It is often in people's lives that they feel the sharp sting, the dull ache, the lasting agony of suffering. Such suffering is prominent in the life of Frederick Douglass, as documented in his novel, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass. Douglass suffers through the cruelties of his childhood inflicted on him by his cruel white masters. However, quickly following such cruelties of his childhood, Douglass was moved to Baltimore to the Auld’s residence. Upon arrival Douglass received unbefore known kindness from his new masters. Such events are common in the lives of the suffering that suffer through all of their hardships to finally receive and properly appreciate kindness. The poem Kindness , by Naomi Shihab Nye, illuminates how before you can feel true kindness and happiness in the world you have to go through suffering first. Both texts wonderfully explain that before someone can appreciate kindness and happiness they must first feel true sorrow and suffering through the hardships they labor through in …show more content…
In his narrative, Douglass moves to Baltimore and believes himself to be through with his personal suffering under the hands of his cruel master, and compares the mistreatments of his past with the kind treatment he now receives from the Aulds. He states that “A city slave is almost a freeman compared with a slave on a plantation.” comparing his new residency and the kindness that he receives there with the cruel treatment he received on the plantations. Similarly Nye’s poem comments that before kindness there is almost always suffering . She notes “Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.” explaining her notion that suffering is a prerequisite of joy and kindness. She continues throughout her poem
Douglass was not aware of what slaves were and why they were treated in a bad condition before he learns how to read. He was deeply saddened upon discovering the fact that slaves were not given the rights every human being should have. In an effort to clarify Douglass’s feelings of anguish, he states: “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow slaves for their stupidity” (Douglass 146). The fact that other slaves are content with their lives is what brings awareness to him because he knows that he is stripped of basic human rights. He envies his fellow slaves due to the reason that they are pleased with the life he cannot live to like anymore. Also, he is often wishing he never learned how to read because he doesn’t want to burden about his life. Douglass knows more about the disturbing conditions than most of the slaves around him, but he greatly regrets it. Before he started reading, he lived very much in contentment and now he cannot stand the fact of being
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
Different types of literature have been part of America since the 1630’s and the varieties of literature still exist to this day. Frederick Douglass’s work and speeches during his lifetime caught the attention of many people in the United States, including slave owners themselves. Douglass has not only changed American literature, he has also inspired many other writers and speakers to seek freedom of expression for themselves. Even though he had a rough childhood because he was a slave, Douglass found ways to make the most of it. Fortunately it was because he had a nice and caring owner who taught him to read and write. Furthermore, because he had a warmhearted owner, he was able to express himself through his work to many different people of his time. Douglass’s works and speeches remain of great impact, and continue to influence and inspire many people in literature to this day. He influenced many people during his travels to Northern free states and overseas to England and Ireland where he explained and changed their mindset of the cruelty of slavery, which ultimately lead to the adjustment by the people to understand the reality of slavery.
During the era of slavery in America, it was common to see slaves being content with their given social ascription of identity. Many had accepted their fate of forever being bound. Madison Washington, the main character in Frederick Douglass’ novel, The Heroic Slave; however, couldn’t come to terms with being denied the inalienable right of being free. This book focuses on Washington and his journey in pursuit of liberty. He does whatever he can to be free from the bonds of slavery, and is fueled by the knowledge that slavery cannot be right or justified.
In dire situations, it is common for people to seek moral guidance. William Wordsworth and Paul Laurence Dunbar did this through poetry. The two poems, “London, 1802” and “Douglass,” share a similar underlying cause, sentence formation, and the conditions of their particular country, but differ drastically in tone, use of comparisons, structure, and the author’s goals.
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.
Frederick Douglass's Narrative, first published in 1845, is an enlightening and incendiary text. Born into slavery, Douglass became the preeminent spokesman for his people during his life; his narrative is an unparalleled account of the inhumane effects of slavery and Douglass's own triumph over it. His use of vivid language depicts violence against slaves, his personal insights into the dynamics between slaves and slaveholders, and his naming of specific persons and places made his book an indictment against a society that continued to accept slavery as a social and economic institution. Like Douglass, Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery, and in 1853 she published Letter from a Fugitive Slave, now recognized as one of the most comprehensive antebellum slave narratives written by an African-American woman. Jacobs's account broke the silence on the exploitation of African American female slaves.
