Douglass creates a sympathetic image when he states, “I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in my life; and each of these times was very short in duration and at night.” (3). This is a sympathetic approach on the grounds that the average child sees his or her mother daily, whereas he only seen his a few times. In addition he states, “I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger.” (3). This quote allowed the audience to create an opinion on the effects of slavery by connecting the author on an emotional level because for most it is a given right to know and be cared for by one's mother, but for a slave a mother is just someone who gives birth and expands a slaveholders profit. Lastly, one usually lives to find a find a companionship. Over time, Frederick Douglass makes it known that like his grandmother, a slave is destined to be lonely do to the fact that slaves are forever on the move, leaving one to be split up from family and friends at any time without a choice (25). In conclusion, Douglass creates such images of desolation so that his audience will be convinced that his argument against slavery is
In The Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave, written by himself the author asserts that the way to enslave someone is to keep them from learning at all. Douglass supports his claim by, first, when Frederick was small he was never able to tell his age or the date, and secondly, they were never allowed to be taught how to read that was something always hidden from him as a young child. The author’s purpose is to inform the reader that as a slave there were so many things they were not allowed to have that we may take for granted, in order to make it very clear that we should not take our education and opportunities for granted. Based on The Life Of Frederick Douglass An American Slave, Douglass is writing for the white people who believed that slavery was right, he wanted to make it very clear that the slaves and Douglass had nothing handed to them.
Douglass’ new found perspective of enslavement opens his eyes to the action he must take to liberate his fellow slaves. After his escape, Douglass discovers a newspaper called The Liberator. Through this newspaper, Douglass states he got “a pretty correct idea of the principles, measures and spirit of the anti-slavery reform” and because of this he “took right hold of the cause” (pg. 120). Douglass realizes that he must do more than improve himself in order to make a change. As a result, he joins the abolitionist movement. Had it not been for his base of self-taught knowledge, Douglass would not have had the opportunity to escape enslavement and make a change by joining the abolition
In a Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave written by himself, the author argues that no one can be enslaved if he or she has the ability to read, write, and think. Douglass supports his claim by first providing details of his attempts to earn an education, and secondly by explaining the conversion of a single slaveholder. The author’s purpose is to reveal the evils of slavery to the wider public in order to gain support for the abolition of his terrifying practice. Based on the purpose of writing the book and the graphic detail of his stories, Douglass is writing to influence people of higher power, such as abolitionists, to abolish the appalling reality of slavery; developing a sympathetic relationship with the
Education is a key. Not many can find it, but those who do can unlock the door to endless knowledge. Abolitionist leader and American slave, Frederick Douglass, in his autobiography A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, contemplates the enslavement he endured while emphasizing the importance of education as a key to freedom. Throughout Douglass’s educational awakening and his realization of its overall power, he comes to understand the slaveholder’s evil doings in keeping all slaves trapped in ignorance. Thesis too wordy condense it & briefly incorporate rhetorical strategies he uses (repetition, understatement, imagery, diction, etc).
Society’s systematic dehumanization of slaves claims that their lives are not their own, but rather belong to their oppressors. For instance, Jacobs’s cousin Benjamin decides to escape from his masters who equate him and his people to “dogs, […] foot-balls, cattle, [and] everything that [is] mean” and taunts them by saying, “Let them bring me back. We don’t die but once” (27). By metaphorically comparing slaves to dogs and pieces of property, he reveals how little slave owners care about their charges. Rather than remaining under the control of such oppression, Benjamin decides to live and die on his own terms at the risk of capture and punishment, because
In these two tales of brutal bondage, Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the modern reader can decipher two vastly different experiences from circumstances that were not altogether that dissimilar. Both narratives tell the story of a slave gaining his or her freedom from cruel masters, yes, but that is where the most prominent similarities end. Not only are they factually different, these stories are entirely distinct in their themes.
They couldn’t have a public voice and once a man married a woman he got all her rights (legal concept of coverture). If a woman wasn’t married most of the time she had to give her earnings and control to legal affairs to male relatives. Woman started becoming abolitionists and even though they were part of the start of the anti-slavery movement, in 1830 the rise of an organized movement to abolish slavery in the United States. Women found they now couldn’t do anything to help. That led abolitionist women to begin to defend their right to speak in public and discuss thoroughly during petition drives. All throughout the 1850’s more and more people joined the women 's rights movement, and it was in the abolition movement that women first learned to organize, to hold public meetings, and to conduct petition campaigns. As time went on state legislatures began to act favorably to woman’s influence and petition efforts for reforms in property law. By 1860 fourteen states passed a form of women’s property laws, for example New York legislatures passed the Married Women’s Property Act. The law gave married New York women all economic rights they demanded, but still refused the women the right to vote. May 1866, the eleventh women’s rights convention was held. At the convention, they decided to create the American Equal Rights
A number of women in the United States and Europe became frustrated with apparent prejudices against women in the 1830s. The women came together by focusing on a specific goals to help their quality of living. It made it hard for women to establish family and marriage laws because women couldn’t divorce and be included in property laws, which men had complete control over women. Rights/laws for women did not make any progress until the late 1800s and early 1900s. Divorce and property rights were at the surface of the women movement. The first right to be granted to women was nursing. Some middle and upper class women were being hears, as they began to gain access to higher education and some occupations mainly filled by men. Amalie Sieveking
Knowledge has the ability to lift the ignorance dwelling within others. Without it, people will see no reason to change, never to question what is wrong and make it right. Never given the freedom to read, “the slaves knew as little of their ages as horses knew of theirs….a wish of most masters to keep their slaves thus ignorant,” and thus dehumanized (QU). The denial of one’s birthdate signifies the willingness of the masters to deny them of anything; no matter how small that information may be, they are undeserving of it. This is evident because such details can grant curiosity of one's own purpose, a reason for their own existence and its importance. They remained as clueless mens as “their minds had been starved by their cruel masters. They had been shut up in mental darkness,” locked in an unyielding state of blindness and denied freedom (104). Through the denial of education, the severe dehumanization of slaves is more apparent than that of the slaveholders. Because they had constantly lived a melancholic life without understanding what freedom meant, they were forever imprisoned in an endless state of dismay. However, the slaveholder was dehumanized more in the assimilation of what society justified as morally-correct. Regardless of the abuse inflicted towards the slaves, this made
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs strongly speaks to its readers by describing the brutalities of slavery and the way slave owners can destroy peaceful lives. After reading and rereading the story have noticed certain things regarding how Jacobs tries to educate her readers and her intended audience which is the women of the North. As if we do not know enough about how terrible slavery is, this story gives detailed examples of the lives of slaves and provokes an incredible amount of emotions. She uses several tactics in her writing to reach her desired audience and does so very well.
The women’s suffrage movement is thought to have begun with the publication of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792. Wollstonecraft is considered the “mother of feminism” and wrote of the sexual double standards between men and
Its hard to believe that in the past, it was widely accepted by society and allowed by the government to enslave fellow human beings. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave gives a first hand account of the brutality and hopelessness of slavery. Throughout Douglass’ narrative, a theme that he addresses is the only way to be free is through education.
Harriet Ann Jacobs once said that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. As for the colored race ‘it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation.’ Her book ‘Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl’ is one of the most important fugitive slave narratives. She wrote during the same time as Frederick Douglass, although she was hesitant to publish her story. She was a part of the abolitionist movement and was a former slave, very much like Frederick Douglass.