Hardships and Inequalities: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave He was the son of a black slave and an unidentified white man born into slavery and escaped in 1838. Born in Tuckahoe, this slave went through trial and tribulations and is one of the most distinguished black writers in nineteenth-century American literature. His name is Frederick Douglass. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Frederick Douglass uses his mental strength to overcome his struggles against slavery, to prove that slaves were not inferior, and to gain his freedom. Douglass wrote this narrative to show the truths of slavery through his eyes. His current reputation of being a powerful and effective writer …show more content…
I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make such inquires of my master concerning it” (2171). In the beginning Douglass makes it clear that the slaves were not to be considered on the same level as whites. When he discusses his childhood, he emphasizes how little he understands it. Douglass had not obtained enough knowledge in order to understand the use of power that the whites enforced over them. When slaves were born they were already at a disadvantage because they were separated from their mother in order to prevent attachment. So before slaves were old enough to even start retaining knowlegde they were split up to prevent and not cause problematic situations in the future. In Heather Williams introduction to Frederick Douglass's narrative in the essay How Slavery Affected African American Families, she explains that slavery not only inhibited family formation but made stable, secure family life difficult if not impossible. Belonging to another human being brought unique constrictions, disruptions, fustrations and pains. Frederick believed that this was done by stating, “For what the separation is done I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child” …show more content…
Auld began to teach him the alphabet. After that he said she began to teach him how to spell words. Mr. Auld found out and insisted that she forbid teaching him. He believed that a nigger should only know how to do one thing, to obey his master, which Douglass already had learned previously. He could now see how the whites kept slaves because if they were taught how to read there would be no keeping them. Douglass was enlighten by the thought of being able to read and triggered a new train of thought. He was no longer conformed as accepting himself as a slave. He stated, “I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty – to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man” (2187). From that moment he had an idea the steps that it would take in order to escape from slavery to freedom. He then had formed a desire to want too learn in order to continue to strengthen his knowledge to overcome his struggles against slavery. What he meant was that if people are educated they will start to question why they are enslaved instead of just accepting
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.
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...
The first step to Frederick Douglass's reading was his kind mistress, Mrs. Auld, Teaching him the ABC's. She then assisted him in learning to spell small words. It was at this point, that Frederick Douglass's master, Mr. Auld realized his wife has been educating Douglass to read. Mr. Auld refused to allow Mrs. Auld to continue teaching Frederick Douglass, stating that: "If you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would forever become unmanageable and of no value to his master" (47). Little did Mr. Auld know, he had just accidentally given Frederick Douglass an invaluable lesson as Frederick Douglass had overheard this conversation between Mr. and Mrs. ...
Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist who altered America's views of slavery through his writings and actions. Frederick's life as a slave had the greatest impact on his writings. Through his experience as a slave, he developed emotion and experience for him to become a successful abolitionist writer. He experienced harsh treatment and his hate for slavery and desire to be free caused him to write Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In his Narrative, he wrote the story of his miserable life as a slave and his fight to be free. His motivation behind the character (himself) was to make it through another day so that maybe one day he might be free. By speaking out, fighting as an abolitionist and finally becoming an author, Douglass's transformation from a slave into a man.
Frederick Douglass, a slave in America until the age of 20, wrote three of the most highly regarded autobiographies of the 19th century, yet he only began learning to read and write when he turned 12 years old. After an early life of hardship and pain, Douglass escaped to the North to write three autobiographies, spaced decades apart, about his life as a slave and a freeman. The institution of slavery scarred him so deeply that he decided to dedicate his powers of speech and prose to fighting it.
When first introduced to Douglass and his story, we find him to be a young slave boy filled with information about those around him. Not only does he speak from the view point of an observer, but he speaks of many typical stereotypes in the slave life. At this point in his life, Frederick is inexperienced and knows nothing of the pleasures of things such as reading, writing, or even the rights everyone should be entitled to. Douglass knowing hardly anything of his family, their whereabouts, or his background, seems to be equivalent to the many other slaves at the time. As a child Frederick Douglass sees the injustices around him and observes them, yet as the story continues we begin to see a change.
Frederick Douglass did a great job explaining the harsh conditions of being a slave. In his narrative he spoke of the cruel things he saw and underwent while being a slave. Also, in doing this he shows the readers how his location(south) and dismemberment was a big deal growing up as a slave. He starts us off with a little background knowledge about himself .From the very beginning of his novel he made it clear that he didn't know his age, and that he was separated from his mother.1 This was something slaveholders did you separate families, regardless of their social status. He then goes on to say that the only time he saw his mother was at night, after she walked miles to get to him.2 To brake the bond between them two, the separation was necessary between slaves. He also believed that his father might be his master because slaveholders often impregnate their female slaves. Even though he was the son of a white man, there was a lot of distaste the children take after the status of their mother and his case is a slave. Which effect was great for the master because it increased his number of slaves, and the more slaves one man owned the more money he brought in.
