Frederick Douglass Narrative

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was written in 1845 by Frederick Douglass, an American writer and orator. Douglass’ memoir recounts his time as a slave and his motivation to become a free man. Douglass first realized he was a slave when he sees his master brutalizing his Aunt Hester. He recalls,

Frederick Douglass, throughout Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, uses religion to get many of his points across. In one way, religion plays a huge role in Douglass’ ability to become literate throughout the text. With the Bible and other Christian texts, Douglass is able to further his ability and the ability of others to read. This becomes important because as Douglass points out the slaveholders believe a literate slave is not a good slave. This union of literacy and religion show the importance of religion to Douglass. However, Douglass also incorporates religious details throughout the Narrative and the appendix that lend themselves to a separation between “the Christianity of this land [America] and the Christianity of Christ.” These two distinct religious views cannot coexist in Douglass’ America, and it becomes clear that in order to abolish slavery, first one must confront these two distinct roles of Christianity. So in a way, Douglass’ religion is not just an attack on the unrighteous ways of the slave-holding Christian, but it also becomes a political vessel to forward the abolitionist cause. If religion is viewed as a political vessel for Douglass, the appendix can therefore be seen as his call-to-arms against the oppressive intolerance of slavery and slaveholder religion.

Under the slave labor system, it was forbidden for people such as Frederick to gain substantial knowledge; however, the wife of Hugh Auld, a slave master, took interest into young Douglass and began coaching him. Unbeknownst to her husband at the time, Sophia started teaching Douglass his alphabet, a skill many slaves did not have. After Hugh found out about Sophia’s prohibited actions, she was immediately required to stop, forcing Douglass to receive his education else where. “Frederick did continue learning – from white children in the neighborhood – and began reading everything he was able to see or get into his possession” (Frederick Douglass Honor Society, 1). When Frederick found out he could no longer receive lessons, he did not let that stop him. He persevered and found ways around his slave master. Douglass was clever when it came to bribing poor white children to help him learn. He traded bread for reading lessons and desired to publically thank them for their help; however, he was afraid they would face serious consequences for helping a slave. Nevertheless, Douglass broke the stereotype of an uneducated slave to receive and

Unlike many slaves, Frederick fought his master and little action was taken after it. After the fight, Douglass called it a “turning point in his career as a slave.” Douglass, unlike those who have raised their hand to their master was not beaten nor killed for it. Covey’s reputation as a slave breaker was too sacred to him, so he did not take action. This kept his reputation intact, but also stopped future beatings. After his stay with Covey, Douglass was given to Mr. Freeland who Douglass called, “his best master, before he became his own master.” Freeland was harsh but gave his slaves what many other owners did not. He gave them plenty of food, but Freeland also gave them adequate time to eat. Mr. Freeland worked his slaves like most, between sunrise and sunset. However, the tools they used were in good shape. These actions were not common with most slaves and gave Douglass a different experience than that of most slaves. The education that he pursued during his time with these 3 different masters gave him a better grasp on how slavery was depicted and seen during the time.

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.

Frederick Douglass was a well known African-American writer, statesman, reformer, and abolitionist who wrote an autobiography called Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. When he was about ten years old, he found himself wanting to learn to read, even though it was illegal for slaves during that time. He always knew he was not supposed to read, but his desire for education was too much. Douglass’ education motivated him to enlighten others.

Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland. He was unsure about the day of his birth or the year. He believed that it was around 1817 or 1818. He was raised by his grandmother, Betty Bailey, who came into his life after his mother died when he was 10. After a long life of slavery he finally escaped. During his life he spoke at many anti-slavery conventions and abolitionist meetings. Eventually many people began to question the fact that he even was a slave. To prove to them, he wrote “A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. This piece shows how terrible and horrendous his life was.

Frederick Douglass wrote The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass before the Civil War. Douglass was a former slave, an opinionated abolitionist, and a clever writer. Douglass existed as a slave from Tuckahoe, Maryland who absconded to New York and then later on to Massachusetts. When he was born He was born into slavery and was authoritatively shipped to a plantation to labor at the young age of seven. Before he started working in the fields, he, and all the other slave children, was raised by an older woman. This was very ordinary on behalf of the slave families, according to Douglass, "it 's a common custom to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached it 's twelfth month, it 's mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor" (Douglass, 2). A man by the name of Captain Anthony, which was aid to have been Douglass 's father, possessed Douglass 's mother. Due to the sequence of deaths inside his family, which later would also incorporate the Captain himself, they had a measure of property arguments. Douglass was persistently shifted to and from Baltimore to the south. After he got caught trying to escape, he was shipped back to Baltimore. The life of a slave was a very unconstitutional and unfair demeaning way to live. "I was often awakened at the dawn of the day by the most heart-rending shrieks, the louder

