Frederick Douglass Essays

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is an account of Frederick Douglass' life written in a very detached and objective tone. You might find this tone normal for a historical account of the events of someone's life if not for the fact that the narrative was written by Frederick Douglass himself. In light of the fact that Douglass wrote his autobiography as a treatise in support of the abolishment of slavery, the removed tone was an effective tone. It gave force to his argument that slavery should be done away with.

Considering the fact that this was written during the height of the abolition movement the novel had to be effective in order to advance the success of the movement....show more content...

Here Douglass shows that slavery was not a constant source of pain and suffering: "I was not old enough to work in the fields, and there being little else than field work to do, I had a great deal of leisure time," (Douglass 71.) This is effective in proving his point because it allows him to show the true horrors of slavery and not be lopsided in his views.

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Having an objective also paved the way for Douglass to show the most gruesome and torrid tales of slave life. Here is where the autobiographical form of the exposition comes in hand, enabling him to go into the closest of detail of his own experiences as a slave: "I had been at my new home but one week before Mr. Covey gave me a very severe whipping, cutting my back, causing the blood to run, and raising ridges on my flesh as large as my little finger," (Douglass 101.) Notice how all he does is detail the incident. He doesn't speak of how this made him feel or what he wanted to do in response. This neutrality removes him from the picture and lets the sequence of events speak as loudly as they do for themselves.

Granted the tone changes throughout the book but the overwhelming and most effective tone was that of objectivity. Showing both sides gives him the opportunity to say that his work was not partial to abolishment. The in depth description of the whipping was compelling while the notation of a fair amount of leisure time as

Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist who altered America's views of slavery through his writings and actions. Frederick's life as a slave had the greatest impact on his writings. Through his experience as a slave, he developed emotion and experience for him to become a successful abolitionist writer. He experienced harsh treatment and his hate forslavery and desire to be free caused him to write Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In his Narrative, he wrote the story of his miserable life as a slave and his fight to be free. His motivation behind the character (himself) was to make it through another day so that maybe one day he might be free. By speaking out, fighting as an abolitionist and finally becoming an author,...show more content...

The power that they have over their slaves has a damaging effect on their moral health because they are careless. Douglass describes adultery and rape as typical behavior patterns of slaveholders which damage their families. Sophia Auld is Douglass's main illustration of the corruption of slave owners. The power of slaveholding changes Sophia from a nice woman to a demon. She went from a kind, caring and loving person into a typical mean slave master. She was no longer able to teach Douglass how to read because her husband disapproved it. Slaveholders gain and keep power over blacks from their birth onward by keeping them ignorant of basic facts about themselves. For example slaves didn't know their birth date or who their parents were. They didn't want slaves to have a natural sense of identity. Slave children were not allowed to learn to read or write because this would lead slaves to question their rights.

Douglass uses family relationships, starting with his own birth, to gain the compassion of his target audience. He never knew the identity of his father, but it was "whispered" (Douglass, Narrative, 43) that it was his master. Douglass shocked his Northern white readers when he informed them that slaveholders regularly split slave families for no reason. This upset Northerners because their family units were the foundation of their communities. People couldn't believe that slave children were taken

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On an unknown date in 1817, on a slave plantation in Tuckahoe Maryland, Frederick August Washington Bailey was born. Frederick was raised in a house on the plantation with all the other slave children. At the age of seven, like many other slaves, Frederick was put to work in the fields. As ayoung child he would wonder why he was a slave, and why everyone can't be equal. His thoughts frequently came back to him, leaving him with a great hatred for slavery. In 1836, Frederick had finally had enough of his imprisonment, and attempted an escape with many other slaves. The escape was not successful, Frederick and the other slaves were sent to work in a shipyard hauling crates. Frederick worked the shipyard for two years...show more content... Fearing a life of slavery again, Frederick fled to England. Here in England, he gave many lectures on the abolitionists movement, and earned sufficient funds to buy his freedom in America. In 1847, Frederick became the "station master" of the Underground Railroad in Rochester, New York. Here he also began publishing his anti–slavery newspaper, TheNorth Star. During these publishing years, Frederick became good friends with John Brown. John had a vision of training groups of men to help slaves escape via the Underground Railroad. However, in 1859, Douglass learned it was Brown's intention to raid the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. He was sure this would bring disastrous results, and took no part in the raid.

