Slavery Is The Act Of Owning Slaves

Well known slave author and orator, Frederick Douglass, in his narrative, “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave” alters the way people view slavery. Douglass’s purpose is to convince the audience that slavery should be abolished. He creates a haunting tone in order to persuade the readers that slavery is wrong. He uses many real life accounts of horrifying instances of beatings, murders and torture to prove that slavery is unjust.

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.

Throughout our lives, we undergo many changes and we also see many changes in other people. Our world today has been influenced immensely by the world of the past. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick undergoes many changes in his life and the lives of the people around him especially the slaveholders that he served. Throughout the narrative, we as the reader see that slavery was a terrible thing and that it affected the slaves in horrific ways but not just the slaves were affected, the slaveholders were also affected in horrible ways.

Douglass threw light on the slave system not only through argument but through his autobiography. Douglass talks about the things he saw as a slave. The text says,” The louder she screamed the harder she whipped.”[Douglass, pg,4] That shows how his book showed some of the torture slaves went through. He then talks about how

The purpose behind Fredrick Douglass’s Narrative was to appeal to the other abolitionists who he wanted to convince that slave owners were wrong for their treatment of other human beings. His goal was to appeal to the middle-class people of that time and persuade them to get on board with the abolitionist movement. Douglass had a great writing style that was descriptive as well as convincing. He stayed away from the horrific details of the time, which helped him grasp the attention of the women who in turn would convince their husbands to help by donating money and eventually ending slavery. He used his words effectively in convincing the readers that the slave owners were inhuman and showed how they had no feelings for other human

During the time of pre-civil war America, southerners believed that one of the most essential means of life was slavery. In the novel, Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass challenges and debunks the idea of slavery being a necessary part of the white lifestyle; many pro-slavery arguments consisted of religion justifying slavery, slaves being “easily manipulated”/ignorant, and slavery keeping the southern economy from disappearing (The Proslavery Argument). Frederick uses personal experiences and other tactics to expose the truth behind slavery to those abolitionists and also to those foreign to the topic. He easily discredits the pro-slavery content by explaining how many slave owners are cruel and evil. In my opinion, Frederick Douglass considers all involved in slavery, and not just those who were slaves, when proving his theory.

In Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, he writes in depth about his life as a slave, attempting to abolish slavery. He uses the three rhetorical appeals, logos, ethos, and pathos to convince his audience, white Northern men to help achieve this goal and also ties in Christian values to portray the religious aspect. Narrating his personal experiences with his masters and fellow slaves, he states reasons of the immorality of enslavement. Douglass argues that slavery ultimately dehumanizes slave owners and demonstrates how slavery is immoral, due to the transformation on slave owners and slaves.

In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, Douglass employs several literary themes and techniques through which he appeals to people’s emotions and basic humanity rather than using cold and convoluted logic to prove that slavery was an immoral practice. Douglass provides vivid first hand examples of abuse that he and other slaves have endured. He describes various instances, in compelling detail, in which slaves were tortured physically and psychologically. He conveys to his reader the fear and caution that slaves had to deal with in order to get by every day. In his memoir, Douglass reflects on his life, and details his journey of being born into slavery, what his life was like as a slave, how he escaped from his grim reality and how he eventually became one of the most gripping orators and thinkers of his time, enlightening the rest of the world on the horrors of what was occurring in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In the book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass reveals his life as a slave and the valuable lessons he learned from his experience. Douglass wants the truth about slavery to be revealed and he wants to get rid of the lies that portray slavery as beneficial. Douglass exposes the reality of slavery by criticizing the “romantic image” of slavery, showing the intellectual capabilities slaves had, and revealing the reasons why slaves were disloyal to each other. Douglass criticizes the southern, romantic image of slavery by exposing the harsh treatment and sadness that slaves endured. It was southerners who thought slavery as beneficial, because it benefited themselves and white society.

completely eliminated. Douglass’s purpose in his autobiography, N​arrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,​is to help people understand the plight of the slaves. He adopts many different tones and volumes throughout the novel in order to get his point across on how the slaves are treated. Within the novel he uses ethos, pathos, and logos in order for the readers to understand why slavery should be eliminated. He uses several dichotomy’s to describe the differences in slave owners, plantations, the conditions and the food situations within the plantations, and his knowledge before he was educated and after he was educated.

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass expresses the deepest agony slavery brought upon him during his first years of being a slave. His purpose in describing these things is to display the dehumanizing and soul-killing effects of slavery. His proclamation is to all those out there who have a heart and who care enough to listen, in the hopes that they will act on it instead of just sympathizing with him. Douglass wishes to move those who are pro as well as anti slavery, and he does this by describing the gruesome details that slavery bestows upon those who find themselves to be slaves.

The issue of slavery in antebellum America was not black and white. Generally people in the North opposed slavery, while inhabitants of the South promoted it. However, many people were indifferent. Citizens in the North may have seen slavery as neither good nor bad, but just a fact of Southern life. Frederick Douglass, knowing the North was home to many abolitionists, wrote his narrative in order to persuade these indifferent Northern residents to see slavery as a degrading practice. Douglass focuses on dehumanization and freedom in order to get his point across.

Frederick Douglass’ biography revolves around the idea of freedom. After seeing a traumatizing incident as a child, Douglass slowly begins to realize that he is not a free human being, but is a slave owned by other people. He is surrounded by a society that devalues him and people like him, and systematically worked to keep them ignorant and submissive. In this society, it is made clear that no slave is special, and everyone is replaceable. Rather than accept this, Douglass struggles to maintain what little autonomy he was allowed to have. When his one of his masters, Thomas Auld, bans his mistress, Sophia, from teaching Douglass how to read, Douglass learned from the young boys on the street. His biography shows him transforming from an ignorant child into his older, more learned self.

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

Slavery has been a particular popular concept among humanity for centuries now. Most people who have gotten an academic education might be quite familiar with this. Many countries, if not all, have faced slavery at one point or another. It used to be common for powerful landlords to own many slaves to maintain their farms and clean their house. But is this the only definition for slavery? Is slavery only about a human owning another? Aren’t humans, in a way, usually slaves to society?