Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass’ autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave offers a depiction of slavery like very few before him, from his firsthand accounts. Douglass wanted to show his opposition to slavery and knew he would meet many criticisms. Due to this criticism, he had to mask much of his work with irony. Some of his works are obvious and others are a bit harder to see. The more difficult ones were put in place by Douglass in order to provide a deep and profound statement, without arousing too much opposition. If he had he would have faced much more threats than he did. He not only

In the “narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass an American slave written by himself” Frederick reveled to audience the time he was living as a slave and the moments of brutal treats for example psychological, emotional and physical abuses. He was suffering terrible moments during his 20 years as a slave in the twentieth century. In addition, he describes in his own words the strategies he used to escape from the slave holders and to be free.

     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.

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

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

‘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.

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

Slavery was an embarrassing time in America’s history. In 2016, slavery has become a distant memory. It’s easy for us to admit that slavery is wrong but, in Frederick Douglass’s time no one thought that it was. Frederick Douglass went on to write books and give speeches in hope that one day all slaves would be free. In the book called “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, he attempts to shine light on the American Slave system in the 1800’s.

The novel, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by Frederick Douglass himself, contains his views on his life. He escaped slavery to become a free man in the North, where Douglass became a well known abolitionist who wrote speeches for the anti-slavery campaign. His arguments are persuasive to readers as well as potent. Douglass uses the events in his life and a variety of strategies to build an effective argument against slavery. The strategies for his arguments are to influence readers with emotions, convince readers using logic and to prove that he is a credible, moral person. When writing these strategies into his Narrative, he

Throughout the text Douglass provides evidence of this lost humanity, and argues his claim using appeals to emotion--or pathos. The first instance

Throughout the narration, Douglass has tried to maintain the flow using the techniques of realism and irony in order to present his themes. The reader can observe his helplessness for misery of the slaves from the quoted incidents. For example in the very first chapter, Douglass recalls the incident of his Aunt Hester who is

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick explains the slave owners want to keep their slaves as ignorant and illiterate as possible because the more knowledgeable a slave becomes the more “unmanageable” he will become. He will start to develop ideas on his own and question the authority of his masters. For example, Douglass explains that most slaves do not even know the date of their birth, “By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant” (Douglass 47). Not knowing their age or birth date is a way for slave owners to show authority over their slaves and to try to keep them as ignorant as possible. They

Throughout Douglass’ youth, he struggled to understand things about his life that was normal for other people. Douglass was not allowed to know his own age and started to question it. “The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.”

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.