Essay about Frederick Douglass: The Story of Slaves by a Slave

Douglass got his passion to promote freedom for all slaves after he escaped from slavery and ultimately had an end goal to “abolish slavery in all its forms and aspects, and promote the moral and intellectual improvement of the coloured people and hasten the day of freedom to the three million of enslaved fellow countrymen”. He also wrote several autobiographies describing his experiences as a slave. One of the autobiographies in particular, ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave’ published in 1845 was a best-selling and was extremely influential for promoting the cause of abolition. The narrative shows a compelling argument to basic human rights thus making it extremely influential as the narrative clearly possesses features and linguistic skills, which for most white people, negated their common perception of black people being illiterate in the 19th century.

Douglass’s narrative is a courageous work, as it confronts the slavery institution, and the misuse of Christianity by the slave owners

Whenever injustice exists in society, it becomes the responsibility of others to step forward in defense of the oppressed. If this action does not occur, then the injustice will remain and innocent people will suffer. In order to preserve equality, sometimes people must take a risk in order to reveal the truth and uphold justice. Individuals throughout history, such as the founding fathers, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., have faced this peril in the pursuit of freedom. In 1845, Frederick Douglass published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, in order to do just that- to establish the truth behind slavery and advocate for freedom. In his narrative, Douglass uses diction, structure, imagery, and other

Throughout the history of slavery in the United States, it was common practice not only for slaveholders to neglect to teach their slaves to read or write, but also for them to outright forbid literacy among slaves. This was done in order to limit the slaves knowledge and modes of communication, making it more difficult for them to learn about the abolitionist movement or for for them to share their situation with the world outside of slavery. Like many other slaves, Frederick Douglass was not allowed to learn to read or write. In his autobiography; “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass retells how he managed to become literate in a time where most African Americans were forbidden from literacy, and how this knowledge allowed him to eventually escape slavery.

The newspapers were famed and supported by Englishmen who gave him 500 pounds to start with. At the time Douglass admired Garrison (writer of National Anti-Slavery Standard) but soon noticed that Garrison was too radical and he felt that Garrison's actions were too much to handle. Garrison would burn the constitution to show his hatred to the pro-slavery government. When Douglass split from Garrison and said that the constitution would be one of the strongest weapons to use fight slavery, this angered Garrison. In 1848 Douglass sent a public a message to his former master, Thomas Auld,

In Frederick Douglass 's first autobiography, "Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass”, he provides a graphic portrayal of his childhood and disturbing experiences as a slave as well as his eventual escape to freedom. Douglass went through physical abuse, starvation, and mental fatigue during his youth, yet through unimaginable circumstances he was able to overcome everything and become a writer, newspaper editor, and most of all one of the most influential abolitionist. In telling his story, Douglass paints a realistic picture of slavery. Douglass 's narrative spells out the slaveholders ' tactics in simple terms while highlighting the moral inefficiencies and the damaging effects of slavery on both the slave and the slaveholder

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 for slavery 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,

Published in 1845, ‘Narrative of life of Frederick Douglass an American slave written by himself’ is still the most highly acclaimed American autobiography ever written. It was published seven years after Douglass escaped from his life as a slave in Maryland. It describes his experience of being slave and his psychological insights into the slave-master relationship. The main focus is on ‘How he learn to read and write ‘and ‘the pain of slavery.’ The goal of this paper is to bring more insight analysis of his narrative life through the most famous two chapter’s in which he defines, “How he learn to read and write” and “The pain of slavery.” To achieve this goal, the paper is organized into four main sections. First, author background and

“Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is an autobiographical work written by abolitionist orator, and former slave, Frederick Douglass. The book covers the early part of Douglass’s life including his time as a slave, his escape, and what he did shortly after becoming a free man. Douglass’s time as a slave heavily influenced his claim that slavery was a morally unacceptable and disgusting practice that stripped away the humanity of the African Americans that were being taken advantage of. Douglass builds an effective argument around appeals to emotion to demonstrate the horridity of slavery.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave was written by Douglass himself, giving a detailed description of the slaveholders cruelty. Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland, and he makes known that he does not know his specific birthdate, “... no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.” (47), but it was approximately around 1818. Once being enslaved, and then escaping in 1838 he became known as an eloquent speaker for abolitionists, being able to deliver passionate speeches about the role of a slaveholder and their relationship to their slaves, especially since he was one of them. Douglass even discovered the true meaning of the songs sung by enslaved people, “ I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs, I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear.” (27). The book is not an easy read for those who believe in equal rights, as Douglass put into painful words the description of brutal whippings, signs of no mercy, and people being taken advantage of because if they had shown mercy they believed they would have lost their dignity.

Slavery has been a heavily encourages and practiced in the American society. From poor white farmers to supporter of abolishing slavery has seen it with their eyes. They all know that what they were doing to the African American slave was wrong. Slavery transformed the way society sees their life and liberty. In order to truly understand the impacts that slavery had on American society was to be a slave yourself. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and fighter for freedom wrote his book based on his experience of being a slave. He was an African American who taught himself how to read write and gain more knowledge to learn that he was a worthy living human. With his autobiography, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass: An American slave written by himself, Douglass protected his experience by using different tones and styles to capture the reader's mind and show an example of what a slave had to face.

The analysis of the under discussion autobiography indicates a lot of major universal themes and human exploitation is one of them. A reader can see bleak picture of black slavery from the narration of Frederick Douglass who confronts brutal conduct of white masters throughout his childhood.

Frederick Douglass was perhaps one of the most preeminent minded person the world has ever known. He was born into slavery in 1818 around February in Talbot County, Maryland. He was born as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, the first born child to Harriet Bailey. He was one of the greatest theoretical minds of his time, helping presidents and lecturing for thousands of people for a range of causes including rights for women and Irish home rule.’’ Douglass was a powerful example of intellect, humanity, and charisma – undermining the racist views of the day.” He formed a worthy case against slavery. Although Fredericks’ education was not good as other, he became a great leader to write around 50 books dealing with slavery, natural laws,

“ Slave narratives had been ghostwritten or composed with the help of white editors, but the narrative’s vivid detail and stylistic distinctiveness, combined with the reputation Douglass had earned as an eloquent speaker, left no doubt that Douglass had in fact written his own story in his own words” (NAAL1172). Frederick Douglas writes an autobiography that describes the evils of slavery and how he was dehumanized and brutalized by a variety of methods from his white masters.

The book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass, is a story about Frederick Douglass’s life as a slave and how he goes on his quest to achieve freedom. Douglass was born into slavery and goes from master to master, and he finally sees the power of education when he reaches Baltimore to work for some new people. Here Douglass begins to learn how to read and write and he uses this to his advantage in hopes of becoming free one day. He manages to teach himself how to read in secret and then helps the other slaves become more literate. Eventually Douglass does manage to escape but he doesn’t stop there, he becomes an activist himself in hopes of ending all slavery one day. Through this book, Douglass reveals that