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 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.
Frederick Douglass’ source, “The Desire for Freedom” was written in 1845. He was born into slavery in 1818 and became an important figure in the fight for abolition. Douglass was also involved in other reform movements such as the women’s rights movement. He “experienced slavery in all its variety, from work as a house servant and as a skilled craftsman in Baltimore shipyard to labor as a plantation field hand” (Pg.207¬). “The Desire for Freedom” was meant to document how his life was within slavery and how his education could someday help him escape it. Douglass meant to speak to American slaves and those who did not really understand slavery in order to help persuade everyone that life was meant to be lived freely. In order to obtain this future, Douglass wrote about his own personal experience and how he believed that enslavers were “in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery” (Pg. 208). This source brings on the idea that slaves were willing to fight back, wanted to be educated, and, most importantly, wanted the chance to live life freely.
He wrote about the struggles of learning to read and write while being a slave and he also wrote about his struggles of being a conscious and educated slave. He uses description to bring the reader back into the past with him will he describes the people around him and his struggles. Douglass begins describing his mistress, his original teacher, saying “ My mistress was, as I have said, a kind and tender-hearted woman; and in the simplicity of her soul she commenced, when i first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another.” (Douglas 118). In this quote, Douglass is describing his first teacher and as well as his mistress. He is describing how she once used to be before she changed into a much colder women. Douglass describes her as “the tender heart became stone, and the lamb-like disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness.” (Douglass 119). Douglass is using description to describe his mistress because it gives the reader a sense of his homelife that he lived when he was a child slave. Douglass also uses description to describe to the reader how he taught himself to read and write by saying “was that of making friends with all the little white boys whom I met in the street...With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read..This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge.” (Douglass 119). In this paragraph Douglass is describing the process he went through in order to learn how to read. “The idea as to how I might learn to write was suggested to me by being in Durgin and Bailey’s ship-yard, and frequently seeing the ship carpenters, after hewing, and getting a piece of the timer ready for use, write on the timber the name of that part of the ship for which it was intended.” (Douglass 122). In this passage
Many of his vivid descriptions of how the slaves were treated and talked are clearly aimed to hit a soft spot. Mr. Alud called Douglass awful names and spoke of him like he was property. “Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him” (Douglass page 30). If a slave got lucky there new mistress would be nice but more times than not she was mean. Another story about Douglass’ life that he put in the book to make the reader’s sympathies, was the cruel mistress Mrs. Hamilton. “The girls seldom passed her without her saying, “Move faster, you black gip!” at the same time giving them a blow with the cowskin over the head or shoulders, often drawing the blood”(Douglass 31). Many things in Douglass’ narrative supported pathos and how it appealed to the
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
Within the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave” Douglass discusses the deplorable conditions in which he and his fellow slaves suffered from. While on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, slaves were given a “monthly allowance of eight pounds of pork and one bushel of corn” (Douglass 224). Their annual clothing rations weren’t any better; considering the type of field work they did, what little clothing they were given quickly deteriorated. The lack of food and clothing matched the terrible living conditions. After working on the field all day, with very little rest the night before, they must sleep on the hard uncomfortably cramped floor with only a single blanket as protection from the cold. Coupled with the overseer’s irresponsible and abusive use of power, it is astonishing how three to four hundred slaves did not rebel. Slave-owners recognized that in able to restrict and control slaves more than physical violence was needed. Therefore in able to mold slaves into the submissive and subservient property they desired, slave-owners manipulated them by twisting religion, instilling fear, breaking familial ties, making them dependent, providing them with an incorrect view of freedom, as well as refusing them education.
Though most of Douglass’ feelings of isolation come from his times of being a slave, they were feelings and moments that stuck Douglass and carried with him throughout his life. Much of Douglass’ life is filled with traumatizing events that left him fearing for his life and scarred. Specifically, when Douglass is forced to watch Aunt Hester be whipped by the cruel Mr. 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 ...