The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass, the author of the book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, said “I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder” (Douglass, p.71). Modern people can fairly and easily understand the negative effects of slavery upon slave. People have the idea of slaves that they are not allow to learn which makes them unable to read and write and also they don’t have enough time to take a rest and recover their injuries. However, the negative effects upon slaveholder are less obvious to modern people. People usually think about the positive effects of slavery upon slaveholder, such as getting inexpensive labor. In the book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass

After reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, it is clear to see the true horrors behind the entirety of slavery. It is one thing to learn about it from a textbook or to sit through a lecture, but it is a completely different experience to get an account of how grossly inhumane, frightening, and appalling slavery really was from someone who experienced the terrors first-hand. Reading this narrative provided extremely descriptive details of how slaves truly were treated. Douglass recounted the time where he had often:

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.

As briefly mentioned before, Douglass was born to a slave named Harriet Bailey. His mother was a slave, and in turn he was a slave. The enslaved people were stripped of any form of human dignity. They did not have the right to learn, the right to be his or her own individual, nor the right to love or be loved; in fact, each slave was treated as a chicken’s eggs: taken off and sold off, similar crops or used to the master’s discretion. As an enslaved person, the location or the environment in which the owner gave was not disputable and they were not entitled to even the most basic idea of comfort by any means. In Chapter four, Frederick Douglass portrayed the level of dignity imposed upon a slave by stating, “It was worth a half-cent to kill a “nigger,” and a half-cent to bury one.” (P. 22, Ch. 4) Slaves were solely financial entities for the benefit of the owner; nothing more, nothing less. There were many occasions in the memoir where a slave was beaten until blood streamed down her back or he was killed unjustly. They were dehumanized daily by their humiliating living conditions and cruel punishments; they were treated worse than animals. This cruel treatment deprived the slaves of their humanity so that they were never allowed to live their full potential. In the nineteenth century most free people recognized that slavery was wrong. The theme of human

Slaves lived through very terrible conditions where slaveholders articulated every possible way to dehumanize slaves. Slaveholders have dishonestly established as law the designation of the children of slave women to follow the condition of their mothers so as to legally protect themselves from becoming their fathers. This law gave them free reign to act upon their lusts. Slave women were helpless victims of their white master's lusts. The other victims were the mulatto children who are severely mistreated, especially by their white mistresses because they represent their husband's infidelity. Mulatto children were most often sold off by their own fathers. In addition, killing a slave was often not considered a criminal offense. Slaveholders have little regard for their slaves' lives. Douglass recounts several murders where the perpetrator receives little or no punishment. There are many murders that go unpunished. Douglass recalls that there was a common saying among the white little boys

The definition of a slave is a person or thing that is considered an object or property to another person. The definition of slavery is “a condition compared to that of a slave in respect of exhausting labor or restricted freedom”. Which in latent terms means the act of keeping a person or servant as either a practice or as a source of institution. In Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, one of the most common and influential themes that was prominent throughout the narrative was, How does the practice of slavery corrupts both the slave and the slave owner/masters?

The power that they have over their slaves has a damaging effect on their moral health because they are careless. Douglass describes adultery and rape as typical behavior patterns of slaveholders which damage their families. Sophia Auld is Douglass's main illustration of the corruption of slave owners. The power of slaveholding changes Sophia from a nice woman to a demon. She went from a kind, caring and loving person into a typical mean slave master. She was no longer able to teach Douglass how to read because her husband disapproved it. Slaveholders gain and keep power over blacks from their birth onward by keeping them ignorant of basic facts about themselves. For example slaves didn't know their birth date or who their parents were. They didn't want slaves to have a natural sense of identity. Slave children were not allowed to learn to read or write because this would lead slaves to question their rights.

Due to the inhuman mistreatment of slaves in the United States many slaves like Fredrick Douglass had to escape to fight for freedom to become abolitionists. To expose the terror and cruelties that he faced from his owners and overseers as a slave as narrated in “Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass.”

