Cruelty In The Writing Of Frederick Douglass

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Rhetorical Analysis By Migion Booth Social reformer, Frederick Douglass was an African American man who decamped from slavery. He has drafted several books including Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Mr. Douglass writes about his perspicacity as a slave. Mr. Douglass repeatedly uses paradox, imagery, and parallelism to display how slavery was inhuman and heartbroken. Douglass begins uses paradox to show how slavery was inhuman by acknowledging how slave overseers treated the slaves when did wrong or doing what was not told by them.

When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors”. This reminder of Douglass’ slave pastone of the many way that Douglass tries to humanize the issue slavery. The personal connection allows the audience to see slaves as the humans rather than the property they shown as. In addition to trying to humanize slaves,Douglass also brings to light the way they are treated by their masters. He states, “There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death,” showcasing not only the difficulty of a slave’s life, but how their lives hang constantly in jeopardy.

When he was twelve, Douglass read “The Columbian Orator” and learned about emancipation (1199). 4. How is the white man a victim of slavery, according to Douglass? Slavery, particularly owning slaves, had a negative effect on a person (Douglass 1198). As an example, Douglass describes the differences he witnessed in his mistress, Mrs. Auld (1198).

After escaping slavery and seeking freedom in the North, former slaves would often write their testimonies of the cruel life on the southern plantations. One of the best and most recognizable examples of this genre is “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” whose author, Frederick Douglas, became an important figure not only in literature but also in history of fighting for civil rights. He was born into slavery and raised by the grandparents because his mother was assigned to work in a field far away and was not allowed to stay with her son. Life at the plantation was full of abuse and cruelty, which he could witness from a young age by seeing his aunt being whipped. He described slaves’ fear of their masters that often took pleasure in punishing and whipping their property; the hardships of fieldwork where blacks would work all day with only few breaks for meals or how the owners were impregnating black women in order for them to produce more, free laborers.

In the excerpt of the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave,” Douglass discusses the horrors of being enslaved and a fugitive slave. Through Douglass’s use of figurative language, diction and repetition he emphasizes the cruelty he experiences thus allowing readers to under-stand his feelings of happiness, fear and isolation upon escaping slavery. Figurative language allocates emotions such as excitement, dread and seclusion. As a slave you have no rights, identity or home. Escaping slavery is the only hope of establishing a sense of self and humanity.

Frederick Douglass was born as a slave in 1818 on a plantation in Maryland. After many years of enduring the pain and horrifying experiences of being a slave and then running away and staying hidden, he bravely published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. His narrative tells of his life as a slave, secretly learning to read and write, then leading up to his escape and the beginning of his life in New York. He uses a strong array of syntax, powerful sentence structure, and familiar poetic and biblical references to pull the reader in. These literary techniques are meant to make the reader feel the same fear, helplessness, and anger Frederick Douglass and many other slaves felt at the time.

“The Hypocrisy of American Slavery: Slavery at its best” Frederick Douglass an activist for anti racism and also an abolitionist’s speech “The Hypocrisy of Slavery” was given on the occasion of celebrating the independence day. Here, in this speech he actually brought out some questions like why we should celebrate Independence Day while almost four million people were kept chained as a slave. He actually mocked the fact of the people of America’s double standards which is that they are singing out the song of liberty, on the other hand holding the chain of slavery. Frederick Douglass, a former American-African slave who managed to escape from his slavery and later on became an abolitionist gave this speech on Fourth of July,

Slavery is the most horrible thing that people faced throughout history and it was considered as the worst system ever of our world. Many people were surprised how a human being can make the other under his total control and dominance. Historically, this system is based on the investment, whereby the master owned the slave and exerted on him absolute power. Considered as a commodity, the slave can be sold, separated from his family and forced to do all the work his master requires of him so that he becomes a kind of material between the hands of the slaveholder. In fact, the word Slavery may describe different things such as prostitution, prison labour or even the sale of human

Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis A famous slave and abolitionist in the struggle for liberty on behalf of American slaves, Frederick Douglass, in his autobiography published in 1845, portrayed the horrors of captivity in the South. Douglass’s purpose in the narrative was to show how slaves lived, what they experienced, and how they were unquestionably less comfortable in captivity than they would have been in a liberated world. He implemented a didactic tone to portray the viciousness of slave-owners and the severe living conditions for the slaves. Employing his experience as a slave, Douglass accurately expressed the terrors that he and the other slaves endured. In chapter six, Douglass described his involvement with his mistress,

Both of these writers felt responsible to inform their white readership of the hardships slavery had on not only them but on other slaves. For example, Olaudah Equiano experienced being taken away by white people from his country. He even found himself wishing to be back at his former slavery in preference of his “present situation”. He states, “...I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, not had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend, death to relieve me..”(130).