Escaping slavery in 1838, Frederick Douglass informed citizens of the cruel abuse that many slaves and he experienced from their masters. Frederick Douglass was a self-educated African American while also being under the chains of slavery. As Douglass rises to admiration upon abolitionists, he writes many stories describing the difficulties and encounters he witnessed and experienced as a slave. In the book, The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass describes the clothing, food and horrific conditions he overcame as a slave.
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery by his estranged mother, Harriet Bailey and his unknown white father, assumed to be Captain Anthony. Like the majority of slaves, Douglass is unknown of his actual birthdate, rumored to be born around Valentine’s Day in the year 1817 or 1818. Generally, a slave owner will keep his slaves uninformed by keeping simple information from them, such as birth dates and their biological father. Those who were mixed, black and white, were beaten and whipped, and were worse off than those of darker skin, due to the overseers’ wife’s growing suspicion of her husband interrelating with a slave. As part of the transition to becoming a slave, Douglass was taken from his mother to break the natural mother and child bond. As a child, Douglass lived with his grandmother and rarely saw his mother. On rare occasions, his mother would travel twelve miles to his farm after she finished all her work to see him as he slept. Douglass’ mother passed away, as usual, he is not allowed to attend her funeral. All slaves were treated as if they were not human and not allowed to have privileges white people experienced.
Overworked and exhausted, slaves were living...
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...tates in his book, “Without Struggle There Is No Success” (Douglass). In other words, most people cannot expect to achieve a goal without failing.
Frederick Douglass describes the different conditions he experienced and witnessed in the book, The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. As an educated and free black man, Frederick Douglass made it his goal to get his story out to the nation, so that the citizens will know the true colors of slavery. In Douglass’ writings, he illustrates to the reader the horror and authenticity of captivity. Although the place of his captivity was not as major as other slaves in slave states, he describes to the audience blood wrenching details of his encounters. Frederick Douglass becomes a well-known face to the abolitionists’ community and goes on to accomplish several goals, including supporting women’s rights.
As you can see Frederick Douglass provided many glimpses into the world of slavery in his narrative. He showed many different examples of how slaves were able to resist their masters and create their own autonomous culture within the brutal system of slavery.
First of all, the early life of Frederick Douglass was horrible and very difficult. He was born on February 1818 in Tuckahoe, Maryland. 7 His parents were from two different races. His father was white while his mother was a African American. At that time period slave auctions were held to sell black slaves to white land owners. It was at a slave auction that as a child Frederick Douglass was separated from his Negro mother. His mother was sold and Douglass never saw an inch of her again in his entire life.
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
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass written by Frederick Douglass himself is a brutally honest portrayal of slavery's dehumanizing capabilities. The style of this famous autobiography can be best described as personal, emotional, and compelling. By writing this narrative, Douglass wants his audience to understand him. He does this by speaking informally like a person would when writing a letter or telling a story to a friend. By clearly establishing his credibility and connecting with his audience, Douglass uses numerous rhetorical devices to argue for the immorality of slavery.
Frederick Douglass was an enslaved person and was born in Talbot County, Maryland. He had no knowledge of his accurate age like most of the enslaved people. He believed that his father was a white man, and he grew up with his grandmother. Douglass and his mother were separated when he was young, which was also common in the lives of the enslaved people. This concept of separation was used as a weapon to gain control of the enslaved people. In short, despite the obstacles he had to endure, he was able to gain an education and fight for his freedom in any means necessary.
In conclusion, Frederick Douglass starts his life as a slave determined to get his freedom. At the end of his life, he is one of the foremost figures of the abolitionist movement. Douglass' narrative takes advantage of the literal advantage in order to abolish slavery. Through depictions of dehumanization and freedom, Frederick Douglass' narrative is instrumental in swaying the views of the indifferent Northern residents.
A staunch abolitionist, Douglass would take the country by storm through the power of his words and writings. His narrative was unique in regards to how it was written and the content it holds. Unlike most biographies of freed slaves, Douglass would write his own story and with his own words. His narrative would attempt to understand the effects slavery was having on not just the slaves, but the slaveholders as well. The success of his biography, however, did not rest on the amount of horror in it but from the unmistakable authenticity it provided. His narrative would compel his readers to take action with graphic accounts of the lashes slaves would receive as punishment, “the loude...
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.
It was at this time, that Fredrick did not even know his own age. As mentioned in Fredrick Douglass’s memoir, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, Douglass states “it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slave this ignorant” (Douglass, 15). This is the first scenario in which we noticed the dehumanizing practices of slavery to occur. During the time of Fredrick’s childhood, he noticed that white children could tell their age, and he himself was not able to. He was not able to make any inquiries of it to his master because slaves were not given that right. The act of a slave owner to keep their slave ignorant shows one example of how slaves were dehumanized. They were stripped of knowing themselves as people because they were designed to be property to their owners. The fact that he could not have information and knowledge of simple things made him unhappy and led him to believe that the dehumanization process occurs when the slave owner tries to keep the slave ignorant. It was something shocking for Fredrick to hear about the nature of slavery, but in hearing so, helped him establish a stronger mindset to
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 was born into slavery sometime between 1817 or 1818. Like many slaves he was unsure of his birthday; it was one of the many things that he was deprived of. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a memoir written by former slave himself, Frederick Douglass. The book explains his hardships ranging from losing family members, being moved from owner to owner, and being whipped at least once a week. One of Frederick's many owners, Auld, considered him unmanageable. Auld rented Frederick to Mr. Covey for a year, also known as the slave breaker (pg 34). Mr. Covey was one of the most cruel slave owners Frederick had. Mr. Covey treated him with barbarity. Throughout Douglass’ stay with Mr. Covey he grew as a person.
In his narrative, Douglass layers the many brutal, cruel, inhumane, and true components of slavery in his life, underlying each story with a political motive and relation. This method of writing was for his audience removed from slavery, those ignorant of slavery, uninformed, misunderstood, and those who were fortunate to have freedom. Douglass illustrates living conditions, experiences, tragedies, and struggles to great depths. Everywhere, African Americans escaped the binds of slavery due to Frederick Douglass' determination. He revolutionized America, being one of the greatest leaders of the abolition, being the reason for so many freed lives, and leading to the complete abolition and illegality of slavery in America.
Douglass, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave: Written by Himself (ed. John Blassingame) Yale University Press, 2001.
The Narrative of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass is written to have people place their feet in the shoes of Frederick Douglass and try to understand the experience he went through as a slave. Douglass writes this piece of literature with strong wording to get his point across. He is not trying to point out the unpleasant parts of history, but to make people face the truth. He wants readers to realize that slavery is brutalizing and dehumanizing, that a slave is able to become a man, and that some slaves, like himself, have intellectual ability. These points are commonly presented through the words of Douglass because of his diction.
Slaves were classified as “property” and what kind of place America was when “the land of the free” was only free for white people. Being treated like an animal and having no value. Working so hard and getting fed a little, wanting to fight back, but intimidated by the power white people held, trying hard to be free not only physically, but mentally too. It’s hard to imagine, but this was the reality life for slaves during slavery. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, published in 1845, is an autobiography about the road from slavery to freedom. Douglass is born a slave on a plantation and as a child, he manages to avoid the worst kinds of struggles. After being sent to Baltimore to take care of a baby, Douglass finds passion in learning to read and write. Douglass, as he grows up,