How Does Frederick Douglass Use Ethos Pathos Logos

Imagine being woken up by the yelling of your loved one being whipped "He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush," (Douglass, chapter 1, paragraph8).In Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass. Fredrick Douglass wants to change his readers beliefs about what it means to be dedicated to the American idea that "All men are created equal" by telling about physical abuse of slavery and lack of education.

Slavery is a humongous topic involving both slaves and former slaves. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Story is one such story. Douglass suffered punishments, and watching others get punished, he uses those experiences to make his argument against slavery.Douglass’ tone in the narrative is sarcastic and dark. Frederick Douglass successfully uses vast quantities of rhetorical devices, illuminating the horror and viciousness of slavery, including the need to eliminate it.

In the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave, written by himself, the author argues that slaves are treated no better than, sometimes worse, than livestock. Douglass supports his claim by demonstrating how the slaves were forced to eat out of a trough like pigs and second, shows how hard they were working, like animals. The author’s purpose is to show the lifestyle of an American slave in order to appeal to people’s emotions to show people, from a slave’s perspective, what slavery is really like. Based on the harsh descriptions of his life, Douglass is writing to abolitionist and other people that would sympathize and abolish slavery.

Pathos: emotion/value, a way of convincing an audience of an argument by an emotional response

In chapter 5, Douglass begins his narrative to discuss the animal-like, inhuman treatment he received from his past slaveowner. Douglass does this by his use of diction and imagery throughout chapter 5. For example, he says “I suffered much from hunger, but much more from cold” (34). The diction and imagery Douglass uses in these sentences helps discuss the purpose of inhumanity by describing how the slaves were treated horribly. They were not given enough food and they were not given the proper amount of clothing need to stay warm in the frigid winter. The effect of this powerful quotes conveys a doleful tone that teaches the audience how many slaves, including Douglass, had suffered. Another example would be when he writes “The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs, they would come and devour the mush…” (34). This quotes diction and imagery helps exhibit the purpose of animal-like, treatment by comparing the slave children as pigs. Douglass also does this by describing the food that they were given, like mush. The simile that Douglass uses effects the audience in that it conveys a sense of disturbance and gives the reader a clear picture of what and how the slave were forced to eat. These quotes help forecast Douglass’s purpose of the slaves being

After about nine chapters detailing his slave life, he says, “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.” (Douglass, 75) He then goes on to describe the turning point for him that sparked his quest for freedom. By structuring his narrative this way, he reveals both sides- how slavery broke him “in body, soul, and spirit” (Douglass, 73) and how it eventually “rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom” within him (Douglass, 80). In doing so, he gives the reader an insight into how he became himself, and reinforces the evils of slavery in the way it shapes a man’s life. Douglass’ use of diction and structure effectively persuades the reader of the barbarity and inhumanity that comes as a result of slavery.

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.

My first example of diction that Douglass uses is “…in all its glaring odiousness, that slaveholders have ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers; and this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well…” (2) Here Douglass is describing how slaveholders have sex with the female slaves and abandon the children born from it. He uses words such as odiousness, lust, and wicked desires to show how the slaveholders use and abuse the slaves in their employment for their own gratification. By using the aforementioned words, Douglass try’s to convey to his target audience the audacity of these men who abandon

When Douglass is a child he is the under Mr. Plummer. His Aunt Hester is constantly whipped by Mr. Plummer. Once when she was seen with Lloyd Ned, a person she was fond of, Mr. Plummer became extremely furious. “Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen and stripped her from neck to waist… He then told her to cross her hands, calling her at the same time a d--d b--h… and after rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood came and dripped to the floor,” (Douglass 948). Douglass does not express his feelings when he’s describing the beating of Aunt Hester. He is very direct and factual with his writing. By writing objectively, he is allowing the reader to envision the scene and come up with their own beliefs on slavery. However, because the scene descriptively shows a gruesome act, the reader is indirectly swayed into believing that slavery awful and unjust. In addition, Douglass also uses subjective writing when he describes his feelings when staying with Mr. Covey. He states, “I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished… the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute,” (Douglass 973). By displaying his feelings to the

Douglass is able to paint the most horrendous and vivid picture in the mind of the reader, and just imagining the things that Douglass includes in his autobiography would make anybody want to see slavery put to an end. Another time Douglass is able to really demonstrate his abilities with harsh imagery is when he describes the slave ships. Douglass recalls the masses of dead bodies would remain shackled to the other barely living slaves on board. Douglass also writes about how the people in the harbor could smell the slave ships even before they could see them, most likely from the smell of the ships rarely emptied waste buckets. Douglass is able to paint another sad scene in the reader’s mind when describing the way slaves would choose certain death by jumping over the edge of the slave ships, just to escape the horrible treatment on the slave ships that they had to endure. Lastly, Douglass describes the food the slaves were fed on the ships, which was nothing more than rotten corn meal full of maggots and rotten scraps. Another occasion Douglass used harsh imagery was when describing the two slaves in Baltimore, which he described as emaciated and sickly. Douglass tells how the two slaves were so neglected and not taken care of that they had hair falling out of their scalps, and after reading the passage on them, the reader feels sympathetic towards them, and feels as if they know the two girls, when the reader

The most electrifying moments in Douglass’s narrative was seen when Douglass decides to fight Mr. Covey back. Douglass gets the courage to fight Mr. Covey because he had the magical root in his hand. In the Narrative, there are many instances where violence is being depicted but in most scenarios it is seen when the slave owners discipline the slave. The roles were never reversed until this moment. After this fight, Douglass longed to be free more than ever. Though this act of violence is not what Douglass wanted, it did help him stay motivated. This act of violence can be seen as an act of resistance against slavery.

Being a slave in the United States was not uncommon in the 19th century. There were many brutalities of being a slave including physical and spiritual abuse. Slaves were considered property and not as human beings. They were mistreated and kept illiterate. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is a autobiography written by Frederick Douglass himself that told of his experiences of being a slave in the United States. He expresses the brutality the slave owners and how he struggled with running away to become a free human being. The themes of his story include: the ignorance of slaves, the treatment of slaves as property, religion used as justification, and the victimization of female slaves.

Douglass also carves the vivid picture of dehumanization into the reader's minds when he writes about the whippings slaves endure. When Douglass is a young boy, he witnesses for the first time a slave getting whipped, "he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back entirely naked. He made her get upon the stool, and tied her hands to the hook." Douglass hides in a closet, thinking that he would be the next victim. This is Douglass's first encounter with the extreme cruelty of slaveholders. "She now stood fair for his infernal purpose...after soon rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood (amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping to the floor" (Douglass 42). As it turns out, the slave

What the average person does not know about slavery is all of the inhumane behavior that was tolerated. To describe these acts as cruel would be an understatement, Douglass does not hold back on the tragedies he witnessed and he does not hold back on sharing them with the world. For so many years slave owners comforted themselves in the thought of the romantic image of slavery, claiming it was God’s will to let these people suffer, claiming that it was not an extreme environment. The only

In the 1800’s it was not common for former slaves to speak up about their former masters, but Douglass broke the image of a silent slave. When he wrote that letter he did not hold anything back, he used words that would perfectly convey his feelings. As said by Douglass, “Just ten years ago this beautiful September morning, yon bright sun beheld me a slave—a poor degraded chattel—trembling at the sound of your voice, lamenting that I was a man, and wishing myself a brute” (Douglass 2). In this portion of Douglass’ letter he is using powerful word play to bring emotion to the readers. Words like poor, degraded and trembling have a negative connotation to them and bring a sense of