The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Analysis

The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass gives readers a detailed overview of the life of a slave who share his own personal experiences and struggles from a slave to a freeman.  Frederick Douglass was born in Talbot county, Maryland. He was the son of Harriet Bailey and his father was a white man  (Douglass 1). After living with his master for nine months, Frederick was sent to stay with Mr. Covey, a man who is known for “breaking down young slaves” (Douglass 34). But while he was at Mr Covey’s Douglass faced many struggles.

Everyone has heard the saying, “Not all heroes wear capes.” Well, why do people always say that? So girls can take a picture of the pizza delivery guy and use this quote as their instagram post? No. This has a deeper meaning. This implies that the purpose of a hero isn’t to fly around in spandex, but actually making an impact. Heroism is being able to face challenges with passion and drive, being courageous and determined to fight for the cause, but not always going with the flow.

Frederick Douglass, author of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, illustrates an emotional and extremely tragic story that describes the struggles of a slave Pre-Civil War in the South. Douglass writes with the sole purpose of showing the truth about slavery and how inhumane the slaves were treated. The slaves treated like animals and fed even worse than animals. Throughout Douglass’ narrative, he uses blunt diction to express how serious the situation is, figurative language to convey imagery to make it more emotional, and ethos numerously to make the story more credible in the hopes of abolishing slavery.

Frederick Douglass was an African American social reformer, orator, and writer. He became the leader of the of the abolitionist movement after escaping from slavery and publishing his autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. His narrative showed white anti-slavery sympathizers, how slaves were brutalized by the slave holding system. Harriet Jacobs was an African American writer who escaped from slavery and was later freed. She became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. Jacobs wrote her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and published the book in 1861 under the name of Linda Brent. By reading slave narrative written by male and female is the idea of their experience as male or female such that

In the 1800 's, subjection was a significant issue in the United States. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass reveals much about American history in the midst of the period of servitude and outlines conflicts for the cancelation of subjection. As a chronicled report, it goes on data about the slave family, work, the master slave relationship, and the treatment and living states of slaves. As an abolitionist tract, it fights against recognizable methods for pondering subjection 's favorable circumstances and its moral quality, making strong centers for discarding subjugation. Slave families were much of the time torn isolated by the expert secluding them. Frederick Douglass was the essential slave to stand transparently and report his fugitive status. He was the individual who participate in securing the invalidation of suppression and fairness of African-American over his exercises, rationalities, speakers, creator/chief, and government official.

In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass recollects being revolutionized from the years as a slave in the institution to the life of a free man in the world by attaining the extraordinary power and knowledge of literacy. In this pinnacle moment, Douglass declares and defines his presence and uses his extensive talent in communicative language to reach out and connect with his audience. During a time where it’s severely punishable to acquire these skills, Douglass’ looks beyond this, with his strong desire for freedom increasing as he comes to understand what awaits him on the other side. By liberating himself through literacy, Frederick Douglass, in The Narrative, recalls his transformation into a

The African-American reformer Frederick Douglass narrates his experience of the rebellion in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, escaping from slavery in Maryland and ending up becoming an anti-slavery writer and orator. He employs a dry tone throughout the passage, explaining both the positive and negative effects of slavery in an unbiased position. When looking back to the whole story of his rebellion, both spiritual and professional education are essential factors in his success.

Throughout our country’s history, there have been several instances in which minorities, and native groups have been victims of our country’s people and government, as well as policies that our government has enacted. Some of these policies and treatments have made them very vulnerable and victims to barbaric and inhumane treatment at the hands of the “true” American people. Slavery in America is a prime example of these type of government policies and inhumane treatment of other groups who deserve the same rights as us “Americans do”. While most focus on how Slavery dehumanized the slaves themselves, it also dehumanized the people who owned, worked, and dealt with the slaves: The American People. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Douglass illustrates, quite graphically, though appropriately, through his own personal experiences the brutality and violence of life as a slave, but also how it dehumanized both the slaves and the whites using masterful imagery. As Douglass says about one of his slave owners, “Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness.” (Pg. 52) This was true for many more people than just his mistress.

Although many people think they know the brutality about slavery, not many people truly understand the hardships that people had to really face. In Frederick Douglass’s, “ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” he portrays slavery in many different ways through emotion, fact, and first hand experience. The book is his life story going through the depths of slavery and persevering through all the bad until he insures his freedom. In the book he uses many different strategies that shows people the horrors of slavery through his literate writing style. In my mind, I think the most effective examples of persuasive appeals as an anti-slavery book is his use of logic, reason, emotion, and appeal.

“The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is notable for such analysis because he was an African American, a trait that has been of controversy for decades back in time. In this text, we are able to get a feel of life as a slave and how difference and identity were then verses how these were perceived once equality was established in the United States. Once freedom and equality were established, there then was a clear distinction in the difference of the two. Frederick Douglass, once enslaved, tells his story of his journey from being a

After reading Douglass’s The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, I have a better understanding of what it meant to be a black slave in the antebellum era, and have a better understanding of what form of oppression that they had to face. The fact that black people were oppressed into slavery created their own cultural identity. During this era, Douglass was able to pull himself out of terrible circumstances and taught himself how to read and write. As a writer capable of telling his own story, Douglass wrote an influential autobiography showing how he triumphed against prejudice, and he also offers a positive image of black people in a world where slavery was justified on the basis of race.

Within a slave narrative, the identity of the writer greatly affects the perspective of the story and the message that the author wishes to convey. For a narrative of this nature, to send its meaning directly and efficiently it must be able to illustrate the individual struggle of the writer as well as create a clear line between what it means to be a slave and what it means to be free. These identities of the author not only conflict with the image of self but also help to illuminate the struggles of the author. Each identity plays a part in constructing the narrative to depict both the hardships of slaves as well as the capabilities of those freed from enslavement to achieve more. Within Frederick Douglass’ narrative, he depicts both his

Times seem to be so tough when no one has control over the things they can say or even do. In the Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, Fredrick Douglass writes about his journey of being practically dumb, beaten, and often mistreated. Douglass is a person whom I can personally relate to, because we have so many similarities. He is a goal driven determined man, and that’s how I consider myself.

Overall the book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was a very interesting book, especially  having an insight of how life was like as a slave .  The author gave an excellent illustration of slave life,  also clearly gave recurring themes of  ignorance as a tool of power ,  Christianity as an excuse for the enslavement of people , and education is the key towards independence throughout the book. These themes throughout the whole book did reflect a depiction of  the history of enslavement around the 1800s, also the description of how slavery affected people ( slaveholders) and treatment of slaves. Some of these themes could be put into use today for example, ignorance being used as a tool for power could still could be found throughout the present

They say that one can never fully understand a situation until he/she is put into that scenario themselves. Too often, history is written by those who have only read and researched the issues, remaining distant and objective to get all the facts straight. While there is honor in this approach, one cannot experience the horror of war, the thrill of victory, or the reality of a situation if written from a third-person perspective. No, history is best told by those who have participated in it: the soldiers who crawled through the muddy trenches, the revelers who celebrated the great national victory, or the people who did not witness history, but made it. Particularly on the issue of slavery, copious amounts of writing exist on both the pro-slavery and anti-slavery side from scholars, politicians, and citizens supporting their views, but very little exists from the perspective of slaves and former slaves. This in part is what makes The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an autobiography of former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, so incredible and valuable to the American audience. Speaking with authority as one who has experienced slavery firsthand, the self-educated Douglass exquisitely manipulates a bevy of literary devices, such as setting, writing style, and allegory, to illustrate the horrors of slavery and form a