Dichotomy In The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

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Through the Narrator’s and Protagonist’s Eyes, Douglass Teaches America Slavery In Frederick Douglass’s autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass is represented in two extremely dissimilar personas as both the narrator and the protagonist. The broad gap between Douglass’s two roles is an intriguing dichotomy throughout the Narrative: Douglass advances from an illiterate, subjugated slave to a sophisticated and eloquent public figure. Douglass recurrently embellishes this transformation from his younger immature self to his older wiser self throughout the book by noting his juvenile obliviousness, innocence, and ignorance. His progress is exemplified through self-criticism of how captivated he was as a teen taking …show more content…

Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine. There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination. Silvery-headed age and sprightly youth, maids and matrons, had to undergo the same indelicate inspection. At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder.” In the Narrative, Douglass continually disapproves of the slave owners ' structure of principles. He explains the appalling reality of being equal to animals and treated as such. In certain cases, like on Colonel Lloyd’s land, the beasts may even be regarded as having more value than human beings. Lloyd undoubtedly abused his slaves but never his horses; Douglass declares that any comparable belief system that honors creatures above people is wicked. Most rational northerners would agree. Clearly Frederick Douglass verifies to all his doubters the obvious nature of his former enslavement and as can be seen entirely throughout Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, he made a conscious effort to display the catastrophic effects slavery have on African-Americans in order to inform as well as persuade the white American citizens to join the abolitionist

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