Frederick Douglass Language Analysis

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass illustrates the harshness of slavery, the power of education/knowledge, and that slavery is detrimental to all those involved. On several occasions, Douglass illustrates the desire of the white man to keep slave “ignorant” (Douglass, 2012). Not allowing slaves to learn to read or write, publicly and cruelly punishing anyone that did. Not even allowing them the simple of their own birthday. To ever teach slave would ensure “the freedom of the slaves and the enslavement of the whites” (Douglass, 2012).

Douglass wanted other African Americans to see the world without the fuzzy restriction of old world ideas. Unlike Douglass , Rodriguez saw that reading and writing as a tool to empower oneself and that people that don't take advantage are the only ones to blame. In contrast Rodriguez wanted to make it harder for people of hispanic heritage to learn to read and write because of his strong stance on bilingual education and affirmative action by trying to rid the school system of bilingual

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass's battle with his master Covey is a turning point in his career as a slave in that he resolves to no longer be docile and subservient as a slave. In fighting back against Covey, Douglass frees his mind from the psychological effects of slavery. Douglass's battle with Covey marks the end of Douglass being obedient and not questioning the word of authority like he was brought up to do. Douglass vows that "the white man who expected to succeed in whipping, must also succeed in killing me." (Douglass, 83) By refusing the role of an obedient slave, Douglass also refuses the slave mindset and liberates himself.

Cycling Greed For centuries, humankind has suffered under the hand of greed. Disguised as merely providing or fulfilling one’s needs, greed slyly plagues and manipulates humankind with its narcissistic ways. In his book 12 Years a Slave, Solomon Northup shares his experience in humankind’s cycle of greed, despairing dependence, and slave owner’s justification of their wickedness. Tricked, kidnapped, and sold into slavery, Solomon Northup witnesses humankind’s greed.

This quote showed how they don’t care about Jim and how they just care about the money. Another quote “While slaveholders profit from slavery, the slaves themselves are oppressed, exploited, and physically and mentally abused. Jim is inhumanely ripped away from his wife and children. However, white slaveholders rationalize the oppression, exploitation, and abuse of black slaves by ridiculously assuring themselves of a racist stereotype, that black people are mentally inferior to white people, more animal than human.” (LitCharts).

He states that the Europeans are the ones that handled and perpetrated slavery and not the United States. Henry does not recognize the existing system that supports the issue of slavery. He states that it is not fair for the Negroes to go through the poverty and slavery in the society while other citizens of the country are living a good life even when they do not deserve it. The fruits of slavery as by the description purported by Henry are seen through poverty, anarchy, and imbecility that exist in the Spanish and Portuguese. According to him, slavery is inhuman, unjust, and intolerable.

Humans have come a long way, being able to create advanced technology, many different ways to communicate with one another, and many different ways to live, and each human in the world has a role in the world. Each human is unique and have many different traits that define one another. For example, in Frederick Douglass’s “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, written by Frederick Douglass himself, is a autobiography of his life growing up around slavery and his path to freedom, and also how becoming literate changed his whole perspective on the way he lived. Another example would be in Abraham Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address, where he discusses the fact that the civil war was unnecessary and also how the country should end the war

Oh, the world hath not a sweeter creature, she might lie by an emperor’s side and command him tasks. (Shakespeare 4.1.172-176) Iago’s marginalization causes Othello to repeatedly doubt himself and this results in his own personality completely faltering. While Othello used to be a dominant individual, believing the rumors from Iago causes his honor and confidence to fall apart. This transforms Othello into a dominated minority who lives under the manipulation of Iago.

In this way, Beloved exposes the trickery, dishonesty and the futility of the whites. The slave owners assumed that these slaves were their own property and assets which could be made, controlled, described and even changed. Schoolteacher, a representative of white supremacy, introduced beating, torture, humiliation for the slaves. He disapproved the way of living of the slaves: “He complained they ate too much, rested too much, talked too much, which was certainly true compared to him, because schoolteacher ate little, spoke less and rested not at

George also wished Harry had never been born. so he would be saved from the things his father suffered from

Let us begin with George, Celia’s understandably treacherous slave lover, and his unreasonable demands that set Celia’s case into motion. George’s actions are an example of the common frustration and desperation of slave men who had no control over the sexual abuse of their loved ones by white masters (McLaurin 139-140). His was a reaction to a smoldering attack upon his masculinity, an attack that was a direct result of the dehumanization upon which slavery rested. Because the South was a slave society, this master-slave relationship structure echoed throughout every other aspect of southern life (Faragher, 204 & 215). In Celia’s case, we see this truth through Virginia and Mary Newsom’s position of powerlessness.

As slavery became free in the north this soon disrupted the founding fathers beliefs of what slavery should be and this dismantled the nations stability to the core. Slaves were always beaten for any punishment to keep them in line. The founding fathers like this due to they can control the slaves out of fear. By corporal punishment spreading across America to the whites it was also the biggest thing slaves had that they were valuable to a point more Valuable than some white people which the founding fathers hated. They hated this because According to Russell he names several slaves that had killed their masters for over beating them and the resistant slaves a lot of the time was allowed to live sometime they weren’t even beaten (Pg.61-62).

The plight of the African Americans to abolish slavery and racial discrimination has left American history with a lot of lessons and ruminations regarding humanity. People, when left with power and authority, has the ability to oppress the weak, and to aggress the strong. This makes the divide stronger, and thus disunity to pervade within human society. This also shows that human frailty is a very powerful influence to humanity; the way that these frailties enable man to oppress another man, and the way that power makes man greedy for more, shows that humanity’s flaws is the same exact measure which can destroy it. The lessons the world has learned from the way that the African Americans have struggled for freedom and unity in the United States

Treating slaves as property affected slave owners mentally, but physically the consequence was endured by the slaves. Slave owners believed that an unmanageable slave was of no use to them as the slave owners believed that the slaves would be unhappy, “ He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy” (Pg 20). This mentality of power over the slaves created the need for slave owners to do harm to slaves in order to “protect” them.

Harriet Jacobs uses the character of Mr. Sands in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl to show that the institution of slavery corrupts the trust between slaves and freed whites. The power that Mr. Sands possess due to his standing as a slaveholder prevents Linda from trusting him completely despite his good nature and his relation to her children. Despite Mr. Sands being the father of her children, Linda does not trust him to provide her children with freedom, even after he pays a large sum to Dr. Flint to purchase them while proclaiming his intents for their emancipation. Jacobs includes this distrust to emphasize how a white father, no matter how good-natured he may be, in a slave society will always rank their illegitimate black children