Following the raid, Douglass fled to Europe, fearing the government would hold him responsible for what had happened. He stayed for six months, until finally returning to America to campaign for Abraham Lincoln during the Presidential election of 1860. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Frederick helped raise the regiment of the Massachusetts 54th. This group of soldiers fought hard, and Douglass was respected as a leader of ex–slaves. Frederick soon fought for the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments for the U.S. Constitution, which gave rights to everyone. He became U.S marshal for the District of Columbia (1877–81), recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia (1881–86) and U.S. minister to the Republic of Haiti (1889–91). After his

Frederick Douglass

Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey on Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1818, he was the son of a slave woman and, her white master. Upon his escape from slavery at age 20, he adopted the name of the hero of Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake. Douglass immortalized his years as a slave in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). This and two other autobiographies, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), mark his greatest contributions to American culture. Written as antislavery propaganda and personal revelation, they are regarded as the finest examples of the slave narrative tradition and as classics of American autobiography....show more content... Moreover, for understanding prejudice, there are few better starting points than his timeless definition of racism as a "diseased imagination." Douglass welcomed the Civil War in 1861 as a moral crusade againstslavery. During the war he labored as a propagandist of the Union cause and emancipation, a recruiter of black troops, and, on two occasions, an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln. He viewed the Union victory as an apocalyptic rebirth of America as a nation rooted in a rewritten Constitution and the ideal of racial equality. Some of his hopes were dashed during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, but he continued to travel widely and lecture on racial issues, national politics, and women's rights. In the 1870s Douglass moved to Washington, D.C., where he edited a newspaper and became president of the ill–fated Freedman's Bank. As a stalwart Republican, Douglass was appointed marshal (1877–1881) and recorder of deeds (1881–1886) for the District of Columbia, and chargГ© d'affaires for Santo Domingo and minister to Haiti (1889–1891). Brilliant, heroic, and complex, Douglass became a symbol of his age and a unique voice for humanism and social justice. His life and thought will always speak profoundly to the meaning of

Frederick Douglass

The narrative piece written by Frederick Douglass is very descriptive and, through the use of rhetorical language, effective in describing his view of a slave's life once freed. The opening line creates a clear introduction for what is to come, as he state, " the wretchedness of slavery and the blessedness of freedom were perpetually before me."

Parallel structure is present here, to emphasize the sanctity he has, at this point in his life, associated with freedom and the life–long misery he has associated with slavery. This justifies what he chooses to do next, as he leaves hischains and successfully reaches New York, a free state. The metaphor used within this description is also effective, as chains give the...show more content...

He also states that he feels "like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions," implying that he had been given an incredible sense of relief. This near–bliss feeling is shortly subsided as he realizes he is a stranger in this new land, for fear of falling into the wrong hands once again. Douglass describes the slave–owners as, "money–loving kidnappers," and himself as the "panting fugitive slave;" while making another comparison yet, "as the ferocious beasts of the forest lie in wait for their prey." Each of these images demonstrates the intense fear and inferiority Douglass feels toward slave–owners, even in his new state of freedom. He no longer views this as a free land, but "a land given up to be the hunting–ground for slave holders." He fears everyone is against him, and he is forever being hunted, "as the hideous crocodile seizes upon his prey," the slave owners feel no mercy, and would, if provided the opportunity, seize his life in an instant with no regrets, as the crocodile devours their prey. He continues with this trend of metaphors and similes to compare slave–owners to "merciless men–hunters," "wild beasts," and "monsters of the deep," while describing himself as, "perfectly helpless," a "half–famished fugitive," a "helpless fish," and "the toil–worn, whip–scarred fugitive Get more content

