In 1845, Frederick Douglass published his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Since then, it has become one of the seminal works of pre-Antebellum America. Douglass was a prominent speaker and abolitionist in 19th Century America, and was a key figure in securing the end of slavery in the United States. In his narrative, Douglass gives us an accurate depiction of what life was like as a slave, his path to freedom, and his life immediately following his escape from bondage. Douglass’ narrative helps inform modern day readers how former slaves experienced their new freedom, and just how meaningful that experience was. Every former slave experiences their newfound freedom differently, and thus each has a different interpretation of freedom. To see the meaning Frederick Douglass draws from his freedom, one must look at what back at his experience as a slave and analyze his grievances. There are certain themes that are consistent throughout his narrative and his various masters. Douglass laments the lack of humanity that slavery perpetuates, the lack of education, and the constraints of forced labor. By extension, the removal of these confines define freedom for Frederick Douglass. The meaning of freedom for Frederick Douglass was the restoration of humanity, the promise of education, and the liberation of wage earning. By far the most overwhelming theme in Douglass’ narrative is his disgust with the white people of the South who maintain slavery. He regularly
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 his search for freedom from the shackles of slavery, Douglass discovered that the enslavement of his race embodied injustice. Using this line of thinking, Douglass arrived at the conclusion that freedom equates with justice. He details his unbearable state of mind after realising the injustice of his enslavement when he states,”It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me”(Douglass 35). Freedom acts as Douglass’s driving motivation
Throughout Douglass's autobiography, he described what slavery does to white people. The stories he told are true yet so inconceivable that many readers were shocked how
Slavery was brought to America in the 1600’s taking millions of Africans from West Africa. But in 1804 the North voted to abolish slavery but the South refused making states escape the union.Slavery in the South had an effect on the economy, but also on the slaves.Frederick Douglass, who was once a slave with his family in Maryland suffered greatly, but still pushed on and finally escaped and became a national leader of the abolition in the south movement.He made a narrative about his life as a slave and stated that the purpose of the narrative is to “throw light” on the American slave system.The goal of this paper is to discuss three aspects his narrative discusses that he “throws light” on, his position against the feelings of defenders of
In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass provides the reader with a powerful autobiography, which enables the reader to venture into the life of Frederick Douglass. Douglass shows the reader how the knowledge he obtained was both helpful and harmful by using examples from his life. The key to freedom, for Douglass, was knowledge; however, this knowledge also opened his eyes to the dehumanization slavery caused.
Frederick Douglass believed that all people were born equal, but he also believed that humans were not just automatically born free. He deduced that man has the innate instinctive ability to mold themselves into whoever they wanted to become. So, naturally self-improvement and education were two crucial aspects of Frederick’s life. To Douglass the most horrific thing about slavery was the fact that slaves were totally and completely precluded from and form of education, which prevented them from improving themselves. Douglass worked exceedingly hard to obtain an education in order to ultimately become a free man. Although he still had to physically escape slavery his education played a vital role in his journey to freedom.
The tone established in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is unusual in that from the beginning to the end the focus has been shifted. In the beginning of the narrative Douglass seems to fulfill every stereotypical slavery theme. He is a young black slave who at first cannot read and is very naïve in understanding his situation. As a child put into slavery Douglass does not have the knowledge to know about his surroundings and the world outside of slavery. In Douglass’ narrative the tone is first set as that of an observer, however finishing with his own personal accounts.
Douglass got his passion to promote freedom for all slaves after he escaped from slavery and ultimately had an end goal to “abolish slavery in all its forms and aspects, and promote the moral and intellectual improvement of the coloured people and hasten the day of freedom to the three million of enslaved fellow countrymen”. He also wrote several autobiographies describing his experiences as a slave. One of the autobiographies in particular, ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave’ published in 1845 was a best-selling and was extremely influential for promoting the cause of abolition. The narrative shows a compelling argument to basic human rights thus making it extremely influential as the narrative clearly possesses features and linguistic skills, which for most white people, negated their common perception of black people being illiterate in the 19th century.
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
Having been born into slavery, Frederick Douglass like all slaves has no freedom, possessions, and little to no education or family members. Worst of all, he must succumb to the physical and mental brutality associated with being a slave, in order to survive on the plantations on which he lives. Douglass defies the expectations bestowed upon him by slavery and does not choose the path of a normal and subservient slave by actively trying to escape. After escaping slavery, Douglass decides to compose a narrative of his life and experiences as a slave titled, The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, in which he illustrates his journey from slavery to freedom. This narrative serves as a roadmap to freedom, in that the travel along the road is
Published in 1845, ‘Narrative of life of Frederick Douglass an American slave written by himself’ is still the most highly acclaimed American autobiography ever written. It was published seven years after Douglass escaped from his life as a slave in Maryland. It describes his experience of being slave and his psychological insights into the slave-master relationship. The main focus is on ‘How he learn to read and write ‘and ‘the pain of slavery.’ The goal of this paper is to bring more insight analysis of his narrative life through the most famous two chapter’s in which he defines, “How he learn to read and write” and “The pain of slavery.” To achieve this goal, the paper is organized into four main sections. First, author background and
The Key to Freedom In the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass is faced with many hardships. During his life on the plantations, he was beaten, starved, whipped, and treated inhumanely. Trying to discover his true self, Frederick Douglass is endowed with many qualities that influenced the man he had become. Throughout the story, Frederick Douglass illustrates personal growth in courage, intelligence, and racial pride.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is an account of Frederick Douglass’ life written in a very detached and objective tone. You might find this tone normal for a historical account of the events of someone’s life if not for the fact that the narrative was written by Frederick Douglass himself. In light of the fact that Douglass wrote his autobiography as a treatise in support of the abolishment of slavery, the removed tone was an effective tone. It gave force to his argument that slavery should be done away with.
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, the author of the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass was a self-taught slave that was able to escape the brutality of slavery in the year of 1838. Frederick Douglass’s book is separated into 3 main sections, including, a beginning, middle, and end. The purpose of the narrative is to improve the audience's understanding of Douglass’s experience of being a slave, the horrible treatment slaves received, and how Douglass was able to overcome and escape slavery. All throughout the narrative, Douglass uses many rhetorical devices, including, diction, imagery, and syntax, which helps the audience understand, one of his main chapters, chapter 5. In this chapter Douglass implies that the overall purpose is to emphasize the animalistic, inhuman treatment slaves received, how Douglass felt about leaving Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and his luck of being able to move to Mr. and Mrs. Auld's.