Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

Frederick Douglass uses his personal experience to establish his credibility, and connect with his audience. To  enumerate, in chapter two, Douglass states, “I have often been utterly astonished, … , to find persons who could speak of the singing,

Slavery is a topic very capable of putting an emotional weight on a person. This is even more so for those that have actually experienced it first-hand. Frederick Douglass, one of the more influential African-Americans in history, himself, was once a slave. He experienced everything that comes with being a slave in first-person. All the wickedness, hardships, and mental and physical damage, that came with being a slave, were experienced by him. Frederick is able to experience freedom after taking the step himself and escaping slavery. After what is almost an entire life of slavery, one would expect him to have many thoughts floating in his mind about his new found freedom. In the passage from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass use figures of speech and syntax, and repetition of key phrases to convey his feelings of excitement, insecurity, and loneliness from escaping slavery and arriving in New York in 1838.

      In conclusion Douglass express the importance of  human spirit and mental darkness through understatement, personification, and diction to help the readers fully understand the aspects of being a slave. This should matter in life today to never give up and keep asking questions. After reading Douglass, many literature teachers use his work to display a correct use of rhetorical devices and how they can positively affect writing and analyzing literary

In this passage Douglass explain that the songs that the slaves sing symbolized hatred and resentment against their masters and the condition they were brought into. They also know that they had someone they could cry out to who would understand their agony, which is God. Singing those songs was their coping mechanism and a way for them to tell their story for those who understood the meaning, and those songs were a connection to their souls, and the representation of their struggles. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass implies the meaning of those songs and the slaves are two in one. They are expressing a pain so deep that only the ones who endured would recognize, and the ones who heard their songs would be held accountable. Douglass’s

In his narrative, Douglass expresses incredulity at the fact that onlookers could hear anything but the deepest sadness in these slave songs. Writes Douglass, “I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake.” As suggested

As Douglass began to acquire a greater understanding of his condition through reading, he felt as if “the silver trump of freedom had roused [his] soul to eternal wakefulness.”20 Douglass’s use of the word silver helps express the precious nature of freedom, as well as the idea that it’s beckoning the enslaved with its gleam. Through the contrast between the purity of freedom and the corruption of slavery, Douglass’s choice of words humanizes himself because it demonstrates his attention to detail as he constructed this narrative. Likewise, he expresses that “[the slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm] would make [woods] reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joys and the deepest sadness.”21 Douglass's usage of juxtaposition to draw attention to the vastness of emotion expressed by these songs demonstrates his own humanity, for this selection highlights Douglass's talent to capture the emotional peaks and troughs that are endured by

In the expert from Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, the speaker presents through the slaves song, about the dehumanizing character of slavery and his hatred towards it. According to the narrative it states “They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone”(line25-26). This exemplifies how that there songs had the most sadness and true meaning of slavery in the most happiest tone, And they would sing the most happiest song in a sad tone. They did this to trick their bosses so that they won’t get in trouble, to add on the speaker implies “I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with

Throughout the book, Douglass does not only use metaphors for comparing himself but also with the slaves and slave masters too. An example of this in the text would be in chapter 2, on page 8, Douglass states, "Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from the chains. " In this quote, Douglass is comparing every tone that the slaves sang to a testimony against slavery and a prayer to God to become free. This quote shows how slavery was an unrelenting force that slaves always wished to escape and get out of. Douglass makes this comparison to show that the belief that abolitionists in the north have which is that slaves sing out of content and happiness is totally incorrect, that slaves actually sing when they are most unhappy and to relieve sorrows from their heart.

Even though the woods surrounding the magnificent southern plantations were often filled with the slaves’ songs, they did not sing because they were happy. They sang because of their sorrow. Douglass brings this sorrow to the mind’s eye by telling us, “If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul, -- and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because ‘there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.’” (Douglass, 51; quoting Cowper, The Task, book 2, line 8 (1785)). Douglass really makes his point

This aspect is not so much for the reader but for Douglass and slaves to release all the things they have been through and what slave are subjected to in that era. Even though this country stands for freedom and liberty slaves are imprisoned and chained like animals or properties. As well as having the knowledge of an animal as said by Douglass “By far the larger part of the slave know little of their ages as horses knows of theirs”. He this is one of his many angers and distastes of how slaves are denied any rights to knowledge. Even more having deepening quotes of groups of slaves having the emotion that stayed in Douglass’s heart and mind forever “ they were tones loud, long, and deep;they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish”.

Nowhere else in his narrative does Douglass speak as emotionally about leaving family or other slaves even though the slave song perhaps offered the greatest lessons:

As Frederick Douglass narrates his story throughout this book, he talks a great deal about what happened to him as a child all the way to his adult life as being a slave in the United States. We all know that slavery is wrong and disgusting but the things I 've read opened up my mind to how a slave would feel. The pain of the whippings, cruelity and starvation is something we might not know exactly but the story behind it is worth understanding. The expriences and obstacles that he went through is what made him to be the man that is he today. It shows his point of view of what a slave would go through and to even being treated as if they weren 't even human themselves.

On the other hand, Frederick Douglass throughout this book, doesn’t show as much emotion and feelings as you would imagine a slave to express. In the beginning of this novel, Douglass doesn’t really portray his feelings or describe them at all. But when he finally escapes slavery and is in New York, he expresses many different feelings. When he first originally gets to New York, Frederick Douglass feels lonely and depressed because he left everyone he knew behind and is in a new and strange world that is filled with many terrors.” There I was in the midst of thousands, and yet a perfect stranger; without home and without friends, in the midst of thousands of my brethren- child of a common father, and yet I dared not unfold to any one of them my sad condition.” The constant fear of being captured again and sent back south makes Douglass always feel on edge and scared causing anxiety and depression. But after a time, Frederick meets a man that helps him get his start in his new life and he feels forever grateful.

In lines 33-56, Douglass’ tone shifts from the hopeful and optimistic sense of potential, to showing the overwhelming negativity slavery can have on someone. Douglass displays this by

In the autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” Douglass discussed the effects of slavery not only on slaves themselves but also the effects slavery has on the slave owners. He shows that slavery dehumanizes those it touches, however, his writing humanizes himself and those else he depicts. His writing revealed the cruelty and brutality he faced during his time as a slave.