Frederick Douglas's Narrative

These poems, “London, 1802” written by William Wordsworth, and in “Douglass” written by Paul Laurence Dunbar, call to a person to help their country in their time of suffering. In “London, 1802”, the narrator calls John Milton to help England in their time of sorrow and for him to return their happiness. “Give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.” (line 8) Whilst in “Douglass”, as the title of the poem implies, calls to Frederick Douglass, who was a famous intellect and civil rights promoter. I will give some key information to help with the understanding of these two poems written by great authors.

The auto-biography “An American Slave” of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass is about the life of a life of a slave who eventually became free due to his advantage of education. Douglass discussed his experience of being born into slavery and escaping and becoming the symbol of strength and hero he is known as today. He, in detail, explains how contradicting the Constitution and the actual society in that time period were to each other. Douglass’ purpose of writing this novel was to not only tell his story but to also express his attitudes towards the “American Promise” and the “American Individual”. In the novel Douglass used similes, metaphors and imagery to convey his personal attitudes about the American Promise and the American Individual

Through Frederick Douglass’ autobiography you are able to see slavery in the 1800’s through a slave's point of view. When writing out his autobiography Douglass has the intentional goal to open people's eyes to slavery and its effects. Douglass wanted to show what the slave industry consisted of and how he managed to break free from the deadly cycle. I personally believe that through Douglass’ writing he was able to obtain his goal of enlightening his readers on slavery. Through Douglass’ writing we see how he witnessed of the hardening of hearts of his slave owners.

“Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me. When I went there, she was pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. There was no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within reach. Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities” (Douglass, 252).

Frederick Douglass believes America has been altered by a mass hysteria, slavery, thus affecting its ideals, values, culture, practices, or myths. At the time, no one knew better when it came to slavery. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass depicts certain instances where he exploits the American perspective of slavery rather than challenging it. To begin with, Frederick Douglass intertwines witnessing graphic events with his personal experiences to represent how slave owners exploited African American female slaves.

He shows in the narrative how whites owners of the plantations or overseers, treated plantation hands as chattels. They used violence to keep slaves ineffective, immobilized, degraded and less than humans, and maintained their status as pieces of mere property. Apart from being subjected to gruesome cruelties, blacks faced array of difficulties. Douglass portrays the difficulties of black slaves throughout his narrative. The oppression and exploitation of white masters were inevitable a life under slavery.

Alexander Vega Mr. Shanebeck AP US History 4 November 2016 The Slave Life In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass relates his encounters as a slave. The subtle elements the abhorrences of experiencing childhood with a plantation, being subjected to extraordinary prejudice, and fleeing to freedom.

In life, humans have many different traits that describes themself. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass shows life a slave in the nineteenth century. In the story, Douglass brings us back in time to show his experiences of the hypocrisy of human nature. Disputes with Douglass and his masters are seen throughout the story showing both the good and bad traits of human nature. American literature of the nineteenth century reveals that human nature embodies contrasting traits such as love and cruelty through the uses of literary devices.

In the 1800’s slavery was a major issue in the United States which was dealt with on a daily basis in the South. The “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” Fedrick Douglass himself expresses the differences in the lives of black people in the North and in the South. The South was known to have some of the wealthiest white people in the states, that wealth and power they had was due to the many slaves they had working in their plantations. In the other hand, the North had black people getting paid for their labor, their black people were free. They were treated like human beings and even though they might still encounter problems with some of the whites these problems where nothing compared to the retched life blacks had in the South.

In the "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself” (1174), Douglass introduces to his audience many circumstances. Grief, sorrow, and emptiness during his life were just some of the adversities he faced. He was a slave deprived of all individual rights and was sold to many different plantation owners. Douglass eventually remains true to himself and overcomes the struggle by becoming an anti-slavery activist. I think sentimentalism is the tendency to have or express feelings to such events that occur in your lifetime.

Rhetorical Analysis of "How to Read and Write" (Frederick Douglass) During an era of slavery, Jim Crow Laws, and no hopes of abolition, Frederick Douglass invites his audience into a world where slavery enters the kindest of souls, and purifies the soul to have nothing but hatred and anger. In the empowering narrative, “Learning to Read and Write”, Douglass enunciates the cruelty of slavery and its pervasive impacts, with the help of Douglass’ vast journey to ultimately gain his thinking skills through reading and writing. Douglass expresses these actions with elaborate metaphors and immaculate details that keeps the audience on their toes to witness what happens next. Growing up as a slave, Douglass became curious about the art of reading