To imagine a life without your mother is hard to do for most people. Even if your mother was not there, you still had someone with you that took care of you as you grew up. Unfortunately, for many slaves this was not the case. Almost all slaves were separated from their parents around the age of one year. They did not know their age, their birthday, or their parents while they continued working for the masters of the plantations. Frederick Douglass was one of these many slaves. He always once spoke about this saying, “I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.” Frederick, like most others, had no idea why someone would separate them from their parents, but continued working anyway. The separation of slave children to their parents was cruel, but it made it easier to hold the slaves and keep them working. When separated from their mothers, slave children would not leave the plantation and no emotional bonds would be created.
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery sometime between 1817 or 1818. Like many slaves he was unsure of his birthday; it was one of the many things that he was deprived of. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a memoir written by former slave himself, Frederick Douglass. The book explains his hardships ranging from losing family members, being moved from owner to owner, and being whipped at least once a week. One of Frederick's many owners, Auld, considered him unmanageable. Auld rented Frederick to Mr. Covey for a year, also known as the slave breaker (pg 34). Mr. Covey was one of the most cruel slave owners Frederick had. Mr. Covey treated him with barbarity. Throughout Douglass’ stay with Mr. Covey he grew as a person.
Discrimination and racism are subjects that American history is riddled with. Frederick’s speech, “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery” is based on the irony of the Fourth of July holiday because until 1865, slavery was present in most black Americans’ lives.The Toulmin model provides the audience with a stationary scale that helps analyze Frederick Douglas’s speech and his main declaration that American society is made up of hypocrites on the grounds that they celebrate their freedom day on July 4th, yet they kept slaves under captivity.
Frederick Douglas, a slave born in Tuckahoe Maryland, was half white and half black. His mother was a black woman and his father a white man. Though he never knew his father, there was word that it was his master. Douglas wrote this narrative and I felt that it was very compelling. It really showed me the trials and tribulations that a black man went through during times of slavery.
Another aspect of becoming a regular American is that of reconnecting families that have been separated. As stated above, one of the steps in the slave making process is that of separating families and sending them to different plantations or even just taking a member from their home in their own country. Douglass also included gaining economic power, the right to vote, and greater social latitude and mobility in communities as aspects to help establish being a non-enslaved American. Douglass’ goal was to stand up against slavery and prove to people in American that people who were once or still were slaves are deserving of just as much dignity as the free people give each other and give the slave owners. Douglass teaches the need for respect
Frederick Douglass was one of the most important black leaders of the Antislavery movement. He was born in 1817 in Talbot County, MD. He was the son of Harriet Bailey and an unknown white man. His mother was a slave so therefore he was born a slave. He lived with his grandparents until the age of eight, so he never knew his mother well. When he turned eight, he was sent to "Aunt Kathy," a woman who took care of slave children on the plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd. When he was nine, he was sent to Baltimore where he lived with Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Auld. He started to study reading with Mrs. Auld but Mr. Auld forbid it. However, he still managed to learn anyway. To cause him to comply with slavery more easily, Mr. Auld sent to him to Edward Covey, a man who specialized in breaking down the spirits of rebellious slaves, or a "slave breaker." While there, he was beaten daily for the slightest offense against the strict rules. One day he finally fought back in a fight that lasted two hours, and forced Covey to stop trying to "break" him. He was returned to Auld, where he was sent to a shipyard to learn the caulker's trade. But that didn't stop his education, he not only learned caulking but he also learned to write by tracing the letters on the ship front. Using seaman's papers given to him by a free black he escaped by sea. He tried to get work as a caulker but racial discrimination forced him to become a common laborer. To avoid being taken back, he changed his last name to Douglass. He soon became a large part of the antislavery movement when he came in association with The Liberator, which belonged to William Lloyd Garrison, and he also joined the black Garrisonians of New Bedford. He attended the Massach...
At the very start of this narrative Douglass makes it a point to be known that slaves are not granted the privilege of having the knowledge of when their birthday is. Birthdays are a universal identifier since every single person has one, and by taking away the birthdays of slaves, the masters are controlling the identities of their slaves. Douglass recounts, “I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell me of his birthday. … The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, sometime during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.” (1) Douglass presents this information right away in order to illustrate the fact that slaves were not able to provide basic information, such as a birth date, and they had to rely on the information provided to them by their masters to get a sense of their selves. A common identifier used by many people is also their relationships to their family members. Douglass explains that he and his mother “were separated when [he] was but an infant—before [he] knew her as [his] mother. It is a common custom…to part children from their mothers at a very early age.” (1) This practice of separating children from their mothers, employed by the slave owners, is vital to taking away the individual identities of the slaves because it ceases any ancestry or family history stories to be passed down to this younger generation. Douglass also exemplifies his shifted identity from naïve-child to hardened slave after seeing the brutal beating of his aunt. Douglass recalls the event and reflects, saying, “It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it.” (4) The diction used
Auld, he was introduced to education which gives him a sense of humanity back. Mrs. Auld taught Douglass the alphabet and how to spell small words. However, Mr. Auld found out and disapprovingly said “ if you teach that n- - - - - how to read… it would forever unfit him to be a slave” which Douglass took note of to (250). Douglass realized the importance of his master being scared of him reading and spelling and noticed the value in having and education. Having an education and realizing the importance of that was a major building block in forming Frederick Douglass’s identity.