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Maryan Hassan
Professor Yin
English 112
3/9/17
Fredrick Douglass Speech
Slavery when Africans were held against their own will and it first started in 1619 in Virginia. Frederick Douglass was born into slavery who goes by the name Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, he was born on February 14 1817 in Maryland, Tuckahoe. His mother was a slave women and his father was a white master. Douglass was an agent for the anti-slavery in Massachusetts. He went to lecture tour in Ireland, Scotland and England to give lecture to people On July 5 1852 Frederick Douglass gave a speech on slavery’s arguing that during the fourth of July African American were treated wrongfully. Douglass gave a powerful speech about how he feels towards slavery and how
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Frederick Douglass starting his speech to talk about the fourth of July he started with rhetorical questions and the reason for the questions was to give the audience the real meaning of what the fourth of July really is to them and to get the audience attention so that they listen and understand what the slaves have gone through especially during the fourth of July. He did not choose to give the speech on the day that they were treated badly, He gave the speech to show and tell the audience that he does not what to be a part of that celebration where on that day they were not free. He’s wondering why they’re being treat that way and what they have done to the Americans that they’re treating them like they’re not humans. Frederick also in his speech stated that the fourth of July celebration is not for him because why would he celebration a day where he was held as a slave and treated like he was not a human. The questions helped Douglass to connect with his audience because the questions were to make sure that the audience was paying attention to his speech and what he was saying. One question he asked to get his audience attention was “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? (Douglass
A decade prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, newly freed slave Fredrick Douglass was attempting to save a dying abolitionist movement. A gifted orator, Douglass used these 3 literary techniques to convey his point: A series of rhetorical questions designed to highlight the irony of slavery in a country of liberty, anaphora skillfully used to nail the slaves’ misfortune onto the country’s ideals of democracy and allusions in order to connect both slaves and slavers to their shared Christian values.
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.
Frederick Douglass’s speech was given to so many of his own people. The fact that Douglass speaks so harshly to them proves that he has passion for what he talks about through-out. “What to the slave is the Fourth of July”, compares and contrasts the different meanings the Fourth of July shared between Whites and African Americans. Douglass says “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim”. Frederick Douglass was not striving for the attention, he just wanted to get across that the Fourth of July is not a day of celebration to African Americans and the respect he shared with them, having once being a slave himself.
In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, a slave narrative published in 1845, Frederick Douglass divulged his past as a slave and presented a multifaceted argument against slavery in the United States. Douglass built his argument with endless anecdotes and colorful figurative language. He attempted to familiarize the naïve Northerners with the hardships of slavery and negate any misconstrued ideas that would prolong slavery’s existence in American homes. Particularly in chapter seven, Douglass both narrated his personal experience of learning to write and identified the benefits and consequences of being an educated slave.
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
Frederick Douglass's "Fourth of July" Speech is the most famous speech delivered by the abolitionist and civil rights advocate Frederick Douglass. It attracted a crowd of between five hundred and six hundred. Douglass’s speech to the slaves on the Fourth of July served to show the slaves that there is nothing for them to celebrate. They were not free and the independence that the rest of the country celebrated did not apply to them.
The effectiveness and excellent structure of Frederick Douglass’ Fourth of July speech is apparent. His rhetorical arguments served as powerful rebuts to opposing contentions and forced his audience to consider the undeniable error in their nation’s policy and approach regarding slavery. Douglass also compelled his audience to take his words seriously by establishing his credibility, recognizing his audience, and skillfully constructing and executing his speech. The end product of his efforts became a provocative speech at the time and a historical delivery in the future. Douglass succeeded in giving a speech that clearly and effectively argued the absurdity of the institution of slavery in America, leaving it up to his audience to consider his position and decide for themselves how to act in the future.
A brilliant speaker, "Abolionist, women's rights advocate,journalist and newspaper editor, social reformers and race leader, Frederick Douglas was unquestionably one of the most prominent black leaders of the nineteenth century and one of the most eloquent orators in American public life"(1751). Frederick Douglas was basically self-taught and his voice became so polished that he was in fear of losing the audience of his own race to the cause of freeing slaves because he sounded "too white". Douglas was asked to speak at a Fourth of July celebration and in his speech; What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? ; He expresses that it is: "Your National Independence, and of your political freedom"(1819). He reaches out to his audience by showin...
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.
Writers always have a purpose on why they chose the topic they wrote about. Whether it be to persuade, inform, or entertain. Fredrick Douglass wrote a narrative about that life of a slave. He had two purposes while writing this narrative. One of those purposes was to inform us on the topic. By informing us, that would lead into his second purpose. The second purpose was to persuade us on having a certain opinion about that specific topic. He did a good job in achieving those two purposes.
Fredrick Douglas explained his view and recounts his emotions when he arrived in New York in 1838. He explained his views with so much description by allowing the reader to create an image in their head based on the description. Slavery was a very serious and brutal situation. Douglas explained his account far more than saying how bad slavery was. He used many common comparisons, so people could actually understand what he went through. Although Fredrick Douglas went through a serious event, such as slavery, he used figurative language and many examples to portray this event vividly.