Frederick Douglass wrote his narrative as a freeman, therefore, he is able to reflect on his life as a slave and decode the cryptic artifice of his former slave owners. Douglass lived a harsh life in the south before he made his valiant escape to the north, in order to evade further physical and mental torture. Therefore, Douglass is able to understand what it is like to be an invisible entity with a lack of identity, on physical earth. Metaphors are like string that Douglass uses to weave together a cohesive argument to support the eradication of slavery. As Douglass reminisces on his life he states that he “was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery...” (Douglass) Slavery, in this instance, is taken out of its literal context and liquefied …show more content…
Douglass further explores this idea when he mentions that “No words, no tears, no prayers, from his glory victim, seemed to move his iron heart form its blood purpose.” (Douglass) The repetition of the word “no “displays the concrete and unmovable morals and beliefs of slave owners. The hearts of slave owners, overtime, became cold and hardened by their immoral acts, which is shown through Douglass’s comparison of the slave owner’s heart to iron. Iron is typically utilized to make strong structures such as buildings due to the fact that is a material that is strong and unable to be broken with the bare hands of humans. Within the human body the most vital organ is the heart; it pumps blood throughout the whole body, without a healthy heart, a person is unable to live. As opposed to pumping blood, the hearts of slave owners pumped iron throughout the entirety of their bodies ultimately causing their whole state of being to be stone cold and lifeless. Slave owners, even in their actions, were mechanical in the way they completed their everyday actions and constantly abused slaves without the slightest twinge of remorse. Slavery froze human emotion and made society as whole frostbite and numb to its negative effects; it was not until the 14th amendment was enacted that warmth and returned back to America. Douglass accentuates the fact slave owners are halt the progression of society, as a whole, through their refusal to allow African Americans
The autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written in 1845 in Massachusetts, narrates the evils of slavery through the point of view of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass is a slave who focuses his attention into escaping the horrors of slavery. He articulates his mournful story to anyone and everyone, in hopes of disclosing the crimes that come with slavery. In doing so, Douglass uses many rhetorical strategies to make effective arguments against slavery. Frederick Douglass makes a point to demonstrate the deterioration slavery yields from moral, benevolent people into ruthless, cold-hearted people.
Douglass uses paradox to demonstrate that slavery degragrates the slaverholder. When Douglass under Mr. Sever’s care he described that: “He was less cruel, less profane… He whipped, but seemed to take no pleasure in it. ”(Douglass 24). Most slaveholders are characterized to be cruel and inhuman because of the whipping and the way they treated the slaves.
Douglass encountered multiple harsh realities of being enslaved. For example, the ex-slave was practically starved to death by his masters on multiple occasions. In fact, “[He was] allowed less than a half of a bushel of corn-meal per week, and very little else... It was not enough for [him] to subsist upon... A great many times [he had] been nearly perishing with hunger” (pg 31).
Douglass is a African American that was a slave and did a Narrative about his time being a slave and in his Narrative he “threw light” at the American slave system. African American slave Frederick Douglass lived through a time of racism and how slavery was a natural thing to do but was a very awful thing. And slavery is when families who had colored skin were separated and sold of to a person that can do anything to them, the slave is pretty much like the slaveholder’s property. And in this essay I will talk about how Douglass’s position differs from those who supported slavery and also I will be talking about How Douglass used his Narrative to share his position. How Douglass “throws light” on the American Slave system is by showing
Group Essay on Frederick Douglass “That this little book may do something toward throwing light on the American slave system”, and that Frederick Douglass does in his eponymous autobiography. Douglass throws light by dispelling the myths of the slave system, which received support from all parts of society. To dispel these myths Douglass begins to construct an argument composed around a series of rhetorical appeals and devices. Douglass illustrates that slavery is dehumanizing, corrupting, and promotes Christian hypocrisy. Using telling details, Douglass describes the dehumanizing effects of the slave system which condones the treatment of human beings as property.
He proclaims that "…While we are…living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!" By showing the mundanity of the slave, Douglass shows the audience that the slaves are human and therefore unable to be considered property. He forces his audience to examine their own lives and realize their similarities to the slaves and the hypocrisy of slavery. He doesn't give his audience a chance to disagree with his stance on slavery because he makes such a blunt argument. Douglass asks again, "Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man?
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.
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.
“One who is a slaveholder at heart never recognizes a human being in a slave” (Angelina Grimke). This quote was created to show the effect that slavery had on not only the slave, but the slaveholder. The slaveholder would dehumanize the slave to the point where the human was no longer recognizable; instead, the slave was property. Throughout this autobiography, Frederick Douglass uses language to portray the similarities and differences between the two sides. He allows the reader to spend a day in the life of a slave to see the effects from it.
By appealing to the emotions of the reader, Frederick Douglass can build his argument of how awful slavery was and how the slave owners used Christianity to justify what they did. In the book, Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, the author uses his language to bring meaning to what he is writing. He creates an emotional connection to the reader using pathos, and builds his argument using the credibility of others, using ethos. In his book he uses his words to prove his argument to the reader of how the slave owners would use Christianity to justify slavery and violence, and how slavery affected everyone who was
Frederick Douglass, born a slave and later the most influential African American leader of the 1800s, addresses the hypocrisy of the US of maintaining slavery with its upheld ideals being freedom and independence on July 4th, 1852. Douglass builds his argument by using surprising contrasts, plain facts, and provocative antithesis. Introducing his subject, Douglass reminds his audience about the dark side of America for slaves, in sharp, surprising contrasts with the apparent progressivity within the nation. He first notices “the disparity,” that “the sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and deaths to me,” as an African-American former slave. It is surprising for the audience to hear that the Sun does not bring him any prosperity, that the Sun, the source of life on earth, brings him destruction.
Him comparing other slaves, men, to wild beasts shows how the slaves were horribly treated and demoralized. Douglass also shows how even a slave's mind can be corrupted into believing they are less than human and how he feels that African Americans are not equal to Whites and how they are seen more like animals than humans. Douglass’s use of similes could persuade a reader to join the abolition movement, if they come to understand the conditions that Douglass is comparing. Frederick Douglass’s narrative consists of figurative language. His figurative language is intended to catch the eye and an emotional response of the reader.
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’s narrative provides a first hand experience into the imbalance of power between a slave and a slaveholder and the negative effects it has on them both. Douglass proves that slavery destroys not only the slave, but the slaveholder as well by saying that this “poison of irresponsible power” has a dehumanizing effect on the slaveholder’s morals and beliefs (Douglass 40). This intense amount of power breaks the kindest heart and changes the slaveholder into a heartless demon (Douglass 40). Yet these are not the only ways that Douglass proves what ill effect slavery has on the slaveholder. Douglass also uses deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion to present the negative effects of slavery.
Thus, in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass is able to represent slaves as dehumanized property with the sole purpose of working their masters land until the day they die. Douglass also successfully represents slaves as intelligent people who wish to learn and begin to see the world for themselves, not through the eyes of a slave master. Douglass illustrated both sides of the spectrum of slave life, being deprived of knowledge and having, although against the rules, access to material to learn, to provide a distinction between how slaves are handled and how they truly