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Narrative of the life of frederick douglass literary analysis
Literary analysis about Douglass
Narrative of the life of frederick douglass literary analysis
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People think we are free to choose our own path and destiny no matter what. Others believe that we are who we are because it is who we want to be. But again others say our path is predetermined and that we have no say in our lives. Which idea is the right idea though? In the play Machinal and the reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, we experience the lives of two different individuals and how they have no freedom but still end up choosing who their own destinies. In Machinal, it is through a woman finding out who she really is in life. While in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, it is through a man who knows where he wants to be in life. Thusly explaining how I believe that our lives our up to us. We decide and make our own destinies happen by choices, experiences, and actions we do. …show more content…
In the end our fate is may seem chosen for us, but in the beginning our pathway has yet to be carved out. And we are living at the beginning of our lives. Therefore our lives may appear mapped out for us; we need to work, get married, and acquire a job. But is that really our destiny? Is what society says we need what we want? No, our destiny is what we make it and it is by our wants we figure it out. Yes my goals in life are to have all of previously mentioned needs, but my destiny is what I make it. Fate may say I will get a job, but it is up to me and the choices I make concerning what job I receive, and when I will achieve it. However, my choices may send me down the wrong path or show me what I wanted in the first place was wrong, because the path to our future is not easy to follow. But the turns are for me to decide to take, because none of them is written yet. My life is a story, however I am writing it page by page. There is no way to find out real ending, only the ending that I think may happen based on my choices so far. Because with my choices I could quickly get to the end and make my life like a short story, or take my time and make it an epic. It is all up to me. I am the author of my own life; any person is the author of his or her own life. We just have to establish what we are writing towards. Before explaining how Machinal and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass explain my belief more thoroughly, we must realize how they relate to one another. This play and narrative, both have a character that portrays a life in where the main character’s life seemed decided. Their destiny was chosen and they had no say in it. In Machinal the young woman’s life appears decided for her, she has to do all the societal norms placed upon her: get married, have a “little baby with little curls”, and to remain faithful (Machinal). Similar to how she had to conform to norms so did Frederick Douglass. Being a slave, he was not supposed to know his parents, be literate, or have a chance and freedom and for the beginning part of his life he did (Frederick). As one can see, both people had a destiny laid out in front of them, but both decided to change their destiny because destinies are meant to be written as one goes through life, not a destination to end up. To expand upon Machinal, the play demonstrates how a young woman with no choice in her destiny changes it by the choices she makes.
The play is set in the 1920s when women started to receive clerical jobs and were expected to complete certain milestones in life. For example, in the scene labeled “at home” young woman – the main character – tells her mom that she is going to get married, because everybody does it, but then says she will not because she does not love Mr. Jones (Machinal). Ultimately her choice was to not get married, but in the end she does because her mom needs and wants her to get married for financial stability and the young woman feels that her destiny was to care for her mother. However, in the scene titled “prohibited”, the young woman starts deciding her destiny and chooses to cheat on her husband, Mr. Jones (Machinal). This is the moment when she realizes she can control her own destiny. That she does not have to be the happy housewife that society says her fate has to be. But there was still one problem, society still appeared to be in control of her destiny because she hasn’t decided on what her exact destiny would
be. Moreover when she decides her destiny is to be free; the young woman then does the most courageous stunt and kills her husband to be free. Her destiny is to be free of him and all social standards, because in the end that is what was making her miserable and hate life. She felt everything to do with a norm was torturous because when she is testifying about why she killed him instead of divorcing him she states, “ I could never hurt him like that”. Showing that she felt societal norms hurt worse than death and so does having your destiny decided for you, therefore she took her destiny back and made it her own. It may not have been what she wanted at first but in the end she was happier. Deciding to commit acts that resulted in her execution, rather than being an average woman and doing what was expected, became her path to be her destiny. In conclusion, young woman decided her own fate and created it by the acts she elected to complete. Similarly in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Douglass demonstrates how even when the destiny you aspire to achieve is not be achievable in the short run you should still attempt to reach it. When Frederick Douglass was young, he notice that whites were treated differently than him and he didn’t understand why. He