Frederick Douglass is a Romanticist and a Realist. His slave narrative reflects the intentions of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau in their works “Self-Reliance” and “Civil-Disobedience” as well as meeting the characteristics of Realism. Fredrick Douglass is a Romanticist. His work “The Narrative of Fredrick Douglass” has rhetoric that relates to “Self-Reliance”. Towards the middle of the work, Douglass explains the connection between education and Christian literature. “I read them over and over again with unabated interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my mind” (Douglass, 39). When Douglass reads “The Columbian Orator”, he reads the book repeatedly because it fuels …show more content…
He depicts his death this way because he wants to provide the realities of being enslaved, and he uses this truth to connect with the reader’s emotional sense. He creates pathos in his rhetoric that is gruesome and impactful to entice the reader. Secondly, Douglass’s work also meets the characteristic “Class is important”. Douglas writes, “.she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C.Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further,” (Douglass, 33). Class plays a large role in the work, especially due to Douglass’s intelligence, which is dissimilar to the other slaves. The mistress and the slave are on two opposite ends of the stick when it comes to education. This disparity immediately shows the importance of social and economic class in the antebellum era because class is what the system of slavery is rooted upon. Mr. Auld stops Mrs. Auld from educating Douglass because he knows that slaves should not receive an education and if they did, social class would not be important. Class is important in the work because it sets up the conflict between the slaves and the enslavers and it showcases the systemic nature of slavery
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.
Frederick Douglass wrote in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, about the devastation associated with slavery and the destruction from which comes desperation. Douglass intends to summon upon the guilt and empathy of his white audience by giving an account from which the reader is able to coax up a new perspective on the dreadful oppression. Seen especially in the third paragraph where Douglass provides a series of rhetorical devices including: apostrophe, anaphora, personification, exemplum, and epithet in his sorrowful bellowing to passing ships.
Different types of literature have been part of America since the 1630’s and the varieties of literature still exist to this day. Frederick Douglass’s work and speeches during his lifetime caught the attention of many people in the United States, including slave owners themselves. Douglass has not only changed American literature, he has also inspired many other writers and speakers to seek freedom of expression for themselves. Even though he had a rough childhood because he was a slave, Douglass found ways to make the most of it. Fortunately it was because he had a nice and caring owner who taught him to read and write. Furthermore, because he had a warmhearted owner, he was able to express himself through his work to many different people of his time. Douglass’s works and speeches remain of great impact, and continue to influence and inspire many people in literature to this day. He influenced many people during his travels to Northern free states and overseas to England and Ireland where he explained and changed their mindset of the cruelty of slavery, which ultimately lead to the adjustment by the people to understand the reality of slavery.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass written by Frederick Douglass himself is a brutally honest portrayal of slavery's dehumanizing capabilities. The style of this famous autobiography can be best described as personal, emotional, and compelling. By writing this narrative, Douglass wants his audience to understand him. He does this by speaking informally like a person would when writing a letter or telling a story to a friend. By clearly establishing his credibility and connecting with his audience, Douglass uses numerous rhetorical devices to argue for the immorality of slavery.
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.
Slave narratives were one of the first forms of African- American literature. The narratives were written with the intent to inform those who weren’t aware of the hardships of slavery about how badly slaves were being treated. The people who wrote these narratives experienced slavery first hand, and wanted to elicit the help of abolitionists to bring an end to it. Most slave narratives were not widely publicized and often got overlooked as the years went by; however, some were highly regarded and paved the way for many writers of African descent today.
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 tone established in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is unusual in that from the beginning to the end the focus has been shifted. In the beginning of the narrative Douglass seems to fulfill every stereotypical slavery theme. He is a young black slave who at first cannot read and is very naïve in understanding his situation. As a child put into slavery Douglass does not have the knowledge to know about his surroundings and the world outside of slavery. In Douglass’ narrative the tone is first set as that of an observer, however finishing with his own personal accounts.
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).
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.
Society is so deceivable into believing that what is accepted by society is also correct and reasonable. One would not usually question the humanity of customs if one benefits in return. Frederick Douglass wrote The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass as a way to depict the development of a dehumanized slave progressing into a free man. Frederick Douglass did not start to reconstruct his own self identity until he broke the bindings of being ignorant which his masters placed upon him.
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.