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Comparing frederick douglass to abraham lincoln
The narrative of the life of frederick douglass + years of slavery
Narrative life of Fredrick Douglass: An American slave
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When inquiring about the comparisons and contrasts between Melville’s Benito Cereno and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, Written by Himself, the following question almost inevitably arises: Can a work of fiction and an autobiography be compared at all? Indeed, the structure of the two stories differs greatly. Whereas Douglass’s Narrative adapts a typical pattern of autobiographies, i.e. a chronological order of birth, childhood memories, events that helped shape the narrator etc., Benito Cereno is based on a peculiar three-layered foundation of a central story recounting the main events, a deposition delineating the events prior to the first part, and an ending.
There are other contrasting aspects of the stories that call for attention. Most significantly Benito Cereno – ultimately – portrays slaves as evil and Babo as the mind behind the cunning plan that deceives Captain Delano. The reason for this one-sided representation is naturally the fact that we experience the story from Delano’s point of view. In the beginning, we perceive Babo as the typical docile, helpful, and faithful servant so often portrayed in other slave characters such as Stowe’s Uncle Tom and Jim in Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Babo is more than just a slave; he is a “faithful fellow”, “a friend that cannot be called slave” . And despite all the underlying hints of a slave insurrection, Delano does not grasp their meaning. Examples are the slaves’ treatment of the Spanish sailors and the hatchet polishers , but in Delano’s narrow-minded world, only the white man is capable of conceiving plans of ‘evil’. And when he – and the reader too – finally sees “the mask torn away, flourishing hatchets and knives, in ferocious piratical revolt”, he is embarrassed and “with infinite pity he [withdraws] his hold from Don Benito” . From this moment on, Babo is a malign devil and Melville removes speech from Babo’s mouth. This strengthen our opinion of Babo as ‘evil’ even more, for how can we sympathise with him without hearing his version of the story? Apparently, Melville proposes no other alternative for the reader than to sympathise with the white slave owner Don Benito, whom Babo so ingeniously deceives.
This is fundamentally different in Douglass’s narrative. It is written in the first person singular and o...
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...though Babo suffers a literary death, he is the one with the last laugh. Don Benito enters a monastery and dies shortly after as a weakened and beaten man, while Babo’s “head [on a spear] … meets, unabashed, the gaze of the whites”.
Slave rebellions are the common topic of the two stories. Melville plays with the anxiety whites had of such and Douglass of its possibility to elevate slaves out of their misery. If paraphrased, the end of chapter X in Douglass’s Narrative serves as a perfect illustration of this: Douglass describes his Master Hugh seizing the money Douglass had earned; “not because he [Hugh] earned it, - not because he had any hand in earning it … but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up.” Exchange ‘money’ with ‘liberty’ and Babo’s right to revolution as that “of the grim-visaged pirate upon the high seas”, becomes as right as the white man’s enslavement of blacks. In understanding this, Babo turns into a true hero – albeit a literate one – on a level with Nat Turner, Madison Washington and others. His quest for freedom and his struggle to achieve it deserves to be remembered, just as Douglass is remembered today.
At first glance, the book “my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass appeared to be extremely dull and frustrating to read. After rereading the book for a second time and paying closer attention to the little details I have realized this is one of the most impressive autobiographies I have read recently. This book possesses one of the most touching stories that I have ever read, and what astonishes me the most about the whole subject is that it's a true story of Douglass' life. “ Douglass does a masterful job of using his own experience to expose the injustice of slavery to the world. As the protagonist he is able to keep the reader interested in himself, and tell the true story of his life. As a narrator he is able to link those experiences to the wider experiences of the nation and all society, exposing the corrupting nature of slavery to the entire nation.”[1] Although this book contributes a great amount of information on the subject of slavery and it is an extremely valuable book, its strengths are overpowered by its flaws. The book is loaded with unnecessary details, flowery metaphors and intense introductory information but this is what makes “My Bondage and My Freedom” unique.