Furthermore, they were continuously threaten by physical torture, which might be imposed upon them for no reason but their masters’ bad mood that day. They were always whipped for hours, often beaten with hoes and sticks, and sometimes killed as animals by their cruel masters with no pity and compassion at all, which was also not illegal. There is one very scary but reflective example presented by Douglass in his narrative that a woman slave was killed brutally by her mistress because she just had a rest while the baby whom she took care of was crying. Behind this, she was actually kept working every night and rarely had a nap. A trivial “mistake” shockingly cost her life to pay for the baby’s cry. According to many more details by Douglass, those slaves lived in a life in which they not only needed to keep worrying about what to eat and when to take a break, but also needed to never stop thinking about how they should behave like an infallible machine in order to escape from their masters’s bloody cowskins. In a word, slaves were deprived of the right to work hard to earn a living, and became the livestocks which were forced by human to do whatever they needed them to do, which also meant they could be tortured or killed just for the same reason why an animal could be killed.

But plantation slavery did not function simply because of threats or violence. Slaves were also wheedled and persuaded to work. They were given small motivations -extra foods, clothing, and time free from work, expecting that they would work more and effectively. They were also given land to cultivate foodstuffs or rear animals for their own use. Among all these, yet violence was the eventual threat of the entire system, much as it had been on the slave ship.

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 slave masters did not care whether their children or relatives were undergoing the harsh conditions of slavery. It is believed that Douglass’ father owned the slaves, “the opinion was whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion I know nothing.... My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant” (p 10). Slave masters use totalitarianism as a means of monitoring their subjects. The slaves are required to behave in a particular manner when they are interacting with their masters. Slaves themselves encounter cruel interaction among their peers and slave holders. Slave masters administer fears among the slaves, since this is what keeps them going. When they speak the truth, they are penalized by their owners.

He notes that, the slavery institution made them forget about their origin, and anything else that entails their past, and even when they were born. The slaves forgot everything about their families, and none knew about their family because, they were torn from them without any warning. Douglass explains how they went without food, clothing and even sleep because their masters were cruel to them. American slavery took advantage of black laborers as they were beaten mercilessly without committing any offense. They were not treated as human beings, but as property that could be manipulated in any way. The slavery institution was harsh for the Africans especially women who were regularly raped, and forced to bear their masters children and if they declined, they were maimed or killed.

The morals of Frederick Douglass have been greatly affected by the culture of slavery. Not having a choice on what they do in their life makes slaves depressed. Almost no slaves have any education as slaveholders do not want slaves to use their education either to escape or they may read things that could possibly make them depressed. After Frederick Douglass taught himself how to read, he consequently, became depressed after learning what else he could have done with his life. “I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead,” after he started reading, he was given some insight into how bad his life truly was (55). The effects of slavery may also have a negative impact on the slaveholder, “When I went there, she was pious, warm, and a tender-hearted woman. . . Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became stone,” (52). Slavery furthermore proved its ability to change people through Mrs. Auld, who turned from an extremely nice and comforting slave owner into a cold hearted slave owner. This change affects Douglass, because Mrs. Auld became more aggressive. Slavery can also turn people who were initially nice, calm people into an aggressive person. A great example of this is when the fight between Frederick Douglass and Mr. Covey, Frederick Douglass has had enough of the way he is treated by Mr. Covey.

Slaves didn't have a voice to protect themselves from brutality because they were basically property. The treatment provided by the plantation owner and overseer were inhuman and degrading. These worker experience an average of 15 hours workday for six days a week and on sunday which is there day off, they must attend church. Slaves also suffered from whipping, shackling, beating, mutilation, branding, shooting, flogging, imprisonment and sexually abused. Slave owner basically dehumanized their servants. This made the plantation owner along the slaves themselves think that they aren't human. The stories of how slaves were mistreated has been around since colonial days but it didn't cause a major a divide of the nation until 1850.