In the passage of the Narrative of Fredrick Douglass, the author masterfully conveys two complimentary tones of liberation and fear. The tones transition by the use of diction and detail. The passage is written entirely in first person, since we are witnessing the struggles of Fredrick Douglass through his eyes. Through his diction, we are able to feel the triumph that comes with freedom along with the hardships. Similarly, detail brings a picturesque view of his adversities. Since the point of view is first person, the reader is able to be a part of the Douglass’ struggles with his new freedom. With diction, detail, and point of view, the reader is able to get a rare glimpse into the past of Fredrick Douglass.Fredrick Douglass’ diction is powerful as he describes his life as a slave and with his new freedom. Fredrick Douglass calls being enslaved an act of “wretchedness,” yet he was able to remain “firm” and eventually left the “chains” of slavery. Fredrick Douglass expresses that being enslaved is a wretched act and that no man should ever deserve such treatment. Despite being a slave, he kept strong and eventually broke the chain of society. However, Fredrick Douglass experienced great “insecurity” and “loneliness” with his new freedom, and was upon a new “hunting-ground.” His new freedom brought other devastating factors, being a new state without any friends, which caused his loneliness. In this new state, he grew insecure for he was in a new danger zone where at any time his freedom could be rejected. With new freedom come new obstacles, which are described in the diction of Fredrick Douglass. The detail present in the narrative helps convey the tones of liberation and fear. Douglass recalls the “blessedness of freedom,” of not having to wonder if it will be a day of “life or death,” yet he was able to live and “succeed in reach{ing} New York without the slightest interruption.” Attaining freedom was the highest goal for Fredrick Douglass. As a slave each day he would wake up wondering if he would live to see tomorrow, due to his strength he was able to live on and succeed in reaching the safe state. However, once freedom was attained he felt as though he “had escaped a den of hungry lions” with “money loving kidnappers” causing him to “trust no man.” Douglass feels as though he is prey in this free state where kidnappers are awaiting to make some easy money and take him back to slavery.
At first glance, the book “my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass appeared to be extremely dull and frustrating to read. After rereading the book for a second time and paying closer attention to the little details I have realized this is one of the most impressive autobiographies I have read recently. This book possesses one of the most touching stories that I have ever read, and what astonishes me the most about the whole subject is that it's a true story of Douglass' life. “ Douglass does a masterful job of using his own experience to expose the injustice of slavery to the world. As the protagonist he is able to keep the reader interested in himself, and tell the true story of his life. As a narrator he is able to link those experiences to the wider experiences of the nation and all society, exposing the corrupting nature of slavery to the entire nation.”[1] Although this book contributes a great amount of information on the subject of slavery and it is an extremely valuable book, its strengths are overpowered by its flaws. The book is loaded with unnecessary details, flowery metaphors and intense introductory information but this is what makes “My Bondage and My Freedom” unique.
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
The narrative enables Douglass to flaunt his hard-earned education. As stated before, his diction brings pathos to his work. He describes his experiences in a way that lets his audience feel the indignity of being owned by another person. For example, D...
A staunch abolitionist, Douglass would take the country by storm through the power of his words and writings. His narrative was unique in regards to how it was written and the content it holds. Unlike most biographies of freed slaves, Douglass would write his own story and with his own words. His narrative would attempt to understand the effects slavery was having on not just the slaves, but the slaveholders as well. The success of his biography, however, did not rest on the amount of horror in it but from the unmistakable authenticity it provided. His narrative would compel his readers to take action with graphic accounts of the lashes slaves would receive as punishment, “the loude...
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.
In, “The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass”, readers get a first person perspective on slavery in the South before the Civil War. The author, Frederick Douglass, taught himself how to read and write, and was able to share his story to show the evils of slavery, not only in regard to the slaves, but with regard to masters, as well. Throughout Douglass’ autobiography, he shares his disgust with how slavery would corrupt people and change their whole entire persona. He uses ethos, logos, and pathos to help establish his credibility, and enlighten his readers about what changes needed to be made.
The writer paints a visual of relief and “satisfaction” and was “the moment of the highest excitement...” he’d ever experienced. However, that all soon “subsided” because of the fact that he felt “..great insecurity and loneliness.” Douglass' fear causes him to become skeptical of him finally a free African American male. Douglass talks about how uncomfortable he was to adjusting to freedom. He construed the intensity of his new freedom by comparing it to, “one who has escaped the lion’s den.” Notably, the writer compares the experience to an “unarmed mariner…rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate..”, which was intended to try to express his joy and relief that he initially felt. He gives the reader
...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.
In the Autobiography, “Narrative Life of Fredrick Douglas: An American Slave,” Fredrick Douglas writes to show what the life of a slave is like, because from personal experience, he knows. Fredrick Douglas not only shows how his life has been as a slave but shows what it is like to be on the bottom and be mistreated. Douglas shows that freedom isn’t free, and he took the initiative to become a free man. Not many African-Americans had the opportunity to make themselves free and were forced to live a life of disparity and torture. Through his experience Douglas shows us the psychological effects of slavery. Through Douglas’s memory we are able to relive the moments that continued to haunt his life. Douglas’s book showed the true
Even though there are numerous medical fields that comes into contact with bodily fluid, my future career does not. My career in medical field is Counseling Psychology, it deals with helping people on an emotional level that deals with everyday feelings and thoughts. I chose to pursue this career because I like helping people find solutions to their mental conflicts . See, there are many people to help others in a physical way such as: police officers, firefighters, and etc. I also want to see how the human mind reacts to different problems the world throws at it. Most people will tell you that in this career you could have a hard time keeping your personal feelings out the advice you give the client. I disagree , I think if you have level head and are willing to
In this book, Douglass narrated the life of a slave in the United States into finer details. This paper will give a description of life a slave in the United States was living, as narrated through the experiences of Fredrick Douglass.
The AHSC is a non-profit organization which is willing to help people who are lack of English language skills to improve their health care quality and get more involved with the local community. Particularly, most of their clients are elderly. According to their statistical report, during 1999-2012, 59% of the clients were over the age of 50, and 40% of them are over the age of 60. In addition, only 3% of their clients were able to speak English. (AHSC, 2012)
I am addressing the issue of ‘How often your language is changing?’ Through this survey one can know how often one observes their own language change. Here my main aim is to question you about your language change. Also,
There are about 7,000 extant languages, some with complex patterns of word formation, others with simple words only, some with the verb at the beginning of the sentence, some in the middle, and some at the end. Understanding this diversity and the systemic constraints on it is the central goal of linguistics. The generative approach to linguistic variation has held that linguistic diversity linguistic diversity can be explained by changes in parameter settings. Each of these parameters controls a number of specific linguistic traits. For example, the setting 'heads first ' will cause a language both to place verbs before objects ("kick the ball") and prepositions before nouns ("into the goal"). According to this account, language change occurs when child learners simplify or regularise by choosing parameter settings other than those of the parental generation. Across a few generations such changes might work through a population, effecting language change across all the associated traits. Language change should therefore be relatively fast, and the traits set by one parameter mush