Ideology & Institutions: Douglass’ Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass

In his “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” Douglass recounts the struggles he personally experienced as a black male born into slavery. While the narrative clearly critiques the American institution of race-based slavery, it at moments goes even further to critique other American institutions that ‘enslave’ its participants. In one specific moment of his narrative, during the second chapter, Douglass engages in a particularly fascinating rhetorical move which simultaneously denies that race is the only basis for slavery, and implicates white society as slaves themselves merely operating under a different institutional ideology. Douglass acutely observes how the oppression of slaves within the institution of American slavery mirrors the oppression of free thought within the institution of American politics. In this moment, instead of permitting slavery to be understood as a ‘black’ problem that white culture is not negatively impacted by, Douglass points out how ideological oppression is a problem in society at large, in a variety of institutions, and thus everyone is negatively impacted so long as these institutions are sustained. The institution of slavery is linked to the institution of politics, and both are acknowledged as social constructs that are in need of revision.
Douglass begins his social critique by discussing “the Great House Farm,” a plantation known for its “business-like aspect very unlike the neighboring farms” and its “number of houses,” all of which give it prestige that slaves recognize as being synonymous with privilege (1187). Douglass notes that the Great Farm House is, for slaves, “associated in their minds with greatness,” and that “[f]ew privileges were esteemed higher, by the slaves of the o...

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...sal experience that people must begin to view as connected. This statement is particularly poignant when viewed in the context of the time it was written: even if his readership was not black or part of the abolitionist movement, Douglass showed that they were still implicated in the institution of slavery, both literally and metaphorically. The abolitionist movement, then, is not a ‘black’ movement, but one which every human is necessarily implicated in. Until social normativity is able to distance itself from the ideological control of institutions, everyone is a slave, and the abolitionist movement is one that all humans are in together.

Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W W Norton & Co., 2012. 1187. Print.