Examples Of Ethos In Frederick Douglass

A slave has all the emotion to want freedom, but no common sense or logic to obtain it, nor the advantages in society to reach it. Mr.Douglass uses all three aspects such as Pathos, Logos, Ethos to not only depict the struggle and blindness of slaves, but present the lifestyle of slave and the missed opportunities in front of the so they can realize the difference between what is suppose represent them(The American Promise) then what they really are(the American Individual). Pathos is used by Douglass to express slaves gratitude, anger, and feelings of their turmoil by putting those around him in his book as examples seeking for their american individual to be realized. Secondly, logos is the logic he speaks when clarifying what slaves are missing out on not taking

Slavery is one of the darkest parts of American History. Slave narratives are personal accounts written by former slaves about their experiences during slavery as well as their struggles to obtain freedom. The slave narratives offer chronological events and individual experiences. This is important because it gives us writers perspective on slavery. Slaves, like Frederick Douglass and Jacobs, wrote narratives using ethos, pathos, and logos in their rhetoric to persuade their readers. In comparing both authors, Frederick Douglass uses pathos the most effectively.

Slavery had slithered its way into the society Douglass lived in; it corrupted them and brought out the worst, yet it couldn’t smother the smallest fraction of morality in some people. Douglass comments on the difference in treatment of slaves in a city environment compared to a plantation when he says, “[t]here is a vestige of decency, a sense of shame, that does much to curb and check those outbreaks of atrocious cruelty so commonly enacted upon the plantation.” (46) Using logos, Douglass shines light on the fact that, while slavery is already entrenched in their society, it still bothers the moral of many people when their own violent and inhumane acts are brought out to the public. He says that there is a ‘vestige of decency’ and a ‘sense of shame’ in the city slaveholders. But, if slavery was so ingrained

Douglass’s Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass is a biographical novel of his life as slave. He expresses and reflects the social life of America in slavery era, the journey of his struggling and witnessing of cruelty that showed at that time. That era is an era of capitalism where the capitalist (white people) rules everything as the ruler or rich businessman that has plantation and the worker without payment or slave (black people) as their property tools to make them more rich with their business. They rule their business (plantation) and the workers (slaves) under the care of their cruel overseer. But not seldom they do cruel punish to the slave by her/him self. It reflects in Douglass’s Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass:

He’s arguing the enslaving of Blacks is not the work of God. Douglass wants to question their faith to God. He’s stating that how could you believe in God and let the enslavement of people occur right before you. He chose this approach because religion is the dominant language of the period. It seems if you weren’t religious then you were considered an outsider or worst a worshiper of the Devil. I believed he used the Biblical references because he wanted to use their language against them and make them see the

Frederick Douglas narrative of his life has been applauded for its depravity of slavery, but also for its ability to capture the reader’s attention. The novel is a bleakly truthful picture of the inhuman treatment of slaves in the 1800s. Douglas connected with readers by using specific verbiage to contend for the corruption of slaves.

Douglass’s writes in his narrative that slavery is an institution that keeps slaves at their lowest form of ignorance. As such the slave owners themselves commit themselves to becoming “monsters” as the slaves are becoming “animals”. He supports this clearly when he tells of his experience as a slave, starting in his earliest years witnessing the gruesome beating of other slaves. The graphic detail and descriptive nature of his writings offer a better insight to other people and abolitionists. Douglass then becomes very influential in the abolitionist movement.

Especially, Douglass employs the use of deliberate and measured rationality and inquiry tone to convince his audience. Additionally, he utilizes logos in terms of historical facts to back up his plea for equality in American society, also he uses logic where he talks about the fact that slaves are human. He points how people know this fact, but they just choose to ignore it. Another way that he appeals to logos is talking about how some people don’t understand what the Fourth of July

Throughout the book Douglass characterizes himself using the events that have happened in his life and around it. First of all he quotes a abolitionist with a similar viewpoint “Gone, gone, sold and gone To the rice swamp dank and lone, Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever-demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air:— Gone, gone, sold and gone To the rice swamp dank and lone, From Virginia hills and waters— Woe is me, my stolen daughters!”(61) This quote shows how a white poet and abolitionist has the same point of view as Douglass causing his credibility to go up and for the reader believe Douglass point of view and message more.

Douglass mentions in his novel how religious some of his masters are. Most of his masters find “religious sanction and support for [their] slaveholding cruelty” (Douglass, 57). For instance, one of his masters, Master Thomas, would quote a Scripture- “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes” (Douglass, 58)- in order to justify the whipping of his slaves. Frederick Douglass often says that the most religious slaveholders are also the worst and the meanest because they use the Word of God to validate the punishment of

Douglass shows that people who claimed to be moral Christians were torturers of humans. He presents the irony of this situation in the book. "His (the master's) house was the preachers' home. They (the preachers) used to take great pleasure in coming there to put up; for while he starved us, he stuffed them."(40-41) Douglass is presenting his audience with the two faces of the slave holder's version of Christianity; the selfish greed hidden behind piousness. In addition to this Douglass also makes sarcastic descriptions of people and places, describing how un-Christian they were by calling them Christian. "(I)t is almost an unpardonable offense to teach slaves to read in this Christian county."(32)

Douglass’s narrative is a courageous work, as it confronts the slavery institution, and the misuse of Christianity by the slave owners

The Dehumanization of the Enslave: Frederick Douglass The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself

Throughout the book Douglass acts as both the narrator and the protagonist within his story, although he appears quite different in both roles. Douglass portrays himself as an uneducated, slave to articulate the difference between his older self and his younger self in the city of Annapolis seeing both sides of the issue of slavery. As you continue to read Douglass’s tone does not change in any way necessary making no extra exaggerations on the issue of slavery even for slave owners. His vision of individual slave owning, allows him to present himself in a deeper feeling with expressional emotions him and other suffered. As an American slave Douglass represents his younger self in Chapter 1 less similarity to other slaves, stating merily as an eyewitness to other circumstances that happened to the other characters. Although, Douglass has a desire to help not only himself, but moreover his fellow slaves he reestablishes his sense of self and justice through his life of slavery.

Finally, the author uses diction to present slaveholders cowardice by dramatizing his daily situation when preparing his escape “advise me to complete thoughtlessness of the future, and taught me to depend solely upon him for happiness.” pg.106. By appealing to pathos and exaggerating slaves situation, Douglass intents to show the fear of slaveholders through connotation. Slaveholders have nothing in their lives without slaves, so they used manipulated their slaves to satisfy themselves. Slaveholders control every aspect in the life of a slave to prevent progress in slaves lives to block decay in slavery which would be a disaster for slaveholders. In conclusion this illuminates slaveholders selfishness to show their success to a biased community