The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass details the oppression Fredrick Douglass went through before his escape to freedom. In his narratives, Douglass offers the readers with fast hand information of the pain, brutality, and humiliation of the slaves. He points out the cruelty of this institution on both the perpetrator, and the victims. As a slave, Fredrick Douglass witnessed the brutalization of the blacks whose only crime was to be born of the wrong color. He narrates of the pain, suffering the slaves went through, and how he fought for his freedom through attaining education.

Douglass’s escape from slavery and eventual freedom are inseparable from his movingly narrated attainment of literacy. Douglass saw slavery as a dehumanizing institution. In his narratives, he sets an example to the other slaves on insisting upon their humanity to be acknowledged. Douglass refuses to acknowledge anything less than his spiritual, physical, and intellectual freedom. According to Douglass, their masters made academic was not worth to them, they made it hard for them to get literate. The slaves were forbidden from attaining any sort of education for the fear that they will gain insight, and rebel against them. The masters feared that if the slaves got education, they will become unmanageable and thus, could not allow them to get any education.

In his narratives, Douglass reveals a multitude of ways in which African-Americans were mistreated while in slavery. Initially, he never understood the direct meaning about the slave songs, but after learning that they were complains about slavery; he was now exposed to the horrors the slaves went through. The strength and academic worth of Douglass has inspired him with anti-slavery tales...

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... abolitionist in the American history. He became a famous abolitionist who gave an account of his life to help the rest of the Africans to overcome fear, and join in the fight against slavery. His will to education and gaining confidence to speak openly, helped him in his later life, as he was joined by many organizations in speaking publicly about the evils of slavery. Fredrick Douglas became one of the leading figures in the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Dover Thrift Editions). New York: Dover Publications; Unabridged edition, 1995. Print.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, Written by himself. New York: Blight, 2003. Print.

Gates, Henry Louis and McKay, Nellie Y. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. Print.