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Frederick Douglass Literary Analysis

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Slavery is wicked and gory and monstrous and that is well known today but during the time it was well known. In Frederick Douglass’s, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass tries to persuade everyone to stop the madness and recognize how awful slavery is; to do this he uses comparison and realization leading to the reader being blown away by this one slave’s life story. The goal of Douglass’s writing makes the reader see slavery in a different light. This is why Douglass’s writing is such a heavy read. To get his point across he talks about how monstrous his whole life is, starting for the very beginning when “... the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it” (Douglass 1.4) Douglass had to go through …show more content…

Slavery is a tornado destroying everything in its path but it is given the power to do so by not judging anyone and devastating all. To describe this soul spinning, thought control process, Douglass uses another craft move, Contrasting. He uses this craft move when he talks of Mrs. Auld. For example, she was good as an angel at first and even “The meanest slave was put fully at ease in her presence” but that soon ended and “That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage”(Douglass 6.2) Hence, the reader's mind now shifting to form a wary of slavery. Similarly, Douglass wants the reader to note that people aren’t themselves under slavery. This is all be seen when, Douglass’s shares his own story to stop history from repeating it. Even in other books, there's never a bright side, “. . . The children were sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was bought by a man in her own town. Before night her children were all far away. . . She wrung her hands in anguish, and exclaimed, "Gone! All gone! Why don't God kill me?" Instances of this kind are of daily, yea, of hourly occurrence.”(Brent 3.8) these occurrences in other books back up Douglass’s claim that slavery can led people to insanity. Through Douglass’s writing, the reader learns of how slavery takes its toll, not just on the slaves, but on everyone involved. Even the purest soul is destroyed, both the slave and the slave

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