remarks, “The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege”, showing he acknowledges that life is unnecessarily unfair (Frederick). However this first instance changes him, he started to decide his destiny was to be equal to the whites and not just a slave to them. But his first real glimpse of freedom wasn’t until later when he was granted the opportunity to move to Baltimore. While going through this change Douglass expresses, “I should have to-day, instead of being here seated by my own table, in the enjoyment of freedom . . . been confined in the galling chains of slavery”, meaning that he realizes even his first glimpse of freedom wasn’t actually free (Frederick). It became the first step towards the destiny he wanted in life. He moved up from being a plantation worker to a house slave, resulting in him gaining more opportunities. Alongside more opportunities, more chances appeared for his destiny to happen. He was able to see that the world wouldn’t change by itself, he would have to change the world for his destiny. One opportunity that he was presented was the chance to read. Having the ability to read meant the world to Douglass, reading meant he was equal to a white man in one aspect of life. Which in turn helped him towards reaching his destiny of being completely equal. But that door slammed shut soon after it was opened, because Mr. Auld told Mrs. Auld to stop teaching Douglass to read. Mr. Auld told Mrs. Auld and Douglass that teaching him to read was ruining him as a slave (Frederick). He then sees he can never be given the same opportunities as the white man; he had to make those opportunities himself. Proving he was in control of his own destiny not an outside force. And he would never let the hope of being equal fade, because even when he lost the opportunity of learning to read he thought, “in the darkest hours of . . . this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed not from me, but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom” (Frederick). He wouldn’t give up hope of his destiny; in fact, he would keep fighting for it because the chance to have his dream destiny was greater than any reality anyone could try to force upon him in life. Douglass knew he was in charge of his future and he took hold of it and ran. His dream to be equal would never fade, because his destiny would always remain bright. Therefore it was by his choices and determination that he would ever reach his destiny of being equal. Furthermore, we think our destinies are already chosen but they are not. We can write right our own destinies daily. Although we may not know exactly where we will end up, we have decided that we want to adventure to a new place. However our choices along the way influence what us and other take away from our life. In Machinal, we take away that you cannot be afraid of doing what you want, because you learn more about yourself along the way to happiness. Young woman learned her destiny was to stop adhering to society and she was finally happy when she achieved that goal. While from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, we take away that our life may not be destined for greatness but our choices can change that. Douglass chose that he wanted to be equal and in the end that made him one of the best. Our choices are ultimately what we leave behind in life. Therefore we cannot let life just happen around us. We need to live it so we can live to our full potentials. Because in the end people might remember the ending, but they will remember the story. Therefore go pick your ending, anything, just make it worth your story.
Douglass as both the author and narrator in his novel took readers through his escape from slavery. Specifically mentioned in chapter seven of the book, the author expressed his new skill of reading and how that inspired his freedom. Douglass utilized rhetorical devices in chapter seven, such as pathos and personification to illustrate to his audience how his education motivated him to achieve liberation. Douglass’ effective use of emotion throughout the chapter made his experiences appeal to readers. Also, the first and last sentences of chapter seven served as bookends to show how education influenced Douglass’ freedom because within those two phrases there was a portion of Douglass’ journey told on how he escaped salvation. Lastly, Douglass’
The hopeful and then helpless tones in Douglass' passage reflect his inner turmoil throughout the process of his escape from the wretched south. At first, Frederick Douglass feels the utter feeling of happiness covering every inch of his body and soul. However, he soon finds out that the rosy path has thorns that dug into his skin as freedom was dangled in front of his face through a tunnel of complete darkness.
Humans are natural tricksters, beguiling others for benefits and survival; however, deceiving others is a skill possessed by few African-Americans and thus they do not survive. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, Douglass harnesses the ability to conform to the world of trickery and conveys his journey to freedom. Through his appeal to pathos, use of dramatic asides, and application of anecdotes, Douglass expresses the necessity of slaves to play the game of trickery to survive in the world of tricksters.
The play shows how Eva Smith is a victim of the attitude of society in
In The Narrative of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, an African American male describes his day as a slave and what he has become from the experience. Douglass writes this story to make readers understand that slavery is brutalizing and dehumanizing, that a slave is able to become a man, and that he still has intellectual ability even though he is a slave. In the story, these messages are shown frequently through the diction of Frederick Douglass.
