Frederick Douglass was a slave. When he was younger, he did not know how to read or write, but learned these skills by using his wit and cunning to gather teachers. In the beginning, when he was a slave, he hated not having freedom. He “[O]ften myself regretting my own existence… but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself” (Douglass, 103). He loathed being a slave. He then heard a word. The word he had heard was “abolition”. He did not know what this word meant, but he knew well that “any one speaks of slavery… [He] could hear something about the abolitionists” (Douglass, 103). He then set out to find what the abolition meant. He learned what abolition meant by gathering the city newspaper and seeing
My conclusion I think Frederick Douglass was living a hard life for so many years and in another article he moved to new york I think so he could start a new life so he was not afraid to tell people his story about when he was a slave and some people still didn't believe him. Also in the article the slave owner wanted him back but the people paid like 700 dollars I think and that's when Frederick douglass started to write newspapers and
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
Literacy plays an important part in helping Douglass achieve his freedom. Learning to read and write enlightened his mind to the injustice of slavery; it kindled in his heart longings for liberty. Douglass’s skills proved instrumental in his attempts to escape and afterwards in his mission as a spokesman against slavery. Douglass was motivated to learn how to read by hearing his master condemn the education of slaves. Mr. Auld declared that education would “spoil” him and “forever unfit him to be a slave” (2054).
From before the country’s conception to the war that divided it and the fallout that abolished it, slavery has been heavily engrained in the American society. From poor white yeoman farmers, to Northern abolitionist, to Southern gentry, and apathetic northerners slavery transformed the way people viewed both their life and liberty. To truly understand the impact that slavery has had on American society one has to look no further than those who have experienced them firsthand. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and advocate for the abolitionist, is on such person. Douglass was a living contradiction to American society during his time. He was an African-American man, self-taught, knowledgeable, well-spoken, and a robust writer. Douglass displayed a level of skill that few of his people at the time could acquire. With his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave Written by Himself, Douglass captivated the people of his time with his firsthand accounts into the horror and brutality that is the institution of slavery.
Frederick Douglass's Narrative, first published in 1845, is an enlightening and incendiary text. Born into slavery, Douglass became the preeminent spokesman for his people during his life; his narrative is an unparalleled account of the inhumane effects of slavery and Douglass's own triumph over it. His use of vivid language depicts violence against slaves, his personal insights into the dynamics between slaves and slaveholders, and his naming of specific persons and places made his book an indictment against a society that continued to accept slavery as a social and economic institution. Like Douglass, Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery, and in 1853 she published Letter from a Fugitive Slave, now recognized as one of the most comprehensive antebellum slave narratives written by an African-American woman. Jacobs's account broke the silence on the exploitation of African American female slaves.
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.
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.
“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.
Frederick Douglass in his Narrative conveys his personal experiences of unjust discrimination of slaves. The vivid examples of this unfair discrimination are that Douglass had to obey his master’s and mistress’s wills and the fact that they had complete control over his life. This means that Douglass, just like any other slave, did not have the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (Jefferson 80). Furthermore, many of them were “slaves for...
Douglass clearly explained that he curated anxiety due to the fear of being treated badly by his new master. Him, and many other slaves, live their life in fear and develop a terror towards another human being. It is demoralizing when the presence of another human is threatened by the security of your personal well-being, and psychological impediments such as; anxiety, develop. Douglass was threatened of his security and well being, which generally demoralizes his rights as a human.
Frederick Douglass asserts that he, as an adolescent "understood the pathway from slavery to freedom" upon his comprehension of English reading. To contemporary audiences, this may be a hard concept to grasp, an individual reared from birth as a slave understanding the significance of literacy and equating such with freedom. His cognition of this enormous concept can be explained as such: by breaking the literacy barrier, Douglass raised his status (symbolically) from a subhuman, slave status, to human, a White equal. Because all humans are entitled to certain rights, his symbolic progression from slave to human affords those rights, in particular the right to freedom.
In order for Douglass to reach his goal of becoming a free man he thought the only way out was education. He needed to learn how to read, write, and think for himself about what slavery was. Since literacy and education were so powerful to Frederick he persevered to get himself the education he wanted. …. Douglass knew it wouldn’t be easy, but that didn’t stop him. Douglass realized the “ conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with a high hope, and
Douglass moves to attack the Christian beliefs of the American people, showing the great discrepancies between the ideals held in the Christian faith and the ideals held by slaveowners. Christians avoidance of abolishing slavery, yet worshipping a loving and peaceful God, may be the worse crime of them all. Douglass explains the hypocrisy of the American people by choosing to continue slavery while claiming the benevolent principles embedded in the Bible. At the moment he gives this speech, “they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, yet they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance” (Douglass 12). The American people acknowledge and thank God for their freedoms, yet purposefully
After learning the meaning of freedom, Frederick Douglass is drawn to the idea of slavery, and is eager to know more about it. Every time the the topic of slavery is introduced, he was alert and ready to listen. of all the conversations he heard one of the words that caught his attention was the word Abolishment, "it was used in such connections as to make it an interesting word to me" ( Douglas, 103). He went on to learn more about abolishment, but was not quite sure what it meant. He did not want to ask knowing that it was a word that was not intended for him to know. He came across the city papers and read about how petitions in the north were "praying for the abolishment of slavery"(Douglass, 104). And from that point on he knew what abolishment
Throughout the book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave many themes are developed relating to slavery. Such themes that are well developed include corruption, brutality, and knowledge. Perhaps the most important theme that was developed was knowledge and its power in everything. Frederick Douglass gained knowledge throughout his life, defying the laws surrounding slavery. Perhaps one of the most impressive things from the life of Frederick Douglass was the fact that, except for a few months at the beginning of his engagement with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, he was a self taught man who took it upon himself to expand his knowledge. Frederick Douglass discovered the power of knowledge and applied this to his life in many different stages. First, he discovered that knowledge is power. Second, he went out of his way to obtain all the knowledge he could. Third, he used that knowledge, that he had gained over years and years of self-taught, underground learning, and used it to run away from the brutal life of a slave. Finally, he used the knowledge he had gained to publicly speak against the institution of slavery and make it a point to earn the right of universal suffrage for all men. He presented many ideas, which we today, can see were very strong and moral convictions from his views as an abolitionist.