Frederick Douglass was an orator and writer for the abolition movement. He was born into slavery and knows from personal experience how the institution dehumanizes everyone involved. His masters’ wife taught him the alphabet which was the start of Douglass learning how to write and speak out against slavery. His Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass was an attempt to describe the peculiar institution of slavery with out disrupting the sensibilities of his readers. In order to accomplish this Douglass must get his audience to relate to and identify with his life as a slave. He incorporated the same exploitive techniques used in the sentimental novel. This was an 18th century European novel style that engaged readers’ emotions to gain supporters for a particular cause. Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass appealed to the sensibilities of his readers by evoking emotions of sympathy and compassion causing his readers to identify with slavery and label it unnatural.
Fredrick Douglass throughout the novel is describing the horrific actions that maintain the institution of slavery. Separating a child from their mother means that one was never properly nurtured. He never knew his mother and did not build that loving bond that any human child needs to grow emotionally healthy.
Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of [my mother’s] death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger.
(Douglass 2) ...
... middle of paper ...
...family structure. The acquired slave system demanded that the slave masters impose physiological and psychological maintenance to control slaves. One way of upholding the social order was to strip slaves of their own right to know who they were and where they came from. Ultimately, preventing slaves from ever gaining a sense of self- fulfillment or the pursuit of happiness. Slavery as an institution broke all familial bonds, induced extreme suffering and emphasized inhumanness at the core. Slavery took an emotional toll on all involved and abolishing it benefited the entire American society.
As a former slave, bereft of any free will, written words were all but unavailable to Frederick Douglass. Slaves were unable to tell their stories, to expose the dehumanization that their enslavement caused on both sides of the racial rift; so it was necessary for Douglass to fight tooth and nail to obtain the right to learn, and ultimately to narrate his own life story. Amongst the narration, multiple rhetorical strategies are integrated into the text in order to uncover the dehumanizing effect their mistreatment had on slaves during this time. His primary purpose is to educate those who are ignorant of the horrible conditions that slaves lived in and the cruelty that they suffer. He does this through the use of rhetorical devices such as anecdotes, irony and by further connecting to his audience with pathos and ethos. By using his own personal experiences as the subject of his argument, Douglass is able to make a strong and compelling case against slavery; at a time when it was socially unacceptable to do so.
From before the country’s conception to the war that divided it and the fallout that abolished it, slavery has been heavily engrained in the American society. From poor white yeoman farmers, to Northern abolitionist, to Southern gentry, and apathetic northerners slavery transformed the way people viewed both their life and liberty. To truly understand the impact that slavery has had on American society one has to look no further than those who have experienced them firsthand. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and advocate for the abolitionist, is on such person. Douglass was a living contradiction to American society during his time. He was an African-American man, self-taught, knowledgeable, well-spoken, and a robust writer. Douglass displayed a level of skill that few of his people at the time could acquire. With his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave Written by Himself, Douglass captivated the people of his time with his firsthand accounts into the horror and brutality that is the institution of slavery.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, depicts a vivid reality of the hardships endured by the African American culture in the period of slavery. One of the many things shown in Frederick's narrative is how slaves, in their own personal way, resisted their masters authority. Another is how slaves were able to create their own autonomous culture within the brutal system in which they were bound. There are many examples in the narrative where Frederick tries to show the resistance of the slaves. The resistors did not go unpunished though, they were punished to the severity of death. Fredrick tells of these instances with a startling sense of casualness, which seems rather odd when comprehending the content of them. He does this though, not out of desensitization, but to show that these were very commonplace things that happened all over the South at the time.
The book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass can be interpreted in many ways. It is an autobiography that details Douglass’s experiences while he was enslaved. However, it is evident that he has been forced to censor the content of his narrative. Douglass mentions more than once that he is not able to say everything he desires. Moreover, on the surface the book is about the harshness of his life as a slave, but on a deeper level Douglass uses irony to give a compelling criticism of the institution of slavery. In his account he gives sarcastic descriptions of the privileges the slaves receive and what it looks like for slaves to be treated well. Nevertheless, both techniques of writing are effective
“The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected”. This quote comes from Fredrick Douglas’ book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written in 1845. Fredrick Douglas who was born into slavery in 1818 had no understanding of freedom. However, his words shed light on the state of our country from the time he made this statement, but can be traced back fifty-eight years earlier to when the Constitution was drafted and debated over by fifty-five delegates in an attempt to create a document to found the laws of a new country upon. However, to eradicate the antiquated and barbaric system of slaver would be a bold step to set the nation apart, but it would take a strong argument and a courageous move by someone or a group to abolish what had enslaved thousands of innocent people within the borders of America for centuries. There was an opportunity for the law to be written within the Constitution, which would support this freedom Fredrick Douglas alluded to. However, the power, which controlled this law, would as Douglas stated, “make that law respected”.
Douglass uses family relationships, starting with his own birth, to gain the compassion of his target audience. He never knew the identity of his father, but it was “whispered” (Douglass 2) that it was his master. Douglass mentions this to demonstrate how the “master in [many] cases, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father” (2). This was so commonplace that it was “by law established that the children of women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mother” (2). This meant that these bastard children were slaves despite their paternal heritage because their mother was a slave. The effect of this revelation was to shock and offend the morals of the conservative northern whites. Northern society scorned people in adulterous and interracial relationships. By portraying these Southerners as immoral and adulterous, Douglass wanted to cultivate in his audience a damaging opinion of southern slaveholders (Quarles ix).
In reading The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, I, like others, found myself to be deeply moved. The way in which Mr. Douglass walked me through each stage of his “career” as a slave gave me a better understanding of the African American slaves’ struggle. I realized in reading this mans story that he was a gifted individual and I pondered over where his strength came from? It is true and obvious that Mr. Frederick Douglass was an extremely gifted man, but with no mother or father to guide him, what motivated this man to accomplish his goal? For this man did indeed become free.
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).
Slave owners not only broke slave families up, but they also tried to keep all the slaves illiterate. In the book slave owners thought, "A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master-to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. If you teach a slave how to read, they would become unmangeable and have no value to his master." Masters thought that if a slave became literate then they would rebel and get other slaves to follow them. Also masters lied to slaves saying learning would do them no good, only harm them. They tried using that reverse psychology to make it seem like what they were doing was right.
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.
Frederick Douglass was brought from Africa as a baby to the U.S. to become a slave during the 17th century. In his narrative book “Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass,” he used rhetoric to provoke reader’s emotions, and inspiration of hope when everything isn’t good. Douglass used the rhetoric appeal pathos to show people how horrible he was treated as a slave, and how he kept up his motivation about becoming free from slavery. In addition, he also used pathos so effective that readers can see his experiences in front of themselves.
In sum, all of these key arguments exist in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” because of the institution of slavery and its resulting lack of freedom that was used to defend it. This text’s arguments could all be gathered together under the common element of inequality and how it affected the practical, social, and even spiritual lives of the slaves.
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.
The Narrative of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass is written to have people place their feet in the shoes of Frederick Douglass and try to understand the experience he went through as a slave. Douglass writes this piece of literature with strong wording to get his point across. He is not trying to point out the unpleasant parts of history, but to make people face the truth. He wants readers to realize that slavery is brutalizing and dehumanizing, that a slave is able to become a man, and that some slaves, like himself, have intellectual ability. These points are commonly presented through the words of Douglass because of his diction.
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.