The author’s purpose in this story is to inform readers and expose the horrors of slavery. The purpose is indeed worthwhile because it covers the emotional and physical effects of slavery. From writing this narrative, Frederick Douglass was able to express his joy at reclaiming his freedom and truly reveal his hardships. As an abolitionist, he wrote and spoke out about the hard life slaves endured hoping to inspire many and abolish slavery forever. Frederick Douglas wanted to get his message out and share his story as to how he freed himself mentally as well as
For 365 years African American slaves helped thrive the New World into America. They contributed in building the new nation into an economic powerhouse; sadly, slaves get no credit for their outstanding work in helping shape our country. Slaves have to undergo harsh living and working environments every day of their entire lives. Brutality underlays the whole relationship of a slave and his or her owner. He writes to people who are educated about what happened when slavery was accepted, and to those who are afraid to fight back within their own problems.
Frederick Douglass was a great writer, but he wasn’t always. He was an escaped slave who used that in his speeches as a topic to gain the attention of his audience. His audience was a seemingly sympathetic one and got to them through rhetorical questions. Douglass wanted to convey the message that there are many changes that need to be made.
Throughout the narrative Douglass uses rhetorical imagery in order to provide readers with an insight to the true horrors of slavery. In chapter one of the narrative, Douglass speaks of the time when he would witness his aunt being tortured and beat by the master. He writes about seeing her “covered in blood” with “a whip upon her naked back”. Douglass uses and explains this experience in detail in order to paint a picture in the readers’ head and give them a firsthand experience to the harsh life of a slave. By using blood as an example of what he sensed, he is bringing in a word that is emotionally tied.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass tells the remarkable story of Frederick Douglass as he witnesses the dehumanizing effects of slavery on both slaves and their masters and works to be acknowledged as a human being. Douglass not only documents his journey from childhood to manhood, but also documents the mental and emotional the highs and lows of his emotions as he bounces between slavery and what he believes to be freedom. In the passage about his escape and arrival in New York, Douglass’ emotions regress from feelings of joy to feelings of emptiness. In the excerpt, Frederick Douglass recounts his transition from feelings of excitement to feelings of fear and loneliness during his escape and his arrival in New York using figurative language, diction, and repetition.
In addition to the physical punishments imposed upon the slaves by their master, Douglass discusses the physical exhaustion slaves experienced in order to further connect the readers to the slaves as individuals. He explains the extensive hours of labor many slaves endured throughout their lifetimes by depicting the conditions he worked through. During his time with Mr. Covey, Douglass, “worked in all weathers, it was never too hot or too cold; it would never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order the day than of the day” (Douglass 38). In this description, Douglass did not directly say his work was exhausting.
Frederick Douglass writes his narrative to educate the reader on the horrors of southern slavery. Douglass writes with the purpose of turning the reader against slavery and fight for abolishment. Throughout Frederick Douglass’s narrative he crafts figurative language such as imagery, repetition, and similes to shed light on the horrors of slavery and to get people to fight against slavery. To give the reader a detailed picture Frederick Douglass utilizes imagery. Douglass uses imagery in great detail when describing the beating of Aunt Hester, Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely naked.
Frederick Douglass was a well known advocate against slavery, who used his own experience when enslaved to demonstrate the immorality of slavery. However, he illustrates in this autobiographical essay that his escape from slavery was not only a victorious experience but also a fearful one. By changing between his states of mind after he became a freeman Douglass demonstrates that freedom is not simply a satisfying victory but also a distrustful one. He uses this experience to underscore his point his point, that the situation of a fugitive slave is much worse than many citizens, even abolitionists, believed. WHY
Hunger for freedom “I have observed this in my experience of slavery,-that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free”(Douglass,pg.104). Have you ever been told that the only thing that you are good for is for free labor and that being alive is a privilege because of you honestly not even worth as much as you think because you 're not even counted as a human? That was pretty much what the three fifths compromise were saying, but let 's not get into that. What Douglass is trying to express in this passage is that once you get a taste of freedom and independence, you want more and more of it, but it is not as easy are just saying I want but more of the challenges you have to overcome all throughout his life as an African American slave ready to make a change in the world.
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
Frederick Douglass was an African-American social reformer, orator, abolitionist, writer, and statesman. He was born in February of 1818 and died on February 20, 1895. He worked as a human rights activists and was the first African-American citizen to hold a high United States government rank. He worked to abolish slavery in the United states although the odds were against him. He was beaten for speaking about his views on slavery He was born into slavery in Maryland and escaped around the year 1838.
The extremely brutal and dehumanizing effects of slavery can shape one's life forever .Throughout Frederick Douglass narrative , he vividly describes his personal experiences as a slave, and portrays the devastating and dehumanizing effects of slavery. Douglass travels through many plantations, however while with Colonel Lloyd, Mr. Auld, Mr. Hugh, and Mr.Covey Douglass experiences how slaves are treated like animals, how education aided him in understanding life as a slave, and the cruelty, and brutality of slavery.