Frederick Douglass Figurative Language Essay

In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, the author, Frederick Douglass, uses similes, insults, figurative language, and repetition to portray the dehumanization of slaves and slaveholders. To most slaveholders, African Americans were seen as beasts or wild animals, and they were treated as such. Kind slaveholders were a rarity in this time. Owning another person gave white people a sense of power and dominance. Douglass’ narrative accurately depicts the tragic brutality African Americans faced and the devastating effects of slavery. Douglass uses many similes to describe how degraded slaves were. “By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs” (Douglass 17). That sentence effectively illustrates how slaves were, in a sense, animalized. Douglass explains that most slaves had no idea how old they were, and the way Douglass compares slaves to horses really portrays just how bad African Americans were treated. Douglass uses repetition and simile when he describes how lonely he felt after he escaped slavery and was living in New York. He says, “—in the midst of houses, yet having no home,—among fellow-men, yet feeling as if in the midst of wild beasts,” (Douglass 93-94). Even Douglass himself, an escaped slave, felt as if he was surrounded by wild beasts,

When describing Mr. Gore, Douglass writes “he was, in a word, a man of the most inflexible firmness and stone-like coolness” (Douglass 33). Mr. Gore was a cold, harsh, and rigid man, who had grown indifferent to the horrors of slavery. This is proved true when he shot Demby, one of Colonel Lloyd’s slaves, in cold blood. Mr. Gore’s ability to murder an innocent and wounded man without the blink of an eye would make anyone question his humanity. Most humans would be horrified if they killed another person, but Mr. Gore had lost the capability of guilt or