The feeling of isolation is one that can break one’s spirit and put on in a state of depression. Instead, one longs and yearns for the feeling of community. Within this feeling of community, one feels safe, loved and appreciated. In Frederick Douglass’ narrative, Douglass, Douglass speaks of both his sense of community as well as isolation throughout his life. These feelings of both isolation and community are ones that affect Douglass and his entire life. Because of certain events, people and his own thoughts and ideas, Douglass begins his life as an isolated boy, but through the work of events, people and his own thoughts, Douglass transforms into a confident man.
Though most of Douglass’ feelings of isolation come from his times of being
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Plummer, Douglass states reminisces, “I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not venture out till long after the bloody transaction was over” (Douglass 6). The things that Douglass saw literally forced him into isolation and confiding in himself. Douglass goes on to say that this event left him very weary of the future because he was afraid that he would be the next slave to be whipped. Along with events, Douglass encounters many people that contributed to his feeling of loneliness. Later in his life, Douglass is transferred to a plantation owned by Mr. Convey, a new slave owner who did not know what he was doing, in turn, he was very brutal in both words and actions. Douglass examines Convey’s character and comes to the conclusion that, “Mr. Convey’s forte consisted in his power to deceive...He seemed to think himself equal to deceiving the Almighty...to show himself independent of me, he would start and stagger through with his hymn in the most discordant manner” (62). Convey is an example of a power-hungry man who believes that he is superior to others, especially slaves. Convey did not dare do anything that would make him potentially lose his authority over his …show more content…
The first attempt of Douglass’ escape is a symbolic and turning point in his life. Douglass has yearned for freedom his whole life and when the time comes when he decides to escape, he enlists some of his other slave friends to come along with him. Douglass says, “My fellow-slaves were dear to me..and to imbue their minds with thoughts of freedom” (Douglass 81). Douglass’ worry and thoughts of his fellow-slaves show the true man inside of him. He is determined to not only help himself, but also help others. Douglass wants him friends to feel how incredible it is to be free. When Douglass finally makes his escape, he feels isolated and back in the same state of depression he had when he was a slave. However, Douglass speaks of a miracle that came and rescued him. Douglass expresses, “Thank heaven...I was relieved from it by the humane hand of Mr. David Ruggles, whose vigilance, kindness, and perseverance, I shall never forget” (104). Ruggles made Douglass feel for the first time that he is equal and deservent of his freedom. This kind man’s help showed Douglass that there is hope and love in a world full of prejudice. Even when Douglass was a slave, he knew there was a world that was good and optimistic. Because of this, Douglass made sure that his friends looked towards the future with the same optimism that
In addition, every single night when he would be in bed he would always sleep terrified due to the horrifying things he would witness. Most of his days as being a slave he would suffer of hunger or thirst. Or most of the nights he would sleep cold shivering floor with no food in his body system. Douglass was bailed at the plantation without even knowing. So now he had no one in his family near him. Frederick never recovered from betrayal, slavery, and racism. Also every ...
Frederick Douglass, an African American social reformer who escaped from slavery, in his autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself,” denotes the perilous life of a slave in the South. Through syntax, Douglass is able to persuade his readers to support the abolitionist movement as his writing transitions from shifting sentence lengths to parallel structure and finally to varying uses of punctuation. Douglass begins his memoir with a combination of long and short sentences that serve to effectively depict life his life as a slave. This depiction is significant because it illustrates the treatment of slaves in the south allows his audience to despise the horrors of slavery. In addition, this
Literature is written in many ways and styles. During his time, Frederick Douglass’s works and speeches attracted many people’s attention. With the amount of works and speeches Douglass has given, it has influenced many others writers to express themselves more freely. Though Douglass lived a rigorous childhood, he still made it the best that he could, with the guidance and teaching of one of his slave owner’s wife he was able to read and write, thus allowing him to share his life stories and experiences. Douglass’s work today still remain of great impact and influence, allowing us to understand the reality of slavery, and thus inspiring many others to come out and share for others to understand.
a skill that would provide him with his passport to freedom. The narrative itself acts as a form of protest literature against slavery and also persuades the reader that Douglass has been transformed and is no longer a slave, but a free man.
Frederick Douglass emphasizes the dehumanization aspect of slavery throughout his narrative. As is the general custom in slavery, Douglass is separated from his mother early in infancy and put under the care of his grandmother. He recalls having met his mother several times, but only during the night. She would make the trip from her farm twelve miles away just to spend a little time with her child. She dies when Douglass is about seven years old. He is withheld from seeing her in her illness, death, and burial. Having limited contact with her, the news of her death, at the time, is like a death of a stranger. Douglass also never really knew the identity of his father and conveys a feeling of emptiness and disgust when he writes, "the whisper that my master was my father, may or may not be true; and, true or false, it is of but little consequence to my purpose" (Douglass, 40). Douglass points out that many slave children have their masters as their father. In these times, frequently the master would take advantage of female slaves and the children born to the slave w...