The first and second paragraphs evidently consist of sentences of some sort of length, the third paragraphs are shorter, but, portray more meaning. Although the whole passage depicts powerful speech, the difference of syntax is defined by his day-to-day life, which is seen in the first and second paragraph, and his dreams, which is seen in the third paragraph. Furthermore, Douglass use of exclamation points, as it exemplifies his desperation and his yearning for freedom, in contrast to the first two paragraphs. Additionally, the parallelism in the third paragraph is completely different from the first two, Douglass uniforms his all his sentences in the third paragraph in a very similar way such as “O that I were free!, O, that I were on one of your gallant decks" (38). In using shorter very unsimilar syntax between the first two paragraphs and the third, Douglass renders that the slave is not an animal or beast, but a human being, that longs for nothing but to become
Frederick Douglass, an African American social reformer who escaped from slavery, in his autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself,” denotes the perilous life of a slave in the South. Through syntax, Douglass is able to persuade his readers to support the abolitionist movement as his writing transitions from shifting sentence lengths to parallel structure and finally to varying uses of punctuation. Douglass begins his memoir with a combination of long and short sentences that serve to effectively depict life his life as a slave. This depiction is significant because it illustrates the treatment of slaves in the south allows his audience to despise the horrors of slavery. In addition, this
Literature is written in many ways and styles. During his time, Frederick Douglass’s works and speeches attracted many people’s attention. With the amount of works and speeches Douglass has given, it has influenced many others writers to express themselves more freely. Though Douglass lived a rigorous childhood, he still made it the best that he could, with the guidance and teaching of one of his slave owner’s wife he was able to read and write, thus allowing him to share his life stories and experiences. Douglass’s work today still remain of great impact and influence, allowing us to understand the reality of slavery, and thus inspiring many others to come out and share for others to understand.
After reading Frederick Douglass’s narrative of slavery, I couldn’t help but stop and try to gather my thoughts in any way possible. It was not the first time I had read the narrative, but this time around Douglass’s words hit me much harder. Perhaps, it was that I read the narrative in a more critical lens, or possibly it was just that I am older and more mature now from the last time I read it, but whatever the reason, I can confidently say reading the narrative has changed my heart and opened my eyes in many ways. I have always been aware of the injustices that slavery encompassed and of course like many other people, I have been taught about slavery in a historical narrative my entire life. But, Frederick Douglass’s narrative does more than just provide a historical perspective in seeing the injustices in slavery. His narrative asks the reader to look directly into the eyes of actual slaves and realize their very heart beat and existence as humans. Douglass humanizes the people of whom the terrible acts we acted upon that we learn about as early as elementary school. It is because of this that I decided to write this poem. Reading the narrative made me really think about Douglass’s journey and the story he tells on his road to freedom. I felt as if he was really speaking to me and, and in turn I wanted to give Douglass a voice in my own writing.
The reader is first introduced to the idea of Douglass’s formation of identity outside the constraints of slavery before he or she even begins reading the narrative. By viewing the title page and reading the words “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, written by himself” the reader sees the advancement Douglass made from a dependent slave to an independent author (Stone 134). As a slave, he was forbidden a voice with which he might speak out against slavery. Furthermore, the traditional roles of slavery would have had him uneducated—unable to read and incapable of writing. However, by examining the full meaning of the title page, the reader is introduced to Douglass’s refusal to adhere to the slave role of uneducated and voiceless. Thus, even before reading the work, the reader knows that Douglass will show “how a slave was made a man” through “speaking out—the symbolic act of self-definition” (Stone 135).
As both the narrator and author of “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself” Frederick Douglass writes about his transition from a slave to a well educated and empowered colored young man. As a skilled and spirited man, he served as both an orator and writer for the abolitionist movement, which was a movement to the abolishment of slavery. At the time of his narrative’s publication, Douglass’s sole goal of his writings was to essentially prove to those in disbelief that an articulate and intelligent man, such as himself, could have,in fact, been enslaved at one point in time. While, Douglass’ narrative was and arguably still is very influential, there are some controversial aspects of of this piece, of which Deborah McDowell mentions in her criticism.
