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Frederick Douglass goes on a journey to help stop slavery. Anti-Slavery movement. February 1818 – February 20, 1895. Frederick Douglass, Anna Murray, African American people, Slaves. To stop the people from being slaves. Frederick Douglass Cuts through the Lincoln Myth to Consider the Man. Frederick Douglass. 1849. Ireland, Britain, United States. Learning to be equal with others. In Frederick Douglass “Cuts through the Lincoln myth to consider the man”; he motivates his/her intended audience during the Anti-Slavery Movement by using the rhetorical devices or tone and imagery.
In this social movement it talks about people are not treated equally. This speech talks about how African Americans should not be slaves anymore. This speech talks about how he grew up in life listening to the president speak and how he gave all his speeches to the people of the United States. The theme of this speech is help others realize that we should help each other out. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other president to draw the sword of the nation.” (Frederick Douglass). (Frederick Douglass Cuts Through The Lincoln Myth To Consider The Man). This quote talks about how we should always protect each other and that Abraham Lincoln agrees on the fact that slavery should be put to an end. “When now it shall be said that the colored man is soulless that he has no appreciation of benefits or beneficiation, when to foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and it is attempted to, we may comply point to the monument we have this day erected to the memory or Abraham Lincoln.” (Frederick Douglass). (Frederick Douglass Cuts Through The Lincoln Myth To Consider The Man). ...
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...e still be slaves and working for the rich.
Works Cited
Granville, Grant. “He Made Us Laugh Some” Frederick Douglass’s Humor. [African American Review]. 4 (2003): 535. eLibrary. Web. 27 February 2014.
DeLombard, Jeannie. “Eye-Witness to the Cruelty.” Southern Violence and Northern Testimony in Frederick Douglass’s 1845. Scholarly Journal. eLibrary. Web. 27 February 2014.
Frederick Douglass. “Frederick Douglass Cuts Through the Lincoln Myth to Consider the Man.” W.W. Nordon and Company. eLibrary. Web. 27 February 2014.
Ramsey, William. “Frederick Douglass, Southerner”. Southern Literary Journal. eLibrary. 27 February 2014.
Comery, S. William. “Proud Lion of Baltimore: The Life and Legacy of Frederick Douglass.” World and I. (2003) 156. eLibrary. Web. 27 February 2014.
Franklin H. John. “The Two Worlds of Race.” [Daedalus]. eLibrary. Web. 27 February 2014.
Sundquist, Eric J., ed. Frederick Douglass: New Literacy and Historical Essays. Boston: Cambridge Press, 1990.
After suffering the overwhelming ferociousness and inhumanity of being a slave for over two decades , a black man by the name of Fredrick Douglass fled from enslavement and began to make a concerted effort to advance himself as a human being. Combating many obstacles and resisting numerous temptations, Douglass worked assiduously to develop into a knowledgeable gentleman rather than the involuntary alternative of being an unenlightened slave. In doing so, Douglass successfully immerged as one of the Civil War era’s most prominent antislavery orators. From his first major public speech at the age of 23, Douglass became widely renowned as a premier spokesperson for Black slaves and the movement for the abolition of slavery. In one of Douglass’ most distinguished speeches, “The Meaning of July 4th for the Negro,” he uses the intermittent occasion of speaking on behalf of African Americans to a multitude of White Americans to outline arguments against slavery. In that very speech, Douglass made it clear that, like countless African Americans during this time period,
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. An American Slave Written by Himself. (New Haven, Ct: Yale University Press, 2001)
Douglass, Frederick. The Heroic Slave. In Violence In the Black Imagination. Ed, Ronald T. Takaki. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
In Frederick Douglass’s autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass is represented in two extremely dissimilar personas as both the narrator and the protagonist. The broad gap between Douglass’s two roles is an intriguing dichotomy throughout the Narrative: Douglass advances from an illiterate, subjugated slave to a sophisticated and eloquent public figure. Douglass recurrently embellishes this transformation from his younger immature self to his older wiser self throughout the book by noting his juvenile obliviousness, innocence, and ignorance. His progress is exemplified through self-criticism of how captivated he was as a teen taking
Foner, Philip S. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, Volume II Pre-Civil War Decade
In the autobiography, Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass narrates his own life as a slave. He explains and talks about his tough experiences as a slave. Born on a plantation in Maryland he witnesses the abuse of his fellow slaves. As a slave, he saw many “christian slaveholders” who used Christianity as a justification of their actions. Douglass feels like these slaveholders are the worst. Douglass’s disdain for the hypocrisy of Christian slaveholders is shown through his use of tone, personification, and diction.
