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One of the most famous works on the topic of slavery is the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Fredrick Douglass. Written in 1845, this work has not lost its relevance. In fact, many modern scholars are trying to find something new and interesting in this work, in particular with respect to modern realities. I have found a few articles, each of which is addressing a particular aspect of this work. The value of the articles is the fact that they give me a great opportunity to understand not only this work, but also the writer's position as a whole. The main feature of the five articles is that they analyze Douglass’s ideas on freedom, slavery, and the role of Christianity as the dominant ideology. Brewton, Vince. …show more content…
The author gives well-founded conclusions as they are based on a thorough analysis of the work of the writer. These findings have given me a chance to see the dynamics of Douglass’s identity under the influence of various factors, including the opposition between the two types of identity - the identity of a slave and the identity of a free man. Burns, Mark K. “A Slave in Form but Not in Fact’: Subversive Humor and the Rhetoric of Irony in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” Studies in American Humor 3.12 (2005): 83-96. Print. It may seem that the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the autobiographical story, which has nothing to do with humor and irony; however, according to the author of the article, irony is extremely important for the writer because it helps him to express his personal attitude to various issues and events. Using irony, Douglass in particular, has the opportunity to express his critical attitude to the Christian beliefs while avoiding an official contradiction with the Christian …show more content…
For this purpose, he compares The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass with The Heroic Slave. The author reveals the main difference between the works is their representations of nature. The first work shows the author's negative attitude toward nature, in which he perceives it as a serious obstacle to the freedom. In turn, The Heroic Slave reflects other political ideas of the writer and focuses on the fact that nature and access to the land can be a source of inspiration in the struggle against
Frederick Douglass.” Journal of Narrative Technique 16.1 (Winter 1986): 55-71. Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Russel Whitaker. Vol. 141. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 Nov. 2013.
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.
For starters, Douglass uses pathos to get his point across. He uses stories in the bible to make his audience understand what he is trying to say. He especially used the story of Babylon to convey his point of how does Americans
Frederick Douglass uses irony to challenge the ideology of slavery when describing some of the overseers in the book. For example he describes Mr. Gore as what is called a first-rate overseer. He is implying that Mr. Gore is a good overseer to those with no sense of justice. One example of irony in the book is , “Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves to fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative goodness of their masters, each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of others,” (62). This is ironic because the slaves are fighting about keeping a good reputation for the masters that treat them horribly. Another example is, “…it is almost an unpardonable offence to teach to teach slaves to read in a Christian
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
Douglass uses irony to bring a point across to his audience, with the recounting of his own heritage. He explains that his separation after birth from his mother, a slave, and a majority of his foul treatment is likely because his white father feels a need to destroy the lives of his bastard children in order to reassert devotion to
For example, he explains to the reader that he would carry loaves of bread when sent on errands so that he could bargain with the local children for a reading or writing lesson. He admits "I was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood" (Douglass 101). This statement is ironic because Douglass himself was in a worse position, but instead, even as a 12-year-old Douglas acknowledges what little advantages he does have. Another example of irony is presented later in the essay, when Douglass is explaining his mental struggle, long after successfully learning how to read and write. He refers to his literacy as his "wretched condition" and even tells the reader "I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing" (Douglass 103). This statement is relevant because although Douglass 's fame in literary history, and that he is feeling burdened by this. This adds to the overall resolution of the essay because it adds a new element of mental discomfort instead of the physical and social discomfort associated with
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.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave details the progression of a slave to a man, and thus, the formation of his identity. The narrative functions as a persuasive essay, written in the hopes that it would successfully lead to “hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of [his] brethren in bonds” (Douglass 331). As an institution, slavery endeavored to reduce the men, women, and children “in bonds” to a state less than human. The slave identity, according to the institution of slavery, was not to be that of a rational, self forming, equal human being, but rather, a human animal whose purpose is to work and obey the whims of their “master.” For these reasons, Douglass articulates a distinction between the terms ‘man’ and ‘slaves’ under the institution of slavery. In his narrative, Douglass describes the situations and conditions that portray the differences between the two terms. Douglass also depicts the progression he makes from internalizing the slaveholder viewpoints about what his identity should be to creating an identity of his own making. Thus, Douglass’ narrative depicts not simply a search for freedom, but also a search for himself through the abandonment of the slave/animal identity forced upon him by the institution of slavery.
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
In sum, all of these key arguments exist in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” because of the institution of slavery and its resulting lack of freedom that was used to defend it. This text’s arguments could all be gathered together under the common element of inequality and how it affected the practical, social, and even spiritual lives of the slaves.
In The Narrative of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, an African American male describes his day as a slave and what he has become from the experience. Douglass writes this story to make readers understand that slavery is brutalizing and dehumanizing, that a slave is able to become a man, and that he still has intellectual ability even though he is a slave. In the story, these messages are shown frequently through the diction of Frederick Douglass.
In using descriptions of slave life, ironic situations, and general frankness, Douglass is appealing to the emotions of his audience. Douglass is letting people know of the terrors of slavery by touching their emotions. He gets them motivated by being interesting and then builds upon this by describing his life in simple terms that all humans can relate to.
In this book, Douglass narrated the life of a slave in the United States into finer details. This paper will give a description of life a slave in the United States was living, as narrated through the experiences of Fredrick Douglass.