From before the country’s conception to the war that divided it and the fallout that abolished it, slavery has been heavily engrained in the American society. From poor white yeoman farmers, to Northern abolitionist, to Southern gentry, and apathetic northerners slavery transformed the way people viewed both their life and liberty. To truly understand the impact that slavery has had on American society one has to look no further than those who have experienced them firsthand. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and advocate for the abolitionist, is on such person. Douglass was a living contradiction to American society during his time. He was an African-American man, self-taught, knowledgeable, well-spoken, and a robust writer. Douglass displayed a level of skill that few of his people at the time could acquire. With his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave Written by Himself, Douglass captivated the people of his time with his firsthand accounts into the horror and brutality that is the institution of slavery.
Slavery consisted of numerous inhumane horrors completed to make its victims feel desolated and helpless. Many inescapable of these horrors of slavery are conveyed in the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. The entire prospect of the duration of the story is to plan an escape from the excruciating conditions awaiting Douglass as a slave. When his escape is finally executed, unpredictable emotions and thoughts overwhelm him. Within the conclusion of his narrative (shown in the given passage), Frederick Douglass uses figurative language, diction, and syntax to portray such states of mind he felt after escaping slavery: relief, loneliness, and paranoia.
Though this poem is only a small snapshot of what I personally thought Douglass was going through, I could never adequately understand the frustration he must have had. My hope in writing this poem was not to provide a psychoanalysis or theoretical idea structure to any audience, but rather to show that even today, a modern audience member like me, can appreciate the struggle of a fellow human and speak against injustices, specifically in Douglass’s time.
The tone established in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is unusual in that from the beginning to the end the focus has been shifted. In the beginning of the narrative Douglass seems to fulfill every stereotypical slavery theme. He is a young black slave who at first cannot read and is very naïve in understanding his situation. As a child put into slavery Douglass does not have the knowledge to know about his surroundings and the world outside of slavery. In Douglass’ narrative the tone is first set as that of an observer, however finishing with his own personal accounts.
The reader is first introduced to the idea of Douglass’s formation of identity outside the constraints of slavery before he or she even begins reading the narrative. By viewing the title page and reading the words “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, written by himself” the reader sees the advancement Douglass made from a dependent slave to an independent author (Stone 134). As a slave, he was forbidden a voice with which he might speak out against slavery. Furthermore, the traditional roles of slavery would have had him uneducated—unable to read and incapable of writing. However, by examining the full meaning of the title page, the reader is introduced to Douglass’s refusal to adhere to the slave role of uneducated and voiceless. Thus, even before reading the work, the reader knows that Douglass will show “how a slave was made a man” through “speaking out—the symbolic act of self-definition” (Stone 135).
As both the narrator and author of “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself” Frederick Douglass writes about his transition from a slave to a well educated and empowered colored young man. As a skilled and spirited man, he served as both an orator and writer for the abolitionist movement, which was a movement to the abolishment of slavery. At the time of his narrative’s publication, Douglass’s sole goal of his writings was to essentially prove to those in disbelief that an articulate and intelligent man, such as himself, could have,in fact, been enslaved at one point in time. While, Douglass’ narrative was and arguably still is very influential, there are some controversial aspects of of this piece, of which Deborah McDowell mentions in her criticism.
Douglass appeals to pathos in his narrative through many quotes and traumatic events that he experienced. He states, “I was afraid to speak to anyone for fear of speaking to the wrong one, and thereby falling into the hands of money-loving kidnappers, whose business it was to lie in wait for their prey” (Douglass 113). By creating such an analogy, Douglass provokes guilty and sympathetic emotion from his readers. He’s saying that he doesn’t even know who he can and cannot trust, because slavery changes everyone’s personas and
...y afraid at first but finds out that there are many ex-slaves willing to take a stand and risk their lives to help their own. Douglass realizes that with the help from the ex-slaves he could also help his fellow slaves.
Douglass’s life in the city was very different from his life in the country, and living in the city changed his life. In the city, he worked as a ship caulker which he excelled at, compared to a a field hand in the country which he was not skilled at. In the city he was treated better and always fed, but in the country he was experienced lack of food most of the time. The city opened his mind to escaping, and with the help of abolitionists he was able to successfully escape. In the country he did not knowledgable people to help him and was turned in by an ignorant, loyal slave. The city’s better opportunities and atmosphere led Frederick Douglass to escape freedom and dedicate the rest of his life fighting to end slavery
...e proper descriptions of Douglass’s experiences. These words also justify that he is brilliant and not no fool. His influential words in the narrative support the message of him being smarter than what some people may believe.