Essay On Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglas, who wrote Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglas showed many different ways that slaves got dehumanized in the text. The first example being that in Talbot county it was legal to kill a slave and the murderer would have little to no punishment, but most of the

Douglass recalls his grandparents being in the community for a very long time and being thought to be important to the community. He describes his grandmother as being a very good nurse and being held into high regard in the community more than most African Americans. Douglass than goes on to describe on why he is not living with his parents and being raised by his grandparents. “The practice of separating children from their mother, and hiring the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting, except at long intervals, is a marked feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the slave system. But it is in harmony with the grand aim of slavery, which, always and everywhere, is to reduce man to a level with the brute. It is a successful method of obliterating [29] from the mind and heart of the slave, all just ideas of the sacredness of the family, as an institution.” Slave owners would separate children from their parents in order to diminish any bond that they might form or any form of attachment that might hurt their future

Douglass expressed that slaves were just human beings but were always treated as property, that was the economical impact, slaves were property and constantly being traded and taken away from there families. Since they were frequently passed between the whites, the slaveholders could careless that some of the slaves would be apart from there families and the young children were separated from there mothers at birth. Douglass explains that the slave owners would often treat them as animals or objects, they only way they valued the slaves is because they can perform productive labor.

In The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass slaves are dehumanized in many different ways. In many ways the slaves are pushed to the point of breaking by their slaveholders and by their masters workers. They are wiped like animals would be and beaten to or almost death. Then the children are taken from their mothers right after birth and their mothers tend to be used as breeders. Sometimes their father can end up being the slave master.

The brutality that slaves endured form their masters and from the institution of slavery caused slaves to be denied their god given rights. In the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," Douglass has the ability to show the psychological battle between the white slave holders and their black slaves, which is shown by Douglass' own intellectual struggles against his white slave holders. I will focus my attention on how education allowed Douglass to understand how slavery was wrong, and how the Americans saw the blacks as not equal, and only suitable for slave work. I will also contrast how Douglass' view was very similar to that of the women in antebellum America, and the role that Christianity played in his life as a slave and then

Women were forced to bear master's children. Slaves were beaten unwarranted by their masters cruelly. Slaves had no rights or education, slaveholders maintained inhumanity and afraid slaves would become unmanageable. One of Douglass's family member died in the forest alone, even served the master for years.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, depicts a vivid reality of the hardships endured by the African American culture in the period of slavery. One of the many things shown in Frederick's narrative is how slaves, in their own personal way, resisted their masters authority. Another is how slaves were able to create their own autonomous culture within the brutal system in which they were bound. There are many examples in the narrative where Frederick tries to show the resistance of the slaves. The resistors did not go unpunished though, they were punished to the severity of death. Fredrick tells of these instances with a startling sense of casualness, which seems rather

Next, the psychological trauma will be examined, in particular the valuation and division of slaves. Slaveholders deemed slaves as valuable assets such as clothes, furniture, pigs, and horses which was how slaves were sold and traded. By this method, slave masters would mentally engrain the message to slaves that they were not, indeed, human beings, but rather items of personal belongings. As a result, slaves did not know their self-worth. Another method of psychological distress would be to divide slaves from their families. In this effort, slaves were both stripped of both their morale and identity. The very first chapter of Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass proves this assertion.

Define who Frederick Douglass was and provide a summary of his book, narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass: an American slave 1845.

The masters may challenge slaves to a drinking contest and deceive them with what they think is freedom. After seeing these tricks played on other slaves, Frederick realizes not to say a word about his master or the treatment he is receiving. This teaches him a lesson in the ways of a slaveholder. He must keep quiet at all times if he doesn’t want to be beaten or killed. Silence is his means of survival. (2nd) To use his own words, further, he said, “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master – to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world”. (1st) Now, said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read there would be no keeping him”. [Ch. 6, p. 57.] I selected this particular passage because it demonstrates just how much education was feared by the masters. This dialogue is between Mr. and Mrs. Auld. Mrs. Auld was trying to teach Frederick to spell. She wasn’t yet accustomed to the life of slaveholding. Yet with time she grew cruel just like the others. It seemed as though slavery was bad for both the slave and the slaveholder. It could make even the kindest person into a cruel master. Once her husband found out he was furious. He felt that if you taught a slave how to spell and read, he would start learning about all kinds of things. He would become dissatisfied with his life as a slave and want something more. Mr. Auld was exactly

Douglass not only describes slaves as animals, but he describes slave treatment as if they were animals to further describe the horrendous lives of slaves. Slaves were fed food in troughs (36). By choosing the word “trough”, Douglass emphasizes the poor treatment of slaves; slaves were not good enough to be fed from bowls or plates, they were no better than animals. Douglass also compares women on the plantations to breeding animals. Women were expected to reproduce in order to increase their masters’ wealth, not to create a family. Women and children were separated before the child was a year old so they would not form familial bonds with one another. When Douglass’ own mother died, he compared it to a stranger dying because he had no connection with her (18). Slaves were not only thought of animals, but also fostered as animals. Douglass describes Mr. Covey as a “nigger-breaker”, Douglass was broken in “body, soul, and spirit” by

Prompt: Douglass maintains that slavery dehumanized both the slave and the slaveholder. Quoting specific passages in the Narrative support this thesis with examples.

In Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Mr. Douglass gives many examples of cruelty towards slaves as he shows many reasons that could have been used to abolish slavery. Throughout the well-written narrative, Douglass uses examples from the severe whippings that took place constantly to a form of brainwashing by the slaveholders over the slaves describing the terrible conditions that the slaves were faced with in the south in the first half of the 1800’s. The purpose of this narrative was most likely to give others not affiliated with slaves an explicit view of what actually happened to the slaves physically, mentally, and emotionally to show the explicit importance of knowledge to the liberation

He notes that, the slavery institution made them forget about their origin, and anything else that entails their past, and even when they were born. The slaves forgot everything about their families, and none knew about their family because, they were torn from them without any warning. Douglass explains how they went without food, clothing and even sleep because their masters were cruel to them. American slavery took advantage of black laborers as they were beaten mercilessly without committing any offense. They were not treated as human beings, but as property that could be manipulated in any way. The slavery institution was harsh for the Africans especially women who were regularly raped, and forced to bear their masters children and if they declined, they were maimed or killed.

When a child was born of slave parentage, most slave owners would separate the child from the mother at a young age. Many were taken when they were as young as three, others stayed until they were seven. Some parents of slave children would even take the lives of their families, in order to spare the heartache of seperation. As stated in the article “Slave Family Life” by Digital History,” As a result of the sale or death of a father or mother, over a third of all slave children grew up in households from which one or both parents were absent.” The slave children would then be placed in the care of an older women who was not fit to work in the fields, and the mother would be sent away to a nearby farm. The slave owners believed that separating