Benito Cereno is a short novel written by Melville, with a surprise ending. At least it was quite a surprise that Babo, the negro servant of Cereno, ends up being the one in charge of the ship. Babo fought for his freedom, which is good, but Babo went above and beyond the means necessary to get his freedom. Along with that he has much more serious problems with himself. Here are some ways to see it. There are two ways to look at what Babo did. When he was fighting for his freedom he was either fighting for his life or for his quality of life. Babo was fighting for a cause that is unjustifiable after the actions that he committed. Babo was fighting for his quality of life and what Babo did to improve his quality of life was terrible and with malicious intent. Yet, there is always another side to an argument so first I will show the way Babo could be seen as a symbol of good. These concepts, life versus quality of life and how Babo is seen as both good and evil, I will clarify in the paragraphs that follow.
“In Babo, Melville creates a character most like himself: a secretly rebellious creator of multi-leveled plots” (Hattenhauer, 8), which is what Delano fails to see. Delano only wanted to accept his image of the slaves, and not see that the slaves were acting strange and not as slaves are expected to act or be treated. Babo, rather than being a mindless animal, was a leader of the plan that deceived Delano. Upon reviewing many ways to analyze this novella, Vamderhaar concludes that “Both ways are inaccurate, inadequate, and overly optimistic, because both overlook the humanity of the Negro with all his capacity for evil and resentment of his enslavement” (Vanderhaar, 186). One of the reasons Delano still ends up “winning’ in the end is because he has the system on his side. The system is against slaves because they agree with slavery, and rebelling was Babo’s only chance to escape. Babo, losing in the end, only loses because Delano has an unfair advantage over him. Delano would have never won against Babo and the rest of the slaves if he were not white. It is not until the very end of the novella that Delano realizes what was wrong from the start. The Governess too, does not realize that the children were against her until the end. When the Governess finally builds up the courage to confront Miles, he tells her that he and Flora arranged the plan to trick her into thinking Flora was out of her bed and see Miles walking outside at night (James, 75). Upon hearing that, the Governess recognizes that it was her who fell into a trap (75). All this time, the Governess assumes that she has power and that she could not be fooled, but in reality, the children tricked her and had power over her, being able to lead her into a trap. Delano sees that he was powerless at the moment that he recognizes Babo’s intentions, “Not captain Delano, but Don
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
Analysis of “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”: Written by Aaron Wright and Nichole Smith
The issue of Slavery in the South was an unresolved issue in the United States during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. During these years, the south kept having slavery, even though most states had slavery abolished. Due to the fact that slaves were treated as inferior, they did not have the same rights and their chances of becoming an educated person were almost impossible. However, some information about slavery, from the slaves’ point of view, has been saved. In this essay, we are comparing two different books that show us what being a slave actually was. This will be seen with the help of two different characters: Linda Brent in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass in The Narrative of the life of Frederick
Benito Cereno is a novel written by Herman Melville in 1855. One of the major characters in the book is Babo, a black slave on Benito Cereno’s ship, the San Dominick. Babo is arguably one of the most complex characters in Benito Cereno. The perception of Babo changes throughout the reading. In the beginning, Babo is portrayed as Cereno’s loyal companion and supporter, but Babo attempts to murder Cereno by the end of the book. There is a drastic and dramatic change in Babo from a benevolent and trustworthy friend to a malevolent and powerful leader.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the physical burdens of slavery that he faced on a daily basis, it was the psychological effects that caused him the greatest amount of detriment during his twenty-year enslavement. In the same regard, Douglass is able to profess that it was not only the slaves who incurred the damaging effects of slavery, but also the slaveholders. Slavery, in essence, is a destructive force that collectively corrupts the minds of slaveholders and weakens slaves’ intellects.
In the story “Benito Cereno”, Melville articulates the qualities of the slave and slavery itself throughout this novel. Melville uses ominous imagery to foreshadow the fate that Captain Delano and his crew face later on in the story. Melville produced this text in order to lead the reader away from what truly occurs on the San Dominick. He created this novel so that the readers would trust Delano’s judgment, and his observations of Don Benito and his crew. The story is written in a mysterious way so that the reader can’t conclude what will occur next. There are many different symbols and actions that take place on the boat that hint towards an overthrowing of Captain Delano, but since Delano is depicted a...