Frederick Douglass Figurative Language Analysis

In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, a slave narrative published in 1845, Frederick Douglass divulged his past as a slave and presented a multifaceted argument against slavery in the United States. Douglass built his argument with endless anecdotes and colorful figurative language. He attempted to familiarize the naïve Northerners with the hardships of slavery and negate any misconstrued ideas that would prolong slavery’s existence in American homes. Particularly in chapter seven, Douglass both narrated his personal experience of learning to write and identified the benefits and consequences of being an educated slave.
In the middle of chapter seven, Douglass portrayed his adolescent self as a resourceful boy with a strong desire

to learn how to write. His previously kind mistress, Mrs. Auld, no longer supported furthering his education and for this, Douglass had to sneak around in order to become literate. At that time, little, hungry, white boys on the streets of Baltimore served as his main source of education. Douglass would carry bread with him when he ran errands for the Aulds and when he encountered possible teachers, he would “bestow [the bread] upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give [him] that more valuable bread of knowledge” (53). The author used this clever pun to emphasize that literacy for an uneducated slave was as important as food was for a hungry child. Douglass’ acknowledgment of the importance of being literate later plays into his argument that slave owners purposely keep their slaves ignorant in order to keep them from leaving the plantation. In addition to Douglass’ use of figurative language in this section, he appealed to the reader’s pathos in his personal anecdote of how the boys responded to his claim of being a “slave for life”. Douglass gained the reader’s attention by eliciting their compassion for him and his fellow slaves. The simple need to show compassion indicated that slavery was and is undeniably wrong and adds to the effect of the author’s claim against slavery. Ultimately, both the kindness and compassion shown by the children on the street led Douglass to become a literate man.
Once Douglass learned to read and write, he became aware of his terrible situation and the confinement it had on him. By age twelve, Douglass had read the Columbian Orator, a dialogue between a slave and his master. The slave thoroughly supported his grievances of his enslavement and for this, freedom was awarded to him. The documents in the novel gave Douglass not only the hope to one day become free, but a political argument to back up his personal feelings against slavery. Douglass attempted to explain the influential value of the information that he found within the Colombian Orator when he expressed that “[the documents] gave tongue to interesting thoughts of [his] soul which had frequently flashed through [his] own mind, and died away for want of utterance” (54). Without the ability to read, Douglass could not have identified a logical argument against slavery and could not have presented this information to his projected audience. Although the benefits of comprehension were sweet, the consequences of realization were harder to endure. Douglass barely conveyed the degree of confinement which he felt when he declared “I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own” (54). Douglass continued to explain that he knew what he needed to do in order to gain his freedom, but did not understand how he could achieve it on his own. The unfortunate situation that Master Hugh had warned his wife about had emerged, and its effects had driven Douglass to a new suffering almost as horrible as the one he already knew.