Frederick Douglass Essay

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass Essay Frederick Douglass has finally managed to run away from one of his masters to become a free slave, but yet he feels fear and paranoia. As he runs away, he contemplates all the possibilities of him getting caught by slaveholders or even turned in by his own kind. And it upsets him having to pass all the houses and food, but he has no shelter and starves with no food. This in fact heightens the intensity of his fear and paranoia because he is more likely to be caught with no where to hide and having no energy to run because he is starving. In The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, he utilizes things such as parallel syntactic structure, paradoxes, figurative language, and caesuras to help portray his feeling of...show more content...

The paradoxes get people to understand how irritating it is to be passing by all these necessities stay you need to live and survive, taunting you as you pass by. While Douglass is running away, he relates slaves and hunting slaveholders, using figurative language, to wild beast and himself to the helpless prey. On page 136, Douglass says "...as hideous crocodiles seize upon his prey!" He says this because he feels so defenseless that he feels like a little animal going to be eaten. With all the slaveholders and there guns and all slaves that might turn him in, he doesn't really stand a chance with no where to hide and running out of energy. In addition, on page 137 he says "...famished fugitive is only equaled by that with which monsters of the deep swallow up the helpless fish upon which they subsist," In this he basically saying it is only a matter of time before they find him and take him in. He can't really run from them with how hungry he is, he has no energy and no hope that he could out run them if he tried. On pages 136 and 137, caesuras are applied multiple times throughout these pages to conduct a sense of his worry and anguish. He says like "...in total darkness as to what to do, where to go, or where to stay –perfectly helpless both as to the means of defense and means of escape–" (Douglass 137) The breaks leave you kind of hanging because you don't know if at the end of the next break he could be caught or even shot. And that is where the worry

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Frederick Douglass Thesis

In a Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave written by himself, the author argues that no one can be enslaved if he or she has the ability to read, write, and think. Douglass supports his claim by first providing details of his attempts to earn an education, and secondly by explaining the conversion of a single slaveholder. The author's purpose is to reveal the evils ofslavery to the wider public in order to gain support for the abolition of his terrifying practice. Based on the purpose of writing the book and the graphic detail of his stories, Douglass is writing to influence people of higher power, such as abolitionists, to abolish the appalling reality of slavery; developing a sympathetic relationship with the...show more content...

In like manner, the slave will become worthless to his master. The author also wrote, "I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom" (Douglass 20). Douglass began to realize the power that the white man felt in owning slaves and keeping the slaves illiterate. He understood this was powerful, but Douglass was aware that freedom was more powerful. Furthermore, "In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both" (Douglass 20). As. Mrs. Auld teaches Douglass to read, Mr. Auld is set on the fact that this education given to Douglass will provide him with confidence and will isolate him from others. His curiosity getting the better of him, this only makes Douglass want to learn more. Given these points, Douglass finally learns that all humans are equal, and the Blacks were stolen from Africa like "robbers.". Another example being, "The first step had been taken. Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell" (Douglass 25). This happens to be a metaphorical comparison between units of measurement and Douglass's achievements. The "inch" metaphorically represents the first step of Get more

Frederick Douglass Essay

In Frederick Douglass' autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, he writes about the inhumanity and brutality of slavery, with the intention of informing white, American colonists. Douglass is thought to be one of the greatest leaders of the abolition, which radically and dramatically changed the American way of life, thus revolutionizing America. Douglass changed America, and accomplished this through writing simply and to the point about the "reality" of slavery, told through the point of view of a slave. In a preface of Douglass' autobiography, William Lloyd Garrison writes, "I am confident that it is essentially true in all its statements; that nothing has been set down in malice, nothing...show more content...

