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Essay on Fredrick Douglass narrative of life
The narrative of frederick douglass passage analysis
Essay on Fredrick Douglass narrative of life
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In the following excerpt from the autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, the third paragraph is distinguished from the rest of the passage due to the immediate shift of attitude, and exhibiting a somewhat of an ebullience through this hopeful vision of becoming forever free, which is effectively displayed by his use of figurative language and short and concise like syntax. Through his disgusting state of once being a slave, Douglass uses figurative language to express his thoughts and emotions of being a slave, and becoming free. Douglass expresses himself in the first paragraph as “ a man transformed into a brute” as a result of Mr Covey “succeeded in breaking me[him].” Douglass defines himself as an animal through his explicitly harsh word choice, and seems to be degrades him from being a human being, who deserves desires and thoughts of his own. In contrast of this, …show more content…
The first and second paragraphs evidently consist of sentences of some sort of length, the third paragraphs are shorter, but, portray more meaning. Although the whole passage depicts powerful speech, the difference of syntax is defined by his day-to-day life, which is seen in the first and second paragraph, and his dreams, which is seen in the third paragraph. Furthermore, Douglass use of exclamation points, as it exemplifies his desperation and his yearning for freedom, in contrast to the first two paragraphs. Additionally, the parallelism in the third paragraph is completely different from the first two, Douglass uniforms his all his sentences in the third paragraph in a very similar way such as “O that I were free!, O, that I were on one of your gallant decks" (38). In using shorter very unsimilar syntax between the first two paragraphs and the third, Douglass renders that the slave is not an animal or beast, but a human being, that longs for nothing but to become
Frederick Douglass wrote in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, about the devastation associated with slavery and the destruction from which comes desperation. Douglass intends to summon upon the guilt and empathy of his white audience by giving an account from which the reader is able to coax up a new perspective on the dreadful oppression. Seen especially in the third paragraph where Douglass provides a series of rhetorical devices including: apostrophe, anaphora, personification, exemplum, and epithet in his sorrowful bellowing to passing ships.
Frederick Douglass, an African American social reformer who escaped from slavery, in his autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself,” denotes the perilous life of a slave in the South. Through syntax, Douglass is able to persuade his readers to support the abolitionist movement as his writing transitions from shifting sentence lengths to parallel structure and finally to varying uses of punctuation. Douglass begins his memoir with a combination of long and short sentences that serve to effectively depict life his life as a slave. This depiction is significant because it illustrates the treatment of slaves in the south allows his audience to despise the horrors of slavery. In addition, this
According to Douglass, the treatment of a slave was worse than that of an animal. Not only were they valued as an animal, fed like an animal, and beaten like an animal, but also a slave was reduced to an animal when he was just as much of a man as his master. The open mentality a slave had was ...
The narrative of Douglass quotes "Mr. Covey gave me a very severe whipping, cutting my back causing blood to run, and raising ridges on my flesh as large as my little finger". This quote also shows how horrible the men were abused and beaten too. Although, they had more of a chance to fight back against their masters, which is proven in this quote "This gave me assurance, and I held him uneasy, causing the blood to run where I touched him with the ends of my fingers". The quote explains how Douglass finally fought back against his master, after being beaten several times by him. The mental abuse is shown in the quote from Douglass's narrative that states" Mr.Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit.". This shows that the masters would mentally break the men, so they would behave and listen to them better. Most masters would drain all the spirit out of the men to make the threat of the slaves fighting back very rare. Those were the horrible struggles the men had to deal with in
Slavery consisted of numerous inhumane horrors completed to make its victims feel desolated and helpless. Many inescapable of these horrors of slavery are conveyed in the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. The entire prospect of the duration of the story is to plan an escape from the excruciating conditions awaiting Douglass as a slave. When his escape is finally executed, unpredictable emotions and thoughts overwhelm him. Within the conclusion of his narrative (shown in the given passage), Frederick Douglass uses figurative language, diction, and syntax to portray such states of mind he felt after escaping slavery: relief, loneliness, and paranoia.
...details the transformation of a slave to a man. The institution of slavery defined a slave as less than human, and in order to perpetuate that impression, slaveholders forbade slaves the luxury of self definition. Therefore, when Douglass finally rejects the notions about his identity forced on him by slavery, and embraces an identity of his own creation, he has completed his journey from slave to man. He no longer defines himself in terms of the institution of slavery, but by his own thoughts regarding what his identity is. Through the metamorphosis of his identity as “an animal” to an author who fights for the abolitionist movement, Douglass presents his narrative not simply as a search for freedom, but also a search for himself.
As both the narrator and author of “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself” Frederick Douglass writes about his transition from a slave to a well educated and empowered colored young man. As a skilled and spirited man, he served as both an orator and writer for the abolitionist movement, which was a movement to the abolishment of slavery. At the time of his narrative’s publication, Douglass’s sole goal of his writings was to essentially prove to those in disbelief that an articulate and intelligent man, such as himself, could have,in fact, been enslaved at one point in time. While, Douglass’ narrative was and arguably still is very influential, there are some controversial aspects of of this piece, of which Deborah McDowell mentions in her criticism.