Douglass wrote three biographies about his life as a politician, slave, and abolitionist. However, the historical value of these works does not remain as important as the quality of the works themselves. Frederick Douglass’ writing deserves recognition in the canon of great American authors, because his work meets the chosen criteria for inclusion in a collection of important literature. Douglass influenced many famous abolitionists with his literary works, and this impact, coupled with his desire to write an expose about oppression in America, makes him a winning candidate. Although his published works, mostly autobiographies, received much acclaim from abolitionists, this paper explores the quality of Douglass’s work from a literary standpoint. This paper also details the events shaping Douglass’s impressive life and writing career. By examining the prestigious “life and times” of this black author, the reader will recognize the widespread influence of Douglass’s writing on other antislavery writers, politics, and hence, the public. In a look at his first and greatest work, Narrative of the Life, the following paper will demonstrate why Frederick Douglass deserves a place in the hall of great American writers. To fully appreciate the impact of Douglass’s autobiographies, we must examine violent period in which he lived. Douglass, born in 1818, grew up as a slave on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation in eastern Maryland. At the time, abolitionist movements started gaining speed as popular parties in the North. In the North, pro-slavery white mobs attacked black communities in retaliation for their efforts. By the time Douglass escaped from slavery, in 1838, tensions ran high among abolitionists and slaveowners. Slaves published accounts of their harrowing escapes, and their lives in slavery, mainly with the help of ghostwriters. Although abolitionists called for the total elimination of slavery in the South, racial segregation still occurred all over the United States. Blacks, freemen especially, found the task of finding a decent job overwhelming.
Douglass, Frederick. “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe”( Douglass). This famous quote epitomizes the philosophies of Frederick Douglass, in which he wanted everyone to be treated with dignity; if everyone was not treated with equality, no one person or property would be safe harm. His experience as a house slave, field slave and ship builder gave him the knowledge to develop into a persuasive speaker and abolitionist. In his narrative, he makes key arguments to white abolitionist and Christians on why slavery should be abolished. The key arguments that Frederick Douglass tries to vindicate are that slavery denies slaves of their identity, slavery is also detrimental for the slave owner, and slavery is ungodly.
This excellent biography fluently tells the life story of Douglass; one of the 19th centuries's most famous writers and speakers on abolitionist and human rights causes. It traces his life from his birth as a slave in Maryland, through his self-education, escape to freedom, and subsequent lionization as a renowned orator in England and the United States. Fascinating, too, are accounts of the era's politics, such as the racist views held by some abolitionist leaders and the ways in which many policies made in post-Civil War times have worked to the detriment of today's civil rights movement. The chapter on Frederick Douglass and John Brown is, in itself, interesting enough to commend this powerful biography. The seldom-seen photographs, the careful chapter notes, documentation, and acknowledgements will encourage anybody to keep on learning about Frederick Douglass.
Douglass, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave: Written by Himself (ed. John Blassingame) Yale University Press, 2001.
Foner, Philip S., ed. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass: Pre-Civil War Decade 1850-1860. Vol. 2. New York: International Publishers, 1950.
Douglass, Frederick . "The Nation's Problem."Teaching American History. Ashland University, n.d. Web. 26 May 2014.
Douglas, Frederick. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (The Harper Single Volume American Literature 3rd edition) 1845:p.1017-1081