Summary Of Fredrick Douglass: The Influence Of Environment

In the second stage, Douglass and one of the prisoners from the cave received the opportunity to explore the real world. When Douglass was sent to Baltimore, he gained new insight and was introduced to a new world. Douglass was eager and strongly felt the necessity for gaining an education. Despite all the possible obstacles and consequences, Douglass was eager and felt the necessity to learn how to read and write. He tried to get the help from the his surroundings to obtain an education. However, the most important lesson he got was that he started to realize the real reason for the existence of slavery. On the other hand, the man freed from the cave was forced to adapt himself to a new environment. Looking at the light, numerous living organisms, and other objects had created a different interpretation of his existent. In both situations, it was extremely difficult to accept the reality for both Fredrick Douglass and the freed man. Despite initial difficulties and fears, realizing and observing another reality created an eye-opening moment.

Slavery is a topic very capable of putting an emotional weight on a person. This is even more so for those that have actually experienced it first-hand. Frederick Douglass, one of the more influential African-Americans in history, himself, was once a slave. He experienced everything that comes with being a slave in first-person. All the wickedness, hardships, and mental and physical damage, that came with being a slave, were experienced by him. Frederick is able to experience freedom after taking the step himself and escaping slavery. After what is almost an entire life of slavery, one would expect him to have many thoughts floating in his mind about his new found freedom. In the passage from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass use figures of speech and syntax, and repetition of key phrases to convey his feelings of excitement, insecurity, and loneliness from escaping slavery and arriving in New York in 1838.

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.

The brutality that slaves endured form their masters and from the institution of slavery caused slaves to be denied their god given rights. In the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," Douglass has the ability to show the psychological battle between the white slave holders and their black slaves, which is shown by Douglass' own intellectual struggles against his white slave holders. I will focus my attention on how education allowed Douglass to understand how slavery was wrong, and how the Americans saw the blacks as not equal, and only suitable for slave work. I will also contrast how Douglass' view was very similar to that of the women in antebellum America, and the role that Christianity played in his life as a slave and then

“You are a product of your environment.”- W. Clement. The way you were raised, the people who raised you and the community that you are raised in all play a role in who you are as an individual. Constantly throughout time the way an individual defines themselves is based on their roots, the actions or reactions that have built a foundation of who they’re today. Through the lens of a slave later turned into one of the largest faces of abolitionist acts, Frederick Douglass creates “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” in which he accounts the community he was raised in and the constant fear instilled within his community as well as his later assimilation into new communities and possibly being responsible for creation of a

In Fredrick Douglass’s a narrative, Narrative of The Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave, he narrates an account of his experiences in the dehumanizing institution of slavery. This American institution was strategically formatted to quench any resemblance of human dignity. Throughout, the narration of his life Fredrick Douglas, meticulously illustrates the methodical process that contributed to the perpetual state of slavery. In his narration Douglass, denounces the idea that slaves are inferior to their masters but rather, it’s the dehumanizing process that constructs this erroneous theory. Ultimately, the desires of his consciousness for knowledge ferociously leads him to mental and physical pursuit of his emancipation.

In Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Mr. Douglass gives many examples of cruelty towards slaves as he shows many reasons that could have been used to abolish slavery. Throughout the well-written narrative, Douglass uses examples from the severe whippings that took place constantly to a form of brainwashing by the slaveholders over the slaves describing the terrible conditions that the slaves were faced with in the south in the first half of the 1800’s. The purpose of this narrative was most likely to give others not affiliated with slaves an explicit view of what actually happened to the slaves physically, mentally, and emotionally to show the explicit importance of knowledge to the liberation

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

After the transition to the Auld’s, Fredrick’s life improved for the better. The Auld family didn’t treat their slaves harsh. Mrs. Auld began to teach young Fredrick

Boxill, Bernard. "Frederick Douglass’s Patriotism." Journal of Ethics 13.4 (2009): 301-317. EBSCO. Web. 19 Oct 2015. Bernard argues that Frederick Douglass always was a patriot even throughout slavery. He states that most Americans are patriots even if they do not agree with the politics, but rather just a love for their country. It talks about Americans who give selfless amounts of time toward the improvement of America.

Fredrick Douglass’s life as a slave was hard any slave’s life would be. He was born into slavery in Tuckahoe, Maryland where he lived as a slave while being raised by his grandparents. He was treated horribly by his masters growing up. Around when Fredrick was eight years old he got transported to Baltimore, Maryland where he worked for Hugh Auld who was strict as could be. On the contrary his wife was kind and actually got to teach Fredrick Douglass some reading and writing skills. Hugh Auld did not let it last so he made his wife stop teaching him. This was not the end of Douglass’s education because he pretty much taught himself how to read and write by looking at other people’s handwriting and also by using newspapers. Soon he was actually able to make out what the newspapers were saying so he could now know what was going on around the

When you think of great Americans in our history there are countless that come to mind. Some immediately think of the many presidents we have had, others think of inventors, but what about the people that are in between – the people that fought for equality. Fredrick Douglass arguably had the greatest impact on American society, especially African American society, in the nineteenth century. Douglass is credited as being an abolitionist, author, editor, and diplomat. He used literature, books, newspapers, and even speeches, to leave a long lasting mark on our society. Douglass advised presidents and lectured to thousands about different causes, including women’s rights. A cause he felt a strong connection with was the abolishing of slavery, being that he was once a slave.

Sophia and Hugh Auld become crueler toward him, but Douglass still prefers Baltimore and teaches himself to read with the help of local boys. Douglass becomes more aware of the evils of slavery and of the existence of the abolitionist, or antislavery, movement and resolves to eventually escape to the North.

Fredrick Douglass also came to exude a great sense of racial pride as his life progressed. At first, his only perception of his people was that of a lowly slave nation. Yet, he was dedicated to trying to improve their lot. After his fellow slaves learned that he was literate, they “insisted that I must keep a Sabbath school.” He agreed to this proposal because he felt that the only shot his “brothers” had at gaining their freedom was through the power of the written word. Later, when he and his fellow slaves were jailed after their plans to escape to freedom were revealed, he states that “our greatest concern was about separation.” Douglass felt a sense of responsibility and kinship towards the members of his own race, and was loath to break these bonds. His racial pride reached its peak when he saw the houses that the free blacks in the North lived in. Douglass proudly writes that “I found many, who had not been seven years out of their chains, living in finer houses, and evidently enjoying more of the comforts of life, than the average of slaveholders in Maryland.” When Douglass saw how well some of his kinsmen were living, he could not help but change his impression of his people being a downtrodden slave nation. He came to recognize his race for what they truly were: a people equal in stature to any other, even the lofty Caucasians.

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.