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Analysis of the Frederick Douglass American slaves
Analysis of the Frederick Douglass American slaves
Slavery affect on frederick douglass
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Separation Among Christianity “Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference.” -Frederick Douglass. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, by Frederick Douglass, shares the story of the struggles of an American slave during the eighteenth-century. Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland in approximately 1818. While being raised by his grandmother, Betsey Bailey, he sneaked around at night to meet his mother nearby, assuming that his slaveholder, Captain Anthony, was his father. From adolescence, Douglass knew he was different than the white children on the plantation. He found that the child of a slaveholder and slave was treated more harshly due to the controversy among the slaveholder and his wife. He also learned that it was acceptable for slaveholders to beat and strike their slaves. He recognized, after many years of being weakened by his …show more content…
Douglass uses his autobiography to express the distinct separation amongst the true Christians and the white slaveholder Christians during the eighteenth-century American slavery. Douglass seems to weave religious controversy into his autobiography, defining the difference of actions amongst the slaves and slaveholders. Douglass was an American slave who believed in Christianity but struggled with the idea that slaveholders could beat, rape and kill their slaves, announcing, “I speak advisedly when I say that in Talbot County, Maryland, killing a slave, or any colored person, was not treated as a crime” (The Life and Time 41). Although the slaveholders were known as the ideal church-going Christians, Douglass declared otherwise, stating,
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
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.
The novel Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, published in 1845, provides Americans with a firsthand look into slavery prior to the Civil War. Douglass, born a slave early into the nineteenth century, encounters and survives the task of living as a slave. Within the ninth chapter of his life, an argument arises that claims Southern Christianity differs immensely from its Northern counterpart. A majority of Christians in non-slaveholding states at the time believed that Christian slaveholders were kinder after they converted, Douglass worked to invalidate this claim. In chapter nine, the ingenious use of dispassionate tone and allusion throughout the passages support the claim that a simple conversion to Christianity only gives justification to cruel southern slaveholders.
In his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass expresses his views of Christianity and the horrors of slavery for both blacks and whites. Vipul A. Rana (August 7, 2010) writes about how slaves believed one version of Christianity, while the White Americans, or masters, believed another version of Christianity. The slaveholders used Christianity as an excuse for the horrible ways they treated slaves. Vipul writes that over the course of Douglass’ narrative, Douglass describes how non-religious slaveholders seem to be less cruel to their slaves than religious slaveholders. According to Douglass’ autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), Thomas Auld was an example of a master that after going to a religious camp he turned, “more cruel and hateful in all his ways, for I believe him to have been a much worse man after his conversion than before (p.32).”
The Life of Fredrick Douglass shows how slavery could of not only affected the slaves but the owners as well. Thomas Auld was overall a cowardly owner and quite tough compared to other slaveholders. Douglass believed that since Auld obtained slave owning from marriage, it made him more of an unpleasant master because he wasn’t used to being around slavery and having so much power. Fredrick Douglass also was convinced that religious slaveholders were false Christians because they became more self-righteous and thought that God gave them the power to hold slaves. By telling stories to the reader, Douglass hoped to bring awareness to the harsh subject of slavery and show how the slaves kept hope during these miserable times.
It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery around 1818, will forever remain one of the most important figures in America's struggle for civil rights and racial equality. As an ex-slave, his inspiration grew beyond his boarders to reach the whole world. Without any formal education, Douglass escaped slavery and became a respected American diplomat, a counselor to four presidents, a highly regarded speaker, and an influential writer. By common consent Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845) is recognized as the best among the many slave narratives that appeared before the Civil War. He amazed people when he spoke bravely in his Fourth of July speech. He spoke out against oppression throughout America and abroad, and his struggle for freedom, self-discovery, and identity stands as a testament for all time, for all people. Although some people accused him of lying, exaggerating, and using his narrative and his well-known Fourth of July speech as part of an abolitionist plot, Douglass was able to clearly demonstrate his talents, sensitivity, and intellectual capacity by revealing the truth about the lives, culture, and psychological struggles of American slaves.
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 reader is first introduced to the idea of Douglass’s formation of identity outside the constraints of slavery before he or she even begins reading the narrative. By viewing the title page and reading the words “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, written by himself” the reader sees the advancement Douglass made from a dependent slave to an independent author (Stone 134). As a slave, he was forbidden a voice with which he might speak out against slavery. Furthermore, the traditional roles of slavery would have had him uneducated—unable to read and incapable of writing. However, by examining the full meaning of the title page, the reader is introduced to Douglass’s refusal to adhere to the slave role of uneducated and voiceless. Thus, even before reading the work, the reader knows that Douglass will show “how a slave was made a man” through “speaking out—the symbolic act of self-definition” (Stone 135).
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.
In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass there is irony relating to religion. During Douglass’s life there was an abundant amount of religious irony dealing with the fact that slaves were seen as property, but yet Christianity was the main religion of the southern states, which Christians believe in showing love through Christ to everyone. Slaves were rarely shown love from their masters.
Douglass continues to describe the severity of the manipulation of Christianity. Slave owners use generations of slavery and mental control to convert slaves to the belief God sanctions and supports slavery. They teach that, “ man may properly be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained by God” (Douglass 13). In order to justify their own wrongdoings, slaveowners convert the slaves themselves to Christianity, either by force or gentle coercion over generations. The slaves are therefore under the impression that slavery is a necessary evil. With no other source of information other than their slave owners, and no other supernatural explanation for the horrors they face other than the ones provided by Christianity, generations of slaves cannot escape from under the canopy of Christianity. Christianity molded so deeply to the ideals of slavery that it becomes a postmark of America and a shield of steel for American slave owners. Douglass exposes the blatant misuse of the religion. By using Christianity as a vessel of exploitation, they forever modify the connotations of Christianity to that of tyrannical rule and
In his narrative, Frederick Douglass shows how Christianity was used as a major justification for slavery and for the actions of slave masters, but he also shows how the religion provided hope for slaves themselves. In an appendix added at the end of the narrative, he draws a distinction between “the Christianity of this land” and “the Christianity of Christ,” saying that there is the “widest possible difference” between them. As he puts it, “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” In other words, Douglass thinks that Christianity has been corrupted in America, where people hypocritically use it to justify their injustices.
In Frederick Douglass’ Narrative, Christianity is a prominent feature of both slave and slave-owners’ lives. However, Douglass highlights the discrepancies between the religions of these two groups, finding the Christianity of slave holders to be false, malicious and hypocritical. Though he makes clear he is not irreligious himself, Douglass condemns the insincere ideology of slave owning America.
Frederick Douglass is known for being an outstanding orator, but he is mostly acknowledged for being an incredible abolitionist. His work to demolish slavery has been greatly known, detailing his life experience as a slave and expressing his theory on slavery. In “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” he demonstrates the way religion and its literature, the bible, had a negative influence and effect on slavery as well as the development of white Christianity.