To say that slavery only affects slaves is inaccurate; it dehumanizes the slaveholders too. Some of the slaveholders were sympathetic, innocent human beings. They were not automatically corrupt just because they owned a slave. Rather, slavery changed their actions and characters from merciful to vicious. In his autobiographical novel, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Douglass reveals how the act of owning slaves turns many dignified human beings into barbarians.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress”, said by the father of the civil rights movement, Frederick Douglass. In 1845, many white people did not consider that a slave was able to write their own autobiography. However, William Lloyd Garrison's preface is an evidence for Douglass that he wrote the book by himself. Douglass was afraid to stand up and tell his story, since he had no education and no public speaking skills. Garrison wants us to keep in mind that the most famous black man in the country is a former slave. This was a way of convincing the crowd of the wrongs of slavery and that slaves can become as successful as Douglass did. Douglass was born in Maryland in 1817, as a slave. He educated himself and was determined to escape from slavery. He tried to escape slavery once, but it was unsuccessful. He later made a successful escape of slavery in 1838. Douglass told his story about his own life in order to describe a slaves’ life as one. Bringing up his own parents was a way of explaining how slavery avoids slaves from having ordinary families. When viewing the slavery of African Americans, some will deny the negative effect it had on the African slaves. However, in his Narrative, Fredrick Douglass makes it obvious that some of the slaveholding characters are damaged by slavery. Slavery in the United States began soon after English colonists first established Virginia in 1607 and lasted as an authorized organization until the passing of the Thirteenth

The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass’ is an autobiography of Frederick Douglass, the slave who escaped and became one of renowned social reformers of his time. The book is a collection of actual experiences of the author during his time in slavery and experiences of fellow slaves. He describes brilliantly the oppressive conditions into which he was born, lived, as well as his struggles and triumphs. The author meant to make the reader comprehend life of the African Americans in slavery before the ending of slavery. He also meant to highlight the misuse of religion and to use it to control other people whom they deem inferior.

In his book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass gives detail on his life as a slave and the things that he has experienced. After being a slave for a good portion of his life, until he escaped in 1838 to New York, Douglass was able to witness the cruel slavery that many people were not able to experience or see. By writing this narrative Douglass is able to tell the truth about slavery on what the slaves have experienced and reveal that the truths people believed about slavery are actually lies. Douglass not only uses ethos to build up his credibility by describing his own personal experiences and events that have actually occurred, but he also pathos by making the reader feel certain emotions after reading about his experiences. In addition, his arguments against the justifications people had about slavery and why it was good and the assumptions people made about slaves, an example being slaves singing because they are happy when in reality they sing because they are sad, exemplifies a logos appeal. Although Frederick Douglass uses all of the rhetorical appeals--ethos, logos, and pathos--in his narrative, his use of pathos is particularly effective when he describes his experiences as a slave and the events he witnessed throughout his life.

Frederick Douglas, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, was born into slavery in the year 1818 on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He was separated from his mother at a really young age. He lived as a slave for 20 years before he became a free man. Along the way, he managed to learn how to read and write. In 1845, Douglas published his autobiography The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave. In the novel, he writes down everything he experienced from the time he was a little baby to the time he became a free black man living in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The genre of Douglas’s autobiography is a slave narrative and as a slave narrative, this novel is great at accomplishing the main purposes that the genre typically includes.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was Douglass’s autobiography that he wrote and published on May 1, 1845. It was an instant success, selling over 35 thousand copies in the U.S, Ireland, France, and Germany and was quickly translated into German and French. Douglass wrote a narrative because he believed that if people knew what slavery was really like, they would understand why it needs to be abolished. Douglass’s book wasn’t really a novel or a poem, he tried to keep the language as simple as possible and clear (at least by the standards in his day) so that people could understand what he was trying to say and so that it could seem that there wasn’t much to it. In Douglass’s book, he included where he was enslaved, the name of

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass perfectly depicts the dreadful experience of living in slavery. From being unsure of the day he was born, to his first beating from a master, to the brutal and exhausting work, and to the joyous day he was freed. Besides describing his experience as a slave, he describes the toll slavery had on the masters and families of slaves. Frederick Douglass also includes his view of education in relation to freedom. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a good excerpt from The Classic Slave Narratives that can be considered a good historical resource due to the historical content it provides about slavery.