Frederick Douglass Literary Analysis

The “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is an autobiography in which Frederick Douglass reflects on his life as a slave in America. He writes this book as a free slave, in the North, while slavery was still running its course before the Civil War. Through his effective use of rhetorical strategies, Frederick Douglass argues against the institution of slavery by appealing to pathos and ethos, introducing multiple anecdotes, using satirical irony, and explaining the persuasive effects of slavery and reasoning behind keeping slaves uneducated.

How would you react if you were being enslaved due to the color of your skin? I expect that you would want to do everything you could to change the way the world was thinking. In the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass written by himself, Douglass is encountered with numbers of different challenges. He has to adjust to the way he is forced to live, educate himself, and reach his goal of making an escape. Overall, he wanted to expose the evils that followed slavery. Douglass appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos in an attempt to end slavery.

Frederick Douglass, a former slave, is a well known figure for self teaching himself the English language and addressing the nation of its holiday for freedom. He had a goal, which was to explain what the 4th of July meant to a black slave. How he convinced his crowd was through some powerful language and rhetorical questions. Though he was talking to a sympathetic crowd, he really wanted to prove how different his opinion is of this “great” holiday compared to a white American.

Through the use of various anecdotes, Frederick Douglass illustrates the brutality suffered by the slave; the reader reacts emotionally to these incidents. For instance when Douglass talks about how the slaves are beaten and mistreated he discusses a slave who was shot since he refused to obey his master: ”and in an instant poor Demby was no more. His mangled body sank out of sight”(39). In this quote Douglass shows how mistreated the slaves were and makes the reader feel sad that a slave would be shot before given another chance to listen to his master. Also he makes us feel anger at the master that after an instant of disobeying the master's a slave would be killed and the body would be left to just sink down into the water. Similarly,

In the male narrative by Frederick Douglass he is persuading the reader by using pathos. Douglass describes his beating and how helpless he left when he was he was a slave. He describes how every kick could be felt and every drop of blood could be heard. He is worked until his breaking point and then was beat for stopping. The master wouldn’t tolerate stopping even if it was for the good of Douglass’s health. The female narrative by Harriet Jacobs represents having to leave behind her children to set them free. Jacobs has abandon her eight and five year old children to eventually save them. Females can never truly be free because they have to take care of their family and be selfless, but males can put themself first with no consequences.

Within this quotation, Douglass uses several examples of antithesis to illustrate the contrast between Mrs. Auld before she was given a slave, and after. For example, when he says, “made of all sweet accord, changed to one harsh and horrid discord;”, he emphasizes that when a person has a slave, they become more cruel and severe as a person. He also describes that his master had an “angelic face [that] gave place to that of a demon”. This antithetical example shows that owning a slave can change your morals, and if you perceived as a good person or not. He also includes this description of his new master because he is both trying to convince black and white people that slavery is harmful. In the first sentence, when Douglass includes “under

Noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass, in his self titled slave narrative addresses the indescribable sadness that the slaves were experiencing, which they portrayed through song. He intensely describes the emotions that he hears within the songs of the slaves. In the passage Douglass shows how the slaves believe that they feel, versus how they really feel, and he does this this by changing the tone throughout the passage. He uses these tones to make the reader fully feel the helplessness that the slaves feel and recognize the effects that slavery had on people.

Nelson Mandela said, “When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.” One such man, Frederick Douglas, wrote “From What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? An Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on 5 July 1852.” He argues that even though blacks and whites went to fight in the war to be free, that promise was not kept to the blacks. Douglass persuades a northern, white audience, to oppose slavery and favor abolition. Douglass wants to remind abolitionist and White Americans that July 4 was not a celebration for slaves and former slaves. Independence Day only made slaves remember that they were made promises for freedom that were not kept.

In “ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, American Slave” the author, Frederick Douglass, uses personal anecdotes and comparisons to wild animals to show that slavery is a grave matter by not only dehumanizing slaves, but the slave masters too. Through rhetorical devices, he stresses his own feelings and harsh experiences being treated as an animal might, how others were treated through slavery from his own eyes, and his feelings about the cruel master’s capabilities, resembling mostly wild beasts.

Frederick Douglass is one of the most famous abolitionists of his time. He is an intelligent and strong man, which is represented in his essay, “Learning to Read and Write”. He illustrates how he successfully overcomes tremendous difficulties to become literate in the essay. He believes that education is the key to freedom for slaves. Similarly, non-English speaking immigrants regard education as the essential to get rid of struggles in English in the United States.

The effects of slavery continue to be seen in the world to this day, but its time of full force was during the time of Frederick Douglass, an American slave who eventually learned to read and write. He escaped from slavery and began to tell his story, which became very famous for its raw description of the conditions of slavery. Although many think that slaves were the people most affected, Frederick Douglass reveals that the slaveholders were also greatly changed by the institution. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass highlights the dehumanizing nature of slavery, both physically and mentally in both the slave and the slaveholder by providing insight into his relationships and experiences with

In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass explains, in great detail, how slave master would use a variety of methods to dehumanize slaves located on their plantation. These methods involved both severe physical and psychological trauma. Nevertheless, Douglass remains diligent and finds a way to resist the harsh reality of being a slave. Because of his immovable desire to acquire knowledge to his fighting encounter with Mr. Covey, these experiences help shape Douglass to be the archetype of what it means to go from slavery to freedom. This essay will highlight the physical and psychological tactics used on slaves. In addition, the aspect of how Douglass resists the

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

America’s history is overrun with oppression and injustice based on race, ethnicity, and other traits that innocent victims have no control over. As a result, the reputation of the United States is forever tainted by it’s dark past, and still practices these surviving habits of hatred. Civil liberty issues faced since the establishment of the country have yet to be resolved because of the ever-present mistreatment, corruption in positions of authority, and the dehumanization of minorities.

Frederick Douglass, the author of the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass was a self-taught slave that was able to escape the brutality of slavery in the year of 1838. Frederick Douglass’s book is separated into 3 main sections, including, a beginning, middle, and end. The purpose of the narrative is to improve the audience's understanding of Douglass’s experience of being a slave, the horrible treatment slaves received, and how Douglass was able to overcome and escape slavery. All throughout the narrative, Douglass uses many rhetorical devices, including, diction, imagery, and syntax, which helps the audience understand, one of his main chapters, chapter 5. In this chapter Douglass implies that the overall purpose is to emphasize the animalistic, inhuman treatment slaves received, how Douglass felt about leaving Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and his luck of being able to move to Mr. and Mrs. Auld's.