Things change when Douglass arrives at Covey's farm. Douglass is made into a field hand and has to do physical labor that he's always managed to avoid in the past. He's not the best at his new job and Covey finds an excuse to beat him to death. One day, Douglass is driving a cart of oxen and loses control of the cart. The cart turns over which breaks a wheel and injures the animals. At first, Covey doesn't seem surprised, but then Covey whips him until the stick snaps. Covey is “breaking” Douglass. He's never been whipped like this before and it's only the beginning. The last six months he's there, he is whipped at least once a week, so regularly that he doesn't have time to heal from his previous beating before he gets beaten again. The only …show more content…
He liked to hide in the grass to catch the slave taking breaks when they are supposed to be working. Covey also forces the slave women he owns to have children with men who aren't their husbands. Since Covey is a poor man, he's trying to build up a stock of slaves by “breeding” them. On Sundays, Douglass sits under a tree instead of going to church. This is an example of the beast like attitude Covey wants him to have. By treating him like an animal, Covey is turning him into one. One Sunday, he looks out at the sails on the Chesapeake Bay and suddenly bursts out with a big speech. It's a strong passage because we suddenly hear Douglass's voice. One day, Douglass faints from working too hard in the heat. Covey tells him to get up, and after refusing, Covey pounds on him and then leaves him there. Douglass plans to go back to his old master and beg for his help. Douglass’s plan doesn’t turn out to work and he’s sent to walk the 7 miles back to Covey. Douglass knows he's going to be beaten when he gets back, so he hides in the woods until he meets another slave named Sandy who gives him a special root that will help protect Douglass when he
In The book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass writes about how a slavemaster Mr.Covey attacks one of his slaves with a long rope catching him by his legs for no reason. This shows unpredictable his slave master is when he decided to try and punish him for whatever reason he think is a good one. Because of this, slaves were held back and lived in fear all the time. We see, though, that Douglass decides to take control of his life. Douglass want the reader to understand the control that fear had and admire the willingness of slaves to take chances for their freedom.
Through his disgusting state of once being a slave, Douglass uses figurative language to express his thoughts and emotions of being a slave, and becoming free. Douglass expresses himself in the first paragraph as “ a man transformed into a brute” as a result of Mr Covey “succeeded in breaking me[him].” Douglass defines himself as an animal through his explicitly harsh word choice, and seems to be degrades him from being a human being, who deserves desires and thoughts of his own. In contrast of this,
One of the amazing things about the story is the level of description and imagery that Douglass uses to describe the suffering around him. The excerpt spans a mere three days, but most of the text focuses on his abuse and battle with Mr. Covey. Douglass skips over the common parts of his life to further his case against slavery. By doing this, the Northerners rea...
Frederick Douglass was an enslaved person and was born in Talbot County, Maryland. He had no knowledge of his accurate age like most of the enslaved people. He believed that his father was a white man, and he grew up with his grandmother. Douglass and his mother were separated when he was young, which was also common in the lives of the enslaved people. This concept of separation was used as a weapon to gain control of the enslaved people. In short, despite the obstacles he had to endure, he was able to gain an education and fight for his freedom in any means necessary.
In Douglass’s early teens he was no longer under the direct control of the Aulds. He was sent to a slave breaker named Covey. Under Covey’s cruel whip it was expected that Frederick Douglass would lose his “rebellious streak”. It was unnecessary to send him to Convey, but Thomas Auld was an incompetent master who had a bad eye for bad behaviour. Douglass told us that “Captain Auld [Thomas] was not born a slaveholder. He had been a poor man, master only of a Bay craft.” (65); this was a likely mistake for him to make.
One - The power relations between Covey and Douglass are inherently dissimilar to those between the typical black and typical white of the time period. As Douglass writes, “Mr. Covey was a poor man, a farm-renter. He rented the place upon which he lived, as also the hands with which he tilled it” (Norton Anthology of African American Literature, 420). Because “the enslavement of the Negro determined the position of the poor whites in the old South,” a white without any slaves or land to his name was more akin to an enslaved black than to a wealthy plantation owner in terms of social standing. This status, added to the fact that “the poor whites understood that slavery was responsible for their hopeless economic condition,” contributed to a
As time went on Frederick stood up to his master after being infuriated by the way he was treated. While the confrontation with Mr. Covey can be seen as physical heroism on Douglass’s part, his heroism developed from not only a physical state but also a mental state. His efforts to overthrow his slave status began with the drive to become a free man.
