Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Critical Analysis

From witnessing slavery and its atrocious accounts, to becoming a voice and a paragon for racial freedom from segregation, Frederick Douglass, a self-educated, free African American, became a beacon of hope against the ideals of slavery and its constant abhorring classification of the African community. As a child, Frederick was a lone soul, neither fitting with the Anglo race, for he was not white, or with the slave community, for he was not born into slavery and had attained a higher level of privilege for having a lighter skin tone than his brethren. The narrative of his life was a cautionary tale of life, abuse, and an overall enlightenment to what slavery truly was depicted through the eyes of Douglass. Witnessing every inhumane and atrocity

committed towards the slaves, such as Aunt Hester, Douglass suffered without his conscious telling him so at such a young age, but throughout sufficient struggle, ignorance, and a life story that changed the facet of the institution of what once was slavery, The Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass is a crucial and significant piece against those blatantly ignorant towards the ideology of slavery and its desired eradication.
In a vivid and distorted account of the experience and witnessing of slavery, Douglass’ overall purpose was to convey a message of the eradication of slavery and enlighten those who knew very little or were passionately ignorant towards the unjustifiable and heartless mistreatment of African Americans, so far as to be degraded as property. In Douglass’s narrative, there is a crucial suffrage of his brethren, yet he is somewhat immune to the indifference of the actual mistreatment of slaves, as he did not experience it, but he understands it enough to risk himself in a rigorous time period when even speaking your mind was considerably an act of treason and resulted in punishment. Douglass quotes on the song of sorrows many slaves would sing, a tune not of happiness but of pain and sorrow. “At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery.” This trivial expression of seldom sorrow was unconceivable by the men who attributed to the harsh period of time of antebellum to the eradication of slavery all together.
Furthermore, the recurring theme of the loss of humanity and individuality is crucial to the overall tone Douglass was directing his experiences through. His individual privilege is revoked, as for others as well, while seemingly held to the position of being degraded as property, while altogether reminding each individual that they were hardly worthy of any rights of man, as “the white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.” This developing theme is one of many issues Douglass attempted to convey throughout his narrative, and his emphasis on the atrocious mistreatment of slaves is one that recurs primarily all throughout his biography.
The seldom narrative pieced by Douglass was one used to attempt to shed light on the harsh and gruesome truth of slavery. As he utilizes many strategies to attribute his point across such as emphatic diction, appeal to ethos, and a creation of vivid imagery, his desire was to see the “hastening…glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds.” In reverence to the many Douglass witnessed mistreatment, the overview of his biography was to showcase how ignored the issue of slavery was, and how as a token of freedom and individuality, he was able to confront a system of oppression and degradation proudly and fearless.
As the paragon to freedom seemed to showcase practically the entire controversial issues that plagued his time period, he gave notice to the ironic and hypocritical truth of religion in accordance to slavery.

His opinionated stance on claiming that a slave owner could not be a Christian, as this was the primary religion, gives an ironic and controversial stance that was made out to be a much greater position against slavery. Thomas Peyser of Randolph-Macon College introduces a publicized view in The Attack on Christianity in The Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass as a way to convene the truth behind Douglass’s transcendentalism and the attributed relevance of slavery and religion. Peyser states that in “crucial passages of the Narrative suggests that Douglass was engaged in a remarkably subtle rhetorical performance that allowed him both to mollify the Christian audience whose support he needed and raise fundamental suspicions about Christianity itself.” In a sense, Douglass rejected to be sly against a main controversial issue when it regarded something as delicate as religion, even more so when it was directed against the slave owners who would have failed to remotely accept such depiction of them, when in fact it only showcased their true

identities.
Frederick Douglass deems to shy away from outside and secondary sources, as his narrative is a basis of his experiences and his accounts of slavery. The form of detailing his biography in a first person point of view only gave a stronger mood to the overall purpose. That overall purpose to shed light on the issue of slavery strengthened his lack of additional sources limited to himself, and as he continuously paved the way for a treatise of abolition centered on an destructive issue, his use of primary sources in accordance to himself illuminate how passive Douglass was on the verge of literary bias. Biased sources such as the firsthand accounts of the beatings Douglass witnessed, as “this will be seen by the fact, that the slaveholders like to have their slaves spend those days just in such a manner as to make them as glad of their ending as of their beginning,” additionally adding a sentimental value to the central message he was attempting to specialize as relevant. But, Douglass severely neglected the utilization of important sources, as it possibly might have added to his account, and by doing so, the firsthand accounts of the actual slave owners would have revitalized the primary issue he was trying to convene. Douglass failed to examine all sources from all sides, and while his personal accounts of the witnessing of slavery, the usage of a slave’s views on the issue they were remanded to subsequently would have attributed to strengthening his remarks.
In accordance to his upbringing, Douglass was “the most important black American leader of the 19th century.” According to David W. Blight of North Central College in Documenting The American South, Douglass, born in Talbot County, Maryland, was an abolitionist against segregation and directed “the early 1840s to his attacks on Jim Crow segregation in the 1890s”. As a writer, Douglass paved the way for a “irresistible indictment” towards slavery and racism, while being an “indomitable voice of hope for his people.” Douglass embraced the idea of antislavery politics and revered a self-introduced brand of American ideals and opinions. While never failing to lose touch with the South and his roots, every piece dominated by him not only revealed the truth of where he was from and what his culture experienced, but marked “Douglass's greatest contributions to southern culture. Written both as antislavery propaganda and as personal revelation, they are universally regarded as the finest examples of the slave narrative tradition and as classics of American autobiography” (Blight).