Frederick Douglass quickly noticed if he wanted a chance of being free he needed to do something about it. He took action and began to fight back against his master. When Mr. Covey tried to whip him, Douglass refused to let him. Mr. Covey wouldn’t tolerate this kind of behavior. This resulted in a fight between the two. This confrontation concluded with Frederick winning.. Mr. Covey wanted to keep his reputation of being a slave breaker so he let Douglass go and never said a word about it again. Frederick was also never whipped again after the fight “it rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood” (pg 43). The use of metaphors comparing the feelings of freedom to embers rekindling deepens the reader's understanding and creates a feeling of sensory to help the reader experience the words better. This small feeling of freedom and manhood only made him want it more. After Douglass was accused of trying to run away, he was sent to jail. In this prison, his thoughts were overwhelming. He was alone and thought the possibility of freedom was gone. Yet being the mental hero he was he still desired freedom “it was now left to my fate. I was all alone, and within the walls of a stone prison” (pg 55). Being imprisoned did not stop him at all. It took Douglass mental and physical heroism to overcome all of the obstacles in his life. Without his courage and
The hopeful and then helpless tones in Douglass' passage reflect his inner turmoil throughout the process of his escape from the wretched south. At first, Frederick Douglass feels the utter feeling of happiness covering every inch of his body and soul. However, he soon finds out that the rosy path has thorns that dug into his skin as freedom was dangled in front of his face through a tunnel of complete darkness.
After reading chapter X I can say that Frederick Douglas’s statement: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.” provided a new insight of the mental, physical and emotional torture and torment Douglass had faced as a slave and how it transformed him into the strong and determined man. One cold morning in January, Douglas had a task to guide a team of unbroken oxen. The oxen were difficult to tame, and Douglass barely escapes with his life. Upon learn that Douglass has failed his task, Covey orders him to take off his clothes and receive punishment (Gates, Smith 363).When Douglass does not answer, Covey hurries at him, tears his clothing off, and whips him over and over again. Covey continues to whip
In, “The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass”, readers get a first person perspective on slavery in the South before the Civil War. The author, Frederick Douglass, taught himself how to read and write, and was able to share his story to show the evils of slavery, not only in regard to the slaves, but with regard to masters, as well. Throughout Douglass’ autobiography, he shares his disgust with how slavery would corrupt people and change their whole entire persona. He uses ethos, logos, and pathos to help establish his credibility, and enlighten his readers about what changes needed to be made.
America in the mid to early nineteenth century saw the torture of many African Americans in slavery. Plantation owners did not care whether they were young or old, girl or boy, to them all slaves were there to work. One slave in particular, Frederick Douglass, documented his journey through slavery in his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Through the use of various rhetorical devices and strategies, Douglass conveys the dehumanizing and corrupting effect of slavery, in order to show the overall need for American abolition. His use of devices such as parallelism, asyndeton, simile, antithesis, juxtaposition and use of irony, not only establish ethos but also show the negative effects of slavery on slaves, masters and
As a relatively young man, Frederick Douglass discovers, in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, that learning to read and write can be his path to freedom. Upon discovering that...
In Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, one of the major themes is how the institution of slavery has an effect on the moral health of the slaveholder. The power slaveholders have over their slaves is great, as well as corrupting. Douglass uses this theme to point out that the institution of slavery is bad for everyone involved, not just the slaves. Throughout the narrative, Douglass uses several of his former slaveholders as examples. Sophia Auld, once such a kind and caring woman, is transformed into a cruel and oppressive slave owner over the course of the narrative. Thomas Auld, also. Douglass ties this theme back to the main concern of authorial control. Although this is a personal account, it is also a tool of propaganda, and is used as such. Douglass’s intent is to convince readers that the system of slavery is horrible and damaging to all included, and thus should be abolished completely. Douglass makes it very clear in his examples how exactly the transformation occurs and how kind and moral people can become those who beat their slaves and pervert Christianity in an attempt to justify it.
In this narrative, Douglass describes his life as a slave in ways that is brutalizing and dehumanizing. He wants his readers to understand that concept. By doing this, Douglass writes, “I was seized with a violent aching of the head, attended with extreme dizziness; I trembled in every limb” (416). Douglass uses diction such as seized, aching, extreme dizziness, and trembled to help create a picture of the pain he had felt during his experiences of being a slave for Mr. Covey. Another example is when he writes, “I told him as well as I could, for I scarce had strength to speak. He then gave me a savage kick in the side, and told me to get up I tried to do so, but fell back in the attempt. He gave me another kick, and again told me to rise. I again tried, and succeeded in gaining my feet; but stooping to get the tub with which I was feeding the fan, I again staggered and fell” (416-17). Words like scarce, savage, and staggered place imagery into the reader’s minds of what he went through as a slave. One other way that Douglass shows how his words emphasize the message is when he writes, “The blood was yet oozing from the wound on my head. For a time I thought I should bleed to death; and think now that I should have done so, but that the blood so matted my hair as to stop the w...