How Does Frederick Douglass Overcome Physical Abuse

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In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass written by Frederick Douglass, copyright 2004 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., Douglass faces many challenging hardships that change him. Douglass’s childhood and most of his adult life were spent as a working slave. Throughout his life, he encounters many different slave owners and other slaves who affect his life. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass experiences physical, emotional, and social hardships which change him forever.
When Douglass worked for Edward Covey and in the shipyard after he gets out of prison, he experiences physical abuse that changes him. Throughout the majority of Frederick Douglass’s life, he does not receive as harsh punishment as some of the other …show more content…

In the beginning of Douglass’s narrative he starts by saying, “ I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant” (21; ch. 1). Frederick Douglass struggles throughout his life not knowing any years or dates or information about his birth. He compares the slaves and himself to horses with no knowledge. This changes Douglass to realize that education means freedom. If he is no longer as ignorant and uneducated as an animal, he can find a way to be a free man. Once Douglass slowly becomes more and more educated, he plans way to escape slavery. Douglass received his first form of education from Mrs. Auld, when he lived there for seven years. Frederick Douglass describes his lack of education as, “she at first locked the depravity indispensable to shutting me up in mental darkness” (61; ch. 7). Yet again Douglass, express how he is kept ignorant and uneducated in “mental darkness”. Douglass uses this metaphor to express how he knows nothing. This dehumanizing creates a desire in Douglass to educate himself in whatever way possible, so one day he can become a free

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