Douglass' life started off as any other life of a slave. He was born into slavery on a plantation, separated from his mother before he was twelve months old, and taken care of by his grandmother, who was too old to be of any use on a plantation. This was a usual occurrence, taking the child from the enslaved woman at a young age. Being very important in keeping the child enslaved and obedient, the only purpose to the psychological effect of this separation was, Douglass writes, "to hinder the development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child" (Douglass, 48). Douglass also tells of when he learns that his mother had died, "I received tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger" (Douglass, 49). He states this to further illustrate the effect and purpose of the separation. Douglass feels no different towards his own mother than he does toward a complete stranger, implying what little he knew of, experienced with, and cared about his mother due to their forced separation.

Douglass uses chilling and descriptive stories of events from his life in his narrative with a political purpose. These overwhelming stories relay the truth and detail of the evil machine of slavery to his American readers. One of his stories is that of a killing of one of

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Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass was one of the most important black leaders of the Antislavery movement. He was born in 1817 in Talbot County, MD. He was the son of Harriet Bailey and an unknown white man. His mother was a slave so therefore he was born a slave. He lived with his grandparents until the age of eight, so he never knew his mother well. When he turned eight, he was sent to "Aunt Kathy," a woman who took care of slave children on the plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd. When he was nine, he was sent to Baltimore where he lived with Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Auld. He started to study reading with Mrs. Auld but Mr. Auld forbid it. However, he still managed to learn anyway. To cause him to comply with slavery more easily, Mr....show more content...

His speech made a deep impression, and the society hired him as a full–time speaking agent. He spoke at many conventions and spoke against slavery and the rights of free blacks. Sometimes white mobs broke up his conventions but he continued as a lecturer. He soon became on of the leading black abolitionists and on of the most famous lecturers of that time period. As his speeches grew became more cultivated, people began to doubt that he was ever a slave. So he wrote an autobiography entitled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845. In this book he described every detail of his life as a slave. He then later wrote two more autobiographies entitled My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855 and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in 1882. Since his books were so greatly detailed, he was in danger of being recaptured. So he went away. He toured Britain for two years. While there he spoke against slavery and his speeches had as much impact on audiences as they did in the United States. He returned to the United States after his British friends acquired his freedom. Since blacks were considered inferior then, Douglass decided to start a newspaper of his own that was run entirely by blacks. Garrison complained saying that Douglass' talents as a speaker would be wasted. Yet in spite of Garrison's objections, Douglass moved to Rochester, N.Y., and started the weekly The North Star which was later changed to Frederick Douglass' Paper. He continued to

Frederick Douglass Analysis

In the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave, written by himself, the author argues that slaves are treated no better than, sometimes worse, than livestock. Douglass supports his claim by demonstrating how the slaves were forced to eat out of a trough like pigs and second, shows how hard they were working, like animals. The author's purpose is to show the lifestyle of an American slave in order to appeal to people's emotions to show people, from a slave's perspective, what slavery is really like. Based on the harsh descriptions of his life, Douglass is writing to abolitionist and other people that would sympathize and abolish slavery.

Frederick Douglass shows an accurate representation of how slaves were treated...show more content...

The horses were treated better than the slaves. Furthermore, Douglass says, "Our food was coarse corn meal boiled. This was called mush. It was put into a large wooden tray or trough, and set upon the ground. The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush; some with oyster–shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with naked hands, and none with spoons," (Douglass 39). This statement truly shows how the slaves were treated like livestock because they ate their food exactly the same as pigs. In the same fashion, Douglass made another statement comparing slaves to animals was, "We worked in all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night. The longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights were too long for him," (Douglass 70). Slaves were worked like animals. Animals never had a break and are forced to work in all conditions, just as slaves were. Slaves were treated like animals that had to be trained without any time for rest.

On the contrary, many slaveholders and people with power in the South do not agree with Douglass. Frederick Douglass states, "We were worked fully up to the point of endurance. Long before day we were

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