ipl-logo

Frederick Douglas's Narrative

583 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Role of women in incidents in the life of a slave girl

The document Frederick Douglass Narrative, excreted from his 1845 autobiography, is about his life as a child slave on a plantation. Vividly describing his childhood in his opening chapters, readers get the full effect of what not only happened to Douglass, but what was also the norm for most of American slaves. He wrote about his knowledge and experiences as a child slave, and gave readers the true meaning of what slave families went through, in comparison to what was published in the media by whites. One of the main arguments presented in Douglass’s autobiography is the way women are treated and how they live as a family. From a very young age, before he was even a year old, Douglass was separated from his African mother, Harriet Bailey, …show more content…

Douglass comments on this custom, “For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child.” Illness soon took Bailey’s life when Douglass was just seven. She was gone long …show more content…

Her physical traits were portrayed as unattractive to justify that white men did not find African American women attractive and that there was no sexual contact between a master and slave. From Douglass’s autobiography and many other sources we know that this was not true and actually happened quite frequently. Commenting on the law about children following in their mothers footsteps, Douglass writes, “This is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable; for by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father.” The main purpose for her creation was to use as evidence that slave women were content and even happy to be slaves, and thus, that slavery was a humane

Show More
Related
93 Words | 1 Pages

This passage appears in Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Douglass narrates his disgust with slavery and more specifically how his grandmother was wrongfully treated and the overall ingratitude slave-owners had toward her. Douglas explains how although his Grandmother cared so much for everyone else all through her life yet she got nothing but torture in return. In the end she is left alone with just loneliness of what then were distant memories of her family which had been ruined through the malicious acts of

Read More
554 Words | 3 Pages

Douglass wanted to create a new identity for himself after witnessing some of the events in his life. I agree with Vince Brewton’s viewpoint that Aunt Hester had one of the major

Read More
526 Words | 3 Pages

The Narrative of Frederick Douglass is a very great perspective for people of today to understand what it was like to be a slave in the 1800’s. It tells the story of the slave Frederick Douglass and how he began as an uneducated slave and was moved around from many different types of owners, cruel or nice, and how his and other slaves presences changed the owners, and also how he educated himself and realized that he shouldn’t be treated so poorly It was at the point later in the book that I realized how some slaves might have felt during slavery in the 1800’s. When Douglass is sent away to Mr.Covey he is treated pretty badly but eventually he stands up to Mr.Covey and demands that he stopped being treated like an animal.

Read More
1080 Words | 5 Pages

In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.

Read More
1319 Words | 6 Pages

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818. Douglass wrote “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself” in 1845. This narrative was written to inform readers how the lives of slaves were, and the harsh treatment they experienced. Within the narrative we see how the slave system was corrupted. It was clear throughout the narrative that there were specific perpetrators, victims, and bystanders within the slave system.

Read More
761 Words | 4 Pages

The Known World, a fictional historical novel by Edward P. Jones, and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, an autobiography written by it titular Frederick Douglass, are both texts that portray life on a plantation in the 19th century, during the age of slavery in the United States. They have some similarities as a result of the setting. However, both works were created with different purposes in mind, resulting in many differences between the two. As an autobiography, Frederick Douglass’s piece is much more personal and thus more subjective than that of Jones’s. Douglass describes many details with strong adjectives.

Read More
561 Words | 3 Pages

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; an autobiography consisting of Frederick Douglass’ search for freedom from the slaveholders who kept many African Americans captive, allowed many to understand the pain and misery in the midst of slavery. Published in 1845, Douglass conveyed the lives of African Americans and how they have suffered a great deal of pain and discomfort through a provocative tone . Throughout his autobiography, Douglass used countless metaphors to portray his life. From Mr. Plummer to Mrs. Auld, the reader could better perceive the text by visualizing the metaphors that Douglass has used. Using Frederick’s writing, youthful audiences can gain knowledge about slavery and its effects.

Read More
498 Words | 2 Pages

The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass shows the imbalance of power between slaves and their masters. In his book, Douglass proves that slavery is a destructive force not only to the slaves, but also for the slaveholders. “Poison of the irresponsible power” that masters have upon their slaves that are dehumanizing and shameless, have changed the masters themselves and their morality(Douglass 39). This amount of power and control in contact with one man breaks the kindest heart and the purest thoughts turning the person evil and corrupt. Douglass uses flashbacks that illustrate the emotions that declare the negative effects of slavery.

Read More
229 Words | 1 Pages

. He describes the process of planting, cultivating and picking cotton. He describes the other slaves that he worked with on the plantation. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave written by himself he starts off by describing what's like for all slaves instead of just his own personal experience, he then talks about being sold, learning how to read and his escape. The importance of all three of these narratives is it gives three different accounts of what being a slave was like.

Read More
1105 Words | 5 Pages

She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone”(Douglass 3). Point of view is used to show that Douglass as a child not knowing his

Read More
392 Words | 2 Pages

The legendary abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass was one of the most important social reformers of the nineteenth century. Being born into slavery on a Maryland Eastern Shore plantation to his mother, Harriet Bailey, and a white man, most likely Douglass’s first master was the starting point of his rise against the enslavement of African-Americans. Nearly 200 years after Douglass’s birth and 122 years after his death, The social activist’s name and accomplishments continue to inspire the progression of African-American youth in modern society. Through his ability to overcome obstacles, his strive for a better life through education, and his success despite humble beginnings, Frederick Douglass’s aspirations stretched his influence through

Read More
432 Words | 2 Pages

Douglas, Frederick.(1845).”Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas”. Boston Anti-Slavery Office The use of music in slavery gave the slaves antidote to their melancholy. The music created an identity for themselves Since the slaves that were deprived of their rights.

Read More
973 Words | 4 Pages

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass’s autobiography in which Douglass goes into detail about growing up as a slave and then escaping for a better life. During the early-to-mid 1800s, the period that this book was written, African-American slaves were no more than workers for their masters. Frederick Douglass recounts not only his personal life experiences but also the experiences of his fellow slaves during the period. This book was aimed at abolitionists, so he makes a point to portray the slaves as actual living people, not the inhuman beings that they are treated as. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slaves are inhumanly represented by their owners and Frederick Douglass shines a positive light

Read More
1574 Words | 7 Pages

Douglass uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling his audience how unfairly Douglass is treated and how white men or slaveholders take control of the life of a slave because in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass on page 1 paragraph 1 it says, The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.” What this piece of evidence is demonstrates is that Frederick Douglass did not even now his own birth and that he had to guess on what his master said and that his master knows more what Frederick knows about his life. Another way that Douglass’s uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling their audience how unfairly Frederick and many other slaves were treated because because in the Document “‘ Pro Slavery Arguments South’’ on paragraph 6 it says,”Southern slaveholders pro-slavery arguments defended the interest of the plantation owners against attempts by abolitionists, lower classes, and non-whites to institute a more equal social structure.”

Read More
1546 Words | 7 Pages

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in 1818 a runaway slave, a supporter of women 's rights, and probably the most prominent abolitionist and human rights leader of the nineteenth century. Douglass favored the use of political tactics to work for abolition. During the Civil War, he offer a suggestion to President Lincoln to let former slaves fight for the North, and helped organize two black regiments in Massachusetts. Douglass was committed to make the war a direct confrontation with slavery. A literate runaway slave, Douglass began his speaking career in 1841, when he delivered some extemporaneous remarks on his experiences under slavery at a Massachusetts antislavery convention.

Read More

More about Frederick Douglas's Narrative

Related Topics

Open Document