Slave narratives were one of the first forms of African- American literature. The narratives were written with the intent to inform those who weren’t aware of the hardships of slavery about how badly slaves were being treated. The people who wrote these narratives experienced slavery first hand, and wanted to elicit the help of abolitionists to bring an end to it. Most slave narratives were not widely publicized and often got overlooked as the years went by; however, some were highly regarded and paved the way for many writers of African descent today.
As he compares himself to the ships, Douglass uses a multitude of exclamation points following his quotation marks. Whereas previous lines illustrate the surroundings and lifestyle of a slave, quotation marks in the third paragraph signals that Douglass is thinking to himself. Through his thoughts, he transmits his feelings for the first time as he longs for freedom, and the exclamations emphasize his emotions. Moreover, Douglass’ syntax changes from long, flowery descriptions to short, simple thoughts as he prays to God. The short, train-of-thought sentences demonstrate that the slave’s mind is not caught up in its surroundings, but instead it is constantly focused on freedom. As he prays, he begs God to save him from slavery. While previously his lack of evident emotion suggests that he lacks hope, he now proves to be desperate, and wants nothing more than to escape. However, as he is desperate to escape, Douglass quotes, “I had as well be killed running as die standing.” Through his desperation to be free, Douglass decides he would rather die escaping than stand and stare out the bay. Thus, the torment of freedom has caused him to value death over
Deviating from his typically autobiographical and abolitionist literatures, Frederick Douglass pens his first work of fiction, “The Heroic Slave,” the imagined backstory of famed ex-slave Madison Washington, best known for his leadership in a slave rebellion aboard about the slave ship Creole. An interesting plot and Douglass’ word choice provide a powerful portrait of slavery and the people affected by it.
Edward Covey is one of the meanest slave holders. In many situations, bad slaves are sent with Mr. Covey in hope of complete change of attitude in the slaves. Mr. Covey often uses manipulation and devious methods to induce fear within the slaves. Frederick has just previously abandoned his Master’s home, Mr.Covey. He aspired to seek refuge with a retired slave but instead was told to return to Mr. Coveys’ plantation. Douglass was told to return back but this time with a piece of the woods in his pocket, a root. This root piece is to always be on the right side of himself (Douglass 30). It was said to offer him protection from any white man and his whip. Mr. Douglass thought this was a silly idea and that it was crazy to think a plant would
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an autobiography written by Frederick Douglass and published in 1845. Frederick Douglass, a former slave and passionate abolitionist, provides descriptive stories of his life as a slave, all the way from his childhood to his escape. Chapter four specifically focuses on the unjustness of slavery, and Douglass’ central claim that there is no justice system in the slave world. In chapter four, Douglass describes the brutal murder of Demby and recounts multiple killings of slaves by overseers to support his central claim that slaves receive no justice, safety or security.
There are a number of key arguments in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. A few of which include inequality, education, and Christianity as the keys to freedom in terms of its true values within the institution of slavery. While Frederick Douglass made some key arguments, he also made common ground to make his appeal for the abolition of slavery.
In this narrative, Douglass describes his life as a slave in ways that is brutalizing and dehumanizing. He wants his readers to understand that concept. By doing this, Douglass writes, “I was seized with a violent aching of the head, attended with extreme dizziness; I trembled in every limb” (416). Douglass uses diction such as seized, aching, extreme dizziness, and trembled to help create a picture of the pain he had felt during his experiences of being a slave for Mr. Covey. Another example is when he writes, “I told him as well as I could, for I scarce had strength to speak. He then gave me a savage kick in the side, and told me to get up I tried to do so, but fell back in the attempt. He gave me another kick, and again told me to rise. I again tried, and succeeded in gaining my feet; but stooping to get the tub with which I was feeding the fan, I again staggered and fell” (416-17). Words like scarce, savage, and staggered place imagery into the reader’s minds of what he went through as a slave. One other way that Douglass shows how his words emphasize the message is when he writes, “The blood was yet oozing from the wound on my head. For a time I thought I should bleed to death; and think now that I should have done so, but that the blood so matted my hair as to stop the w...
The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass can be referred to as a memoir and writing about the abolitionist movement of the life of a former slave, Fredrick Douglass. It is a highly regarded as the most famous piece of writing done by a former slave. Fredrick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer, statesman, orator and writer in the United States. Douglass believed in the equality of every individual of different races, gender or immigrants.