Frederick Douglass Analysis

Another example of slave master’s methods to dehumanize slaves were the living conditions provided to slaves. Along with the lashings and severe punishment to which slaves were often subjected, they were also kept half-starved. As Douglass writes, “They [Henrietta and Mary] seldom knew what it was to eat a full meal.” Douglass adds, “I have seen Mary contending with the pigs for the offal thrown into the street.” (pp. 411-412) This reveals how slave masters would not feed slaves adequate portions of food, which led to many slaves being extremely thin and malnourished. Knowledge of such despicable acts happening to one's family can only inspire feelings of despise, disgust and hatred. Douglass, however, used this as fuel to inspire his freedom.

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.

Frederick Douglass also uses the point that slaves are human, and are treated as such except in the ways of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He knows that “nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government”(Douglass). He says that there are laws forbidding things such as reading and writing to slaves, yet there is nothing of the sort that in reference to animals or other things one can one. In fact, the slaves are proven human just because nature itself treats them as such. Douglass states, “When the

In chapter 5, Douglass begins his narrative to discuss the animal-like, inhuman treatment he received from his past slaveowner. Douglass does this by his use of diction and imagery throughout chapter 5. For example, he says “I suffered much from hunger, but much more from cold” (34). The diction and imagery Douglass uses in these sentences helps discuss the purpose of inhumanity by describing how the slaves were treated horribly. They were not given enough food and they were not given the proper amount of clothing need to stay warm in the frigid winter. The effect of this powerful quotes conveys a doleful tone that teaches the audience how many slaves, including Douglass, had suffered. Another example would be when he writes “The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs, they would come and devour the mush…” (34). This quotes diction and imagery helps exhibit the purpose of animal-like, treatment by comparing the slave children as pigs. Douglass also does this by describing the food that they were given, like mush. The simile that Douglass uses effects the audience in that it conveys a sense of disturbance and gives the reader a clear picture of what and how the slave were forced to eat. These quotes help forecast Douglass’s purpose of the slaves being

In a Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave written by himself, the author argues that no one can be enslaved if he or she has the ability to read, write, and think. Douglass supports his claim by first providing details of his attempts to earn an education, and secondly by explaining the conversion of a single slaveholder. The author’s purpose is to reveal the evils of slavery to the wider public in order to gain support for the abolition of his terrifying practice. Based on the purpose of writing the book and the graphic detail of his stories, Douglass is writing to influence people of higher power, such as abolitionists, to abolish the appalling reality of slavery; developing a sympathetic relationship with the

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.

Douglass characterizes slave owners as fierce and wild animals such as tigers and snakes; he characterizes slaves as simple farm animals such as horses, cattle, and pigs (49). By comparing slaves and slave owners to these different types of animals, he contrasts their traits. Slave owners were seen as powerful, and beastly; while slaves were seen as powerless and very weak.

Frederick Douglass was an inspiring African American speaker, writer, politician, and social reformer. Shortly after Douglass escaped from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining acknowledgment for his brilliant speeches and keen antislavery writing ability. As a former slave, Douglass stood as a living counteraction to slave-owners' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual ability to function as prosperous American citizens. Slavery had an enormous impact on Frederick Douglass' sense of manhood. Within this essay, I will analyze the various effects that slavery had on Douglass' sense of manhood.

Here Douglass shows that slavery was not a constant source of pain and suffering: “I was not old enough to work in the fields, and there being little else than field work to do, I had a great deal of leisure time,” (Douglass 71.) This is effective in proving his point because it allows him to show the true horrors of slavery and not be lopsided in his views.

In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave (1845), written by Frederick Douglass, the author asserts that slaves were treated no better than, sometimes worse than, livestock. Douglass supports his claim by first sharing what he went through while enslaved as a child and also by sharing his experiences as an adult trying to escape the grasp of slavery. Douglass’s purpose is to share his personal experiences while enslaved in order to help readers become more aware of the horrors that slaves faced daily. Based on his constant use of high diction, Douglass is writing to officials hoping his experiences will sway them to end slavery.

Thesis: Frederick Douglass sees the Christianity of the land as a dishonest version of the Christianity of Christ because the Christianity of the land stands for slavery, corruption, and cruelty. I. Difference between Christianity of Christ and the Christianity of the land. Frederick’s opinion on Christianity of the land. A. Frederick points out the difference between the Christianity of Christ and the Christianity of the land in his book narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American salve. He writes that the evil Christianity of the land is a man-made version of the good and holy Christianity of Christ.

The Heroic Slave a novella written by Frederick Douglass is loosely based on The Creole Revolt of the only documented successful African – American Slaves eighteen who revolt gain their freedom including one hundred ten other slaves, who were set free in Nassau, Bahamas in 1841. (Eschner) Whereas, in The Heroic Slave, Frederick Douglass alters the actual account to introduce ideas to illicit whites to assist in abolition for slavery. (Douglas) In his novel based his story on Madison Washington one of the four slaves who is noted as prominent leader in the revolt.

Today, I began my day like usual, working on the plantation. I was born a slave. All I knew was my grandma since my parents had to work long hard days and the plantation owners did not want families to be together. We were both black and she, too, never knew her parents. One day she took me to meet some other kids who lived on the plantation and when I turned around she was gone. I never saw her again and I had been working on this plantation since then.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the

The effect of this passage, in addition to introducing the idea that slaves were considered to be no more civilized than animals, is an emphasis on Douglass’s lack of a human identity. As a slave, his role was that of an animal whose purpose was to work for his “master.” This internalization of the animal/slave role is accentuated further when Douglass discusses the slave’s notion of time as “planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time” (Douglass 255). The institution of slavery, which forced the comparison of slave to animal, required the slave to consider time in terms of his master—time to work, time to plant, time to harvest. Thus, slaves were unable to utilize a concept of time of their own making to identify themselves because their concepts of time reflected what was important to their “masters” and not to themselves. By representing the slaves as relying on their “masters’” wishes to identify themselves, Douglass emphasizes the comparison between slave and animals.