America in the mid to early nineteenth century saw the torture of many African Americans in slavery. Plantation owners did not care whether they were young or old, girl or boy, to them all slaves were there to work. One slave in particular, Frederick Douglass, documented his journey through slavery in his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Through the use of various rhetorical devices and strategies, Douglass conveys the dehumanizing and corrupting effect of slavery, in order to show the overall need for American abolition. His use of devices such as parallelism, asyndeton, simile, antithesis, juxtaposition and use of irony, not only establish ethos but also show the negative effects of slavery on slaves, masters and
Deviating from his typically autobiographical and abolitionist literatures, Frederick Douglass pens his first work of fiction, “The Heroic Slave,” the imagined backstory of famed ex-slave Madison Washington, best known for his leadership in a slave rebellion aboard about the slave ship Creole. An interesting plot and Douglass’ word choice provide a powerful portrait of slavery and the people affected by it.
In the 19th Century, women had different roles and treated differently compared to today’s women in American society. In the past, men expected women to carry out the duties of a homemaker, which consisted of cleaning and cooking. In earlier years, men did not allow women to have opinions or carry on a job outside of the household. As today’s societies, women leave the house to carry on jobs that allow them to speak their minds and carry on roles that men carried out in earlier years. In the 19th Century, men stereotyped women to be insignificant, not think with their minds about issues outside of the kitchen or home. In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, the writer portrays how women in earlier years have no rights and men treat women like dirt. Trifles is based on real life events of a murder that Susan Glaspell covered during her work as a newspaper reporter in Des Moines and the play is based off of Susan Glaspell’s earlier writing, “A Jury of Her Peers”. The play is about a wife of a farmer that appears to be cold and filled with silence. After many years of the husband treating the wife terrible, the farmer’s wife snaps and murders her husband. In addition, the play portrays how men and women may stick together in same sex roles in certain situations. The men in the play are busy looking for evidence of proof to show Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. As for the women in the play, they stick together by hiding evidence to prove Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. Although men felt they were smarter than women in the earlier days, the play describes how women are expected of too much in their roles, which could cause a woman to emotionally snap, but leads to women banding together to prove that women can be...
Throughout the plays, the reader can visualize how men dismiss women as trivial and treat them like property, even though the lifestyles they are living in are very much in contrast. The playwrights, each in their own way, are addressing the issues that have negatively impacted the identity of women in society.
This play, which is the first part of the novel, symbolizes what is yet to occur—a disastrous love story between April and Frank Wheeler. After the play, April and Frank get into an argument in the car, leading April to walk off and telling Frank he’s, “got [her] safely in a trap” (Yates, 37). April is felt as if she is in a trap because of the role of housewife she is automatically placed in. She wants to be more than a woman who stays home, washes the dishes and takes care of the children, she wants to explore and be free, something that the 1950s gender roles are limiting her to not ...
In this final research analysis, I will be doing a comparison between the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” and the “Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” to show how both Douglass and Rowlandson use a great deal of person strength and faith in God to endure their life and ultimately gain their freedom.
...show us that the choices for women in marriage were both limited and limiting in their scope and consequences. As can be seen, it came down to a choice between honoring the private will of the self, versus, honoring the traditions and requirements of society as a whole. Women were subject to the conditions set down by the man of the house and because of the social inequality of women as a gender class; few fought the rope that tied them down to house, hearth, and husband, despite these dysfunctions. They simply resigned themselves to not having a choice.
The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass can be referred to as a memoir and writing about the abolitionist movement of the life of a former slave, Fredrick Douglass. It is a highly regarded as the most famous piece of writing done by a former slave. Fredrick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer, statesman, orator and writer in the United States. Douglass believed in the equality of every individual of different races, gender or immigrants.
A Doll House gives us a true insight into the roles for men and women during the late 1800’s. This is why the play has been said to be able to take place in any and all suburbs. At this point in history, the roles of gender were mainly consistent across the world. Men vs. women in economics, social status, gender rights, marriage and divorce, and occupation can best describe this.
and do things themselves. One of the women gets her own job and the other leaves her daughter for adoption. Thus showing they are making their own decisions in life. This is unheard of in the 1800's and shows Ibsen trying to have a society in which women do have an identity in society and can be heard. Throughout the play, a women is shown doing her own thinking and not listening to what men have to say even though that is not how it used to be. Ibsen creates this new society in which anyone, no matter the gender, should be able to make their own decisions about life and how to live it.