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 in order to emphasize that it was hard for Douglass to swallow and digest the painful sorrow that it caused thousands of African Americans.
Utilizing ethos, logos, pathos, and empathy, Douglass paints the portrait of his life as complete as possible, laying bare the horrors of slavery and calling for action. He creates a narrative flow that encapsulates the reader into himself, and forces them through the hell he crawled through to give them these few but full pieces of paper. All the anger, pain, hope, desire, bravery, and fear. Every emotion, every lashing, every aching step is summarized and imprinted into the reader for the sake of humanity’s collective soul, and for the salvation and deliverance of those in bondage. Had Frederick Douglass not have the strong grasp on literature, we might not ever have had such a complete picture of slavery, and might not have solved the issue as completely as we
During a time of civil unrest caused by racial tensions throughout the country preceding the Civil War, men who were born into captivity and slavery but rose above their background to become a prominent member in their community calling for social reform sometimes wrote what is referred to as a slave narrative. Each author wrote their autobiography for their own reasons, such as proving to the public that they were once a common slave or simply telling their story. Nonetheless, whether intentional or not, these authors often successfully advocated a case against slavery through employing rhetoric to convince both the white and colored audiences that change was needed. Two prominent authors of such slave narratives, Frederick Douglass and Olaudah
Dana tries to pull away, angry she sinks the knife into Rufus’s side. As this argument ensues, Rufus is holding her arm, in an instant Dana starts to hear a man’s voice saying her name. That man is Kevin, her husband; she is now back in 1976. This is where the true meaning of Kindred takes shape. It is the point where we understand that the author, Octavia Butler wants us to know that the pain by slave owners in the antebellum south is still relevant today.
The Lion talks about how he is being mistreated by the man similarly Frederick Douglass has been able to write history from the viewpoint of the Lion or the underdog. In addition, Douglass focuses heavily on the physiological aspect of slavery. How it affected his mind while he was on the plantation. He heard the cries of slaves being whipped and he has seen the blood and the scars. Though he was a self-taught scholar, Douglass has been able to use his emotions and writing to influence his success in the abolitionist
From this, derives a bond with the reader that pushes their understanding of the evil nature of slavery that society deemed appropriate therefore enhancing their understanding of history. While only glossed over in most classroom settings of the twenty-first century, students often neglect the sad but true reality that the backbone of slavery, was the dehumanization of an entire race of people. To create a group of individuals known for their extreme oppression derived from slavery, required plantation owner’s of the South to constantly embedded certain values into the lives of their slaves. To talk back means to be whipped. To fail to do work to a respectable level means to be sold to another plantation and ripped away from one’s family.
There has always been a divided world with many different stories behind each division.Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, was a known humorist, journalist, novelist and lecturer. Growing up in Hannibal, Missouri, young Clemens witnessed many hardships in life, from slavery to death since Missouri was a slave state, and disease was very common around this time. Though he had been reassured that chattel slavery was an institution approved by God, he carried with him many memories of cruelty and sadness that he would reflect upon in his maturity. He believed that a powerful central church favored the privileged nobility and unjustly took advantage of the common man and exemplifies unfairness in public punishment to common men , injustice and social inequality and ignorance of the people and nobility in his novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, which he published in 1889. In the political and social satire A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain demonstrates his excessive pride and glory for political, economic, and technology advances of his time by developing an interesting plot in which an 19th century mechanic travels back into the time of a cruel feudalistic Camelot and attempts to modernize and improve it.
These divisions crippled France’s government and economy, and incited those of the lower class to revolt and attempt to balance the divide. In his novel As I Lay Dying William Faulkner plays heavily upon this theme. In the novel, the primary protagonists are the Bundrens, an impoverished family living in the rural South who are constantly being put in bad situations. Additionally, they are consistently looked down upon by those around them for their seemingly uncultured manner. Faulkner parodies the struggles of impoverished southern families in As I Lay Dying in order to call attention to the imbalance of societal ideals between people of different socioeconomic statuses in the United States during the 1920s.
In the play, Loomis is a central figure that has many complex sides to his character. The idea of the enslavement of Loomis is central to the plays theme. Loomis characcter in general refers to the idea of having no air to survive in society. Nevertheless, the post slavery freedom of Loomis refers to many African Americans feeling of being lost in a society that has left them behind. Loomis was torn from his family like countless of African Americans during slavery and is in search of his wife, Martha.
Chopin is a forward thinking author who wrote for women and minorities. Racism and gender bias are problems that have continued to persist in our society despite activism attempting to rid our world of it. Identity is another problem many people have trouble muddling through. Chopin tackles relevant issues she witnessed in her lifetime of racism, gender bias, and identity issues utilizing the literary elements of foreshadowing, irony, symbolism, figures of speech, misleading of the reader, imagery, and setting; the literary devices assist in emphasizing the expectations Armand feels he must live up to because of the responsibility of his wealthy, powerful name by exacting a harsh rule on his slaves, commanding absolute supremacy over women,