The Story Of Douglas's Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

In the autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass described to the reader his origins, and what life was like as a slave. Throughout the chapters Douglass describes in detail the hardships of being a slave, and the journey he endured from slave master to slave master. Because of Douglass’ account this raises an interesting series of questions on the character. Douglass’ early childhood is one of great controversy today. Douglass was born in Talbot County in Tuckahoe.1 He literally guessed his age as he stated, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing It.”, which is an indicator of the mal-environment he grew up in.2 Douglass did not get to see his mother very often, and she died when he was seven.3 Douglass assumes that his father was a white slave master. Douglass gave the reader examples as to why he believed mixed parentage slaves suffered more than others. Most of the time the child is the father of a slave master who raped a slave woman.4 The slave masters could be very possessive of the woman as well. Douglass described how a woman was whipped because the slave master thought that she loved another man, and he wanted her all for himself.5 The “mullatos”, or mixed children as they were

and Mrs. Auld to take care of the child they had.1 These people were good spirited people.2 In chapter six Mrs. Auld taught Douglass what he called, “the A, B, C, Which was the alphabet. After this he learned how to spell words of three or four letters, Mr. Auld found out and banned her from teaching him more because it was unlawful and unsafe to teach a slave how to read and write.3 Mrs. Auld continued to do so anyways, and eventually Douglass could fully read. He lived with Master Hughes family for eight years and while there he mimicked the writing style of Master Thomas.4 He did so by analyzing his surroundings and copying the way others would