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Narrative And Dramatic Techniques In The Life Of Frederick Douglass
Frederick douglass literary devies
Frederick Douglass's impact of slavery on slaveholders
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he Rise of a Slave Frederick Douglass is a former slave who made great effort in order to obtain freedom. He is born into slavery in the state of Maryland and he barely knows his parents. Douglass is unique compare to other slaves because he learns how to read and write. He found a way to escape from his master and settles in Massachusetts. Frederick Douglass writes his text to abolish slavery and to change it as well; he plays an important role in securing the equal rights of African-Americans and the abolition of slavery. Frederick Douglass went through tough and undeserved treatment from the majority of his masters which took him through trials of slavery that enabled him to gain his education, gain his manhood and gain his freedom. Slaves are not allowed the opportunity of being educated, most slave holders generally go against slave literacy because they know education is knowledge and with knowledge comes truth. They are also concerned that if some slaves get an education, the literate slaves will forge passes, influence other slaves to rebel against their masters and try to escape which will cause a lot of dilemma among slaves and slave masters. Understanding the consequences of learning how to read and write, some slaves still often found alternative ways to learning. On plantations and ships, learning how to read and write became a communal effort, according to Deborah Brandt in The Process of Literacy as Communal Involvement in the Narratives of Frederick Douglass . She points out that “literacy involves met communication, involvement, and inter-subjectivity- a strong sense of shared human activity and new opportunities for community” (365). Brandt’s perspective explains why most slaves needed each other to learn how... ... middle of paper ... ...Of Frederick Douglass." Philosophical Studies In Education 39.(2008): 24-34. Education Research Complete. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. Brewton, Vince. "Bold Defiance Took Its Place" -- "Respect" And Self-Making In Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave." Mississippi Quarterly 58.3/4 (2005): 703-717. Humanities International Complete. Web. 18 Apr. 2014. Dorsey, Peter A. "Becoming the Other: The Mimesis of Metaphor in Douglass's My Bondage and My Freedom." JSTOR. Modern Language Association, May 1996. Web. 20 Apr. 2014 Painter, Nell Irvin. "The Mind of Frederick Douglass by Waldo E. Martin,." JSTOR. The MIT Press, 1987. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. Douglass, Frederick. My Bondage and My Freedom. N.p.: Random House LLC, 2007. Print. The Norton Anthology World Literature Volume 2: 1650 to the Present. Ed. Martin Puchner. Shorter 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2013. Print
Martin, Waldo E., Jr. The Mind of Frederick Douglass. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.
...fred D. “Frederick Douglass.” Encyclopedia of African-American Literature. New York: Facts on File, 2007. 144-146. Print.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Dover publications, 1995. Print
When first introduced to Douglass and his story, we find him to be a young slave boy filled with information about those around him. Not only does he speak from the view point of an observer, but he speaks of many typical stereotypes in the slave life. At this point in his life, Frederick is inexperienced and knows nothing of the pleasures of things such as reading, writing, or even the rights everyone should be entitled to. Douglass knowing hardly anything of his family, their whereabouts, or his background, seems to be equivalent to the many other slaves at the time. As a child Frederick Douglass sees the injustices around him and observes them, yet as the story continues we begin to see a change.
...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.
For instance, he writes, “The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever…it was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition.” (Douglass 103). The metaphor used, in this section, expresses Douglass’s anguish and hate upon realizing the truth of slavery and that freedom has always been nearby mocking him. The metaphor Douglass uses for his freedom is a trump; but not just any trump, it is a silver trump. This metaphor brings the audience a clear understanding of the immense value of freedom has on Douglass. Furthermore, his combination of diction, through his agony of freedom mocking him constantly, draws out the audience’s sympathy and sorrow for his “wretched condition” (Douglass 103). In essence, Douglass’s use of effective adjectives and emotions persuade the audience to sympathize with Douglass for his situation as a
middle of paper ... ... Douglass, Frederick. A. A. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Atlanta: Kessinger Publishing, 2008. 8.
In the essay “Learning to Read and Write,” Frederick Douglass illustrates how he successfully overcome the tremendous difficulties to become literate. He also explains the injustice between slavers and slaveholders. Douglass believes that education is the key to freedom for slavers. Similarly, many of us regard education as the path to achieve a career from a job.
Douglass, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave: Written by Himself (ed. John Blassingame) Yale University Press, 2001.
Slavery system is keeping the slaves not educated, so they will not know their rights in life as human beings and leave. For example, his mistress changed the way of treating him and stopped teaching him the alphabets once she knew that education may give Douglass freedom; he will stop serving her and leave. She knew that “Education and slavery were incompatible with each other” (61). In other words, if he knows how to read and write, he will know his rights in life, and he will not be a slave anymore. As a result, she stopped teaching him and changed her way of treatment. Then, he started to make friendships with the white boys in the street in order to learn how to read, and he succeeded at this matter. As he started reading books about slavery, Douglass finds that reading is being a “curse” to him, “I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy” (63). He thought of learning to read has opened his eyes up to his
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 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...
Frederick Douglass wasn’t just an escaped slave, but was also a fighter for the freedom of all slaves. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave, written by himself, a Biography is about an born American slave learning that slavery isn’t right and fights his way out of slavery. In the narrative, Douglass draws on the theme of the significance of education to being a free slave and draws on the theme deprivation of slaves’ of every human right to portray the grueling impact of slavery.
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 physical burdens of slavery that he faced on a daily basis, it was the psychological effects that caused him the greatest amount of detriment during his twenty-year enslavement. In the same regard, Douglass is able to profess that it was not only the slaves who incurred the damaging effects of slavery, but also the slaveholders. Slavery, in essence, is a destructive force that collectively corrupts the minds of slaveholders and weakens slaves’ intellects.