Essay on the Life of Frederick Douglass

In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Fredrick is treated terribly by all of his masters and no one cares about him or any of the other slaves. The southerners act like they are disposable and that they can just go buy another one. All of his owners treat him like trash and beat him until he stand up to one and fights him after that he is left alone. Everyone in Frederick Douglass is a mean person who doesn’t care about anyone but themselves and how much money they can make.

     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 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass details the oppression Fredrick Douglass went through before his escape to freedom. In his narratives, Douglass offers the readers with fast hand information of the pain, brutality, and humiliation of the slaves. He points out the cruelty of this institution on both the perpetrator, and the victims. As a slave, Fredrick Douglass witnessed the brutalization of the blacks whose only crime was to be born of the wrong color. He narrates of the pain, suffering the slaves went through, and how he fought for his freedom through attaining education.

Greed is the undertone upon which Douglass states that slavery “corrupted souls” and “turned good people into bad people.” The institution of slavery was based on the ultimate control and power over a human to whom he is stripped of all of his identity and becomes sub-human. Consequently, the institution forces slave holders had to buy into this concept in order to justify any and all cruelty toward slaves. Douglas states “Slave holders resort to all kinds of cruelty” and later describes various ways of torture and punishment “all are in requisition to keep the slave in his condition as a slave in the United States” (Douglass 272). Slave holders showed no mercy when reprimanding slaves. The brutality and cruelty of these punishments were more of a statement of power and control and often times the punishment was worse than the offense.

Writing in the favor of black people has always remained controversial from the very beginning. Critics regard such writing as “a highly conventionalized genre” indicating that “its status as literature was long disputed but the literary merits of its most famous example such as Frederick Douglass 's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass…are widely recognized today.” (Ryan:537) Despite of such severe resistance, writers like Douglass have penned down their autobiography to present the misery of their fellow beings.

Boxill, Bernard. "Frederick Douglass’s Patriotism." Journal of Ethics 13.4 (2009): 301-317. EBSCO. Web. 19 Oct 2015. Bernard argues that Frederick Douglass always was a patriot even throughout slavery. He states that most Americans are patriots even if they do not agree with the politics, but rather just a love for their country. It talks about Americans who give selfless amounts of time toward the improvement of America.

Since ancient times historians always examined artifacts and sources of different writings. The purpose of examining artifacts and writings were to find the time period, the place of its origin and whether they are primary or secondary sources. Primary sources are materials produced by people or groups directly involved in the event/ topic under consideration either as participants or as witness. Some examples of primary sources are decrees, letters, newspapers, journals, birth and death registries etc. Secondary sources are those when a person was not present at the time of the event. Examples of secondary sources may include books, articles etc. Now, this brings to our discussion - is Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass a primary source? Even though people may different opinions about the autobiography of Frederick Douglass being a primary source, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass is a primary source because it mentions his purpose for writing, it clarifies the arguments made by Frederick Douglass, and finally, it illustrates the credibility of the author.

Issues of freedom vs being enslaved did not stop with whippings. Douglass has memories when it was time to eat, "our food was coarse corn meal boiled. This was called mush. It was put into a large wooded tray or trough, and set down upon the ground. The children were then called, 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. He that ate the fastest got most; he that was strongest secured the best place; and few left the trough satisfied" (Douglass 957). This moment they have of them eating a meal could be that of rats fighting over garbage. This was no way to treat hardworking people that had worked all day long. Douglass experiences the discomforts of hunger and cold during his time as a slave.

Frederick Douglass is perhaps the most well-known abolitionist from American history. He is responsible for creating a lot of support for the abolitionist movement in the years before the Civil War. He, along with many others, was able to gain support for and attention to the abolitionist movement. People like him are the reason that slavery ended in the United States.

In January 1834, Frederick was sent to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had gained a reputation around town for being and expert "slave breaker" , Frederick was sent to work with him for the punishment of setting up the religious meetings. Covey hid in bushes and spied on the slaves as they worked, if he caught one of them resting he would beat him with thick branches. After being on the farm for one week, Frederick was beaten for letting an oxen team run wild. The months that followed weren't much better, he was continually whipped until he began to feel that he was "broken" . So after working for Covey for a year, Frederick was sent to work for a farmer named William Freeland, who was a relatively kind master. Frederick did not care about having a kind master because of the hell he went through and all he wanted was freedom.

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the dehumanization of slaves often occurs, as white plantation owners view slaves as objects undeserving of humane treatment in order to uphold power and warrant their unjust practices. Limiting knowledge and prohibiting education for African Americans was one strategy common among slave owners, as “it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant” (17). Due to their lack of intellect, slaves could not recognize the injustices of the slavery system and had little chances of escaping. When Mrs. Auld attempts to teach Frederick Douglass how to read and write, Mr. Auld claims, “A n***** should know nothing but to obey

Slavery is a topic taught throughout basic schooling, but never as in depth as the Frederick Douglass narrative goes. I always knew that slaves were mistreated, but not to the extent Douglass tells us. Douglass describes the many struggles slaves went through by saying, “Here, too, the slaves of all the other farms received their monthly allowance of food and their yearly clothing… and one pair of shoes” (Douglass, 47). I find this to be an extremely small amount of food for the month and clothing to live with for the year. I always assumed that they were given clothes for church and a decent amount of clothes for the field. Also, the small amount of food they were given seems impossible to feed more than a few people. The other aspect that really jumped out at me was the fact the Douglass has no idea how old he is, or even who his father is. He believes that it could potentially be his owner, but he cannot figure it out. Lastly, the aspect of how the small children were still

Frederick Douglass was a North American slave whose environment killed any intellectual stimulus. He was denied all access to knowledge, even that which concerned his own life. Douglass demonstrated his lack of self-understanding when he wrote, "I have no accurate knowledge of my age...By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant" (Douglass 255). This excerpt form Douglass' narrative illustrated how the North American slave was given no opportunity for obtaining an education. These human beings were lowered to the level of beasts under the wicked institution of slavery. Their masters felt that a slave's only means for existence was to serve, therefore, it was only important to know how to perform thier duties. A child growing up in such harsh conditions would surely come to see himself as inferior. There was also an enormous amount of violence a slave had to witness. In Douglass' first encounter with violence he witnessed the beating of his own aunt by the overseer, in which "the louder she

While John Proctor in the story, “The Crucible” and Frederick Douglass in the narrative, “ Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass do meet Atticus Finch’s definition of courage, Peyton Farquhar from the short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” does not. The first character that demonstrates courage defined by Atticus Finch is the character John Proctor in “The Crucible”. In “The Crucible”, John Proctor fought against a cruel girl named Abigail Williams, who had convinced the whole town of Salem that there were witches amongst them. Abigail had only gone against John because they had an affair earlier on in their lives and John refused to leave his wife, Elizabeth.

When Frederick was about seven or eight years old he was taken to the main house to be worked as a slave. It was at the main house that Frederick saw for the first time a slave being beaten. In a short time Frederick came to understand that the beating of slaves was a way of life and that no slave could avoid this fate. Frederick quickly learned to avoid the offenses that brought the punishment of a beating, but he also came to understand, that beatings were often not punishments at all, but were given because the masters and overseers got much pleasure out of beating their slaves.