, Douglass reveals a critical theme that reverberates in today’s society: slavery is an exercise of irresponsible power.
For Douglass, the most memorable and emotion-provoking incident was the treatment of his grandmother. When she became too old to work, she, after a lifetime of faithful service to the family, was left helpless and alone in a shack in the woods to fend for herself. “They took her to the woods, built her a little hut, put up a little mud-chimney, and then made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself in perfect loneliness; thus virtually turning her out to die!” (Douglass 51) Throughout his narrative, Douglass applied he rhetorical strategy of Pathos repeatedly and to great effect to promote and validate his view that slavery is morally wrong.
Define who Frederick Douglass was and provide a summary of his book, narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass: an American slave 1845.
The controversy of racism scorches Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass written by Frederick Douglass himself. Douglass unveils the atrocious truth about slavery that was hidden for so many years. Every beating, every death, every malicious act was all recorded for the people of the U.S. to finally see the error of our ways. The short essay, Slavery as a Mythologized Institution, explains how people in that time period justified the disgusting behavior that was demonstrated regularly. Religion and intellectual inferiority were concepts that were used to manipulate the minds of everyone around into believing that practicing slavery was acceptable. However a very courageous man, Frederick Douglass challenges those beliefs. Douglass debunks the mythology of slavery in his narrative by rebuking the romantic image of slavery with very disturbing imagery, promotes his own views on the intellectual belief of slaves, and exposes the “system” for promoting the disloyalty among slaves.