Fredrick Douglass Essay

     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.

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.

Douglass not only describes slaves as animals, but he describes slave treatment as if they were animals to further describe the horrendous lives of slaves. Slaves were fed food in troughs (36). By choosing the word “trough”, Douglass emphasizes the poor treatment of slaves; slaves were not good enough to be fed from bowls or plates, they were no better than animals. Douglass also compares women on the plantations to breeding animals. Women were expected to reproduce in order to increase their masters’ wealth, not to create a family. Women and children were separated before the child was a year old so they would not form familial bonds with one another. When Douglass’ own mother died, he compared it to a stranger dying because he had no connection with her (18). Slaves were not only thought of animals, but also fostered as animals. Douglass describes Mr. Covey as a “nigger-breaker”, Douglass was broken in “body, soul, and spirit” by

Frederick Douglass had specific audiences that he wanted to either relate to or to get across a point to. African American people that had endured slavery were an intended audience because Frederick Douglass states things such as “Thus, after a long, tedious effort for years. I finally succeeded in learning how to read and write” and “I was compelled to resort to various stratagems”. Those sentences by Frederick Douglass show that it was not an easy time for him and the levels or trials that he went through to be someone who was not illiterate. Frederick Douglass never once was one to give up on the need to learn to read and write, so that shows that Frederick Douglass thought that it was important for the African American people to be as well educated as the caucasian Americans were. The caucasian Americans were Frederick’s intended audience because of Frederick’s use of contrast throughout the extract. Frederick tells how his mistress had changed on him from being a helpful, loving, and nice woman to an evil spirited, bitter brute

Douglass uses family relationships, starting with his own birth, to gain the compassion of his target audience. He never knew the identity of his father, but it was "whispered" (Douglass, Narrative, 43) that it was his master. Douglass shocked his Northern white readers when he informed them that slaveholders regularly split slave families for no reason. This upset Northerners because their family units were the foundation of their communities. People couldn't believe that slave children were taken

One of the most strategic and dehumanizing components of slavery is the fact that it separated people from their families. In The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, it is evident that the idea of being sold to another white family and separated from your own is a devastating that can happen to a slave on short notice. For example, Douglas was born and raised on Colonel Lloyd's plantation in Talbot County in Maryland. However, at the age of seven or eight with only a few days notice, Douglas was told he was going to work with the Auld Family in Baltimore. This meant

    In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the author undergoes many changes in his life and in the lives of his slaveholders. The first of Frederick's slaveholders, Captain Anthony, was also alleged to be his father, which is a weird thing since it showed that the slaveowners were corrupted in their job. Since Captain Anthony was a married man when he caused Douglass’ mother to get pregnant, he was committing adultery and rape since the slave most likely did not want to have a baby with their slave owner. Also in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass states, “My father was a white man. He was

Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, in Talbot county, Maryland. He had no knowledge of his exact age, he estimates that he’s between twenty-seven to twenty-eight years of age. He was a child of mixed race, his mother, Harriet Bailey, was a slave and his father was a white man. At around twelve months, he was taken from his mother and sold to a plantation. His mother would visit him on rare occasions during the night. Harriet died when Douglass was seven. In the chapter, he states that slave owners often rape female slaves. A law established that mixed-race children would become slaves, benefiting the slave holders. Towards the end of the chapter

For Douglass, the most memorable and emotion-provoking incident was the treatment of his grandmother. When she became too old to work, she, after a lifetime of faithful service to the family, was left helpless and alone in a shack in the woods to fend for herself. “They took her to the woods, built her a little hut, put up a little mud-chimney, and then made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself in perfect loneliness; thus virtually turning her out to die!” (Douglass 51) Throughout his narrative, Douglass applied he rhetorical strategy of Pathos repeatedly and to great effect to promote and validate his view that slavery is morally wrong.

In his youth, Douglass felt inferior to other boys his age because of his slave status. Frederick Douglass was often whipped by his masters and suffered from hunger and cold. As an outcome from being a child and not old enough to work in fields yet, Douglass often had leisure time which include keeping Master Daniel Lloyd company. To his advantage as the master’s son being attached to him, he would not let Douglass be “made fun of by older kids and would shares his sweets with him” (Douglass, 5). Even as child, Douglass knew he would never be able to enjoy life like his master’s son. He knew slaves were not given the same amount of freedom like citizens or indentured servants. Slaves were not permitted by law to read or write. A slave could not go anywhere with a written consent form from his or her master. There were no laws that stop a white slave owner from abusing their African slaves. The slaves worked more intensive labor for less benefits of an indentured servant because of the law. A slave would cook and clean, tend crops, and do other assignments from dawn to dusk (Sewall, The Sin of Slaveholding, 3). These hours were much longer than an indentured servant. Although the son was the same age as him, Douglass would be always a lower status than him.

The way the structure of family’s among slaves were effected, were by the sexploitation of slave women. Slave Owners, purposely impregnated slaves for financial reasons. These interracial children were being born into slavery, because of their mother being an African American slave and the laws saying that if you have any ounce of black in you, you were labeled as black. Slave owners created this practice to produce more slaves for their plantation. Fredrick Douglass, being an interracial kid and rumors that his father was white and may have been Captain Anthony, he was treated differently from all the other slaves on the plantation. Growing up, Douglass worked in the house instead of the fields. He had developed a relationship with the slave

Early in the book Douglass recites about his childhood when his master would try and be a father to his slave children.He explained his experiences and how the father would unleash his wicked desires onto the slave children ruining there lives. ”The master is forced to sell his mulatto children or constantly whip them out of

Fittingly, they treated the slaves as if their family bonds were completely worthless – something they would never have imagined doing to a white man. This is illustrated through Douglass's relationship with his own mother, Harriet Bailey, whom he was separated from as an infant. As Douglass reminisced, "very little communication ever took place between us…I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial…I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger" (26). This passage depicts how the slaveholders became so convinced of the worthlessness of the slaves that they saw no reason to respect the vital bond between a mother and child. Consequently, the slaves' view of family fell askew. Although Douglass appeared to know that his mother was important and desired a relationship with her, her passing clearly did not ever sadden him. He also showed no affection for his brother and sisters, as he lacked the necessary interactions with them needed to form familial bondage. Additionally, slaveholders expressed extreme animosity towards the slave families by raping slave women, impregnating them, and then encouraging their white children to whip their half-black siblings. As a result of the dehumanizing behavior that slavery presents, slaves not only suffered and lost all of their freedoms, but also lost their entire family lives, which the slaveholders deemed necessary to

Born into a life of slavery in the early 1800s, Frederick Douglass recounts the harsh treatment he experienced as a slave living on multiple plantations and constantly moving from place to place. He’s not sure of his birthday, and not knowing much about his mother, Harriet Bailey, they are separated. During his whole life, it is assumed that Douglass’s father was his first master who goes by the name of Captain Anthony. Until the age of seven, Frederick Douglass lives on a plantation owned by his slaveholder, Colonel Lloyd. The plantation is regarded as the Great House Farm and despite it being a place where cruel practices occurred, any slave working there or running errands would commend it, as it wasn’t out of the ordinary for slaves to “Fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative goodness of their masters.”, because of worry that speaking poorly about their home could result in a severe