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Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

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To tell a story a person uses a unique style to further advance the experience, and what their message is. In the 1845 autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, he talks about his thoughts and experiences as a slave. From the passage, we can find the third paragraph to differ in style in order to distinguish the message from the rest of the passage. He uses a collection of persuasive devices and imagery, to get his message across strong and clear for readers. With a strong presence of pathos, symbolism, and rhetorical questions in the third paragraph, it helped build and reinforce his main idea of the passage.
Writing with the influence of pathos, Douglass is able to connect to readers emotions and empathy. When describing his slavery to an empty audience he says, “I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery.” …show more content…

In a cry of desperation, he asks aloud, “Is there any God?” (56-57) The use of this question shows he’s vulnerable and desperate. As well as allowing him to connect to the religious audience that believes in God, causing them to question if slavery is what God would condone. They start to think if what they’re doing is right in God’s eyes which is a valuable thing in the minds of much of the audience he’s speaking to. He follows that question up with, “Why am I a slave?” (57) He wants his readers to ask themselves why they believe that this certain group of humans are deserving of being labeled slaves. He wants them to think about their choices and really know if this is the moral or the right thing to do. If they don’t even know why they’re making him a slave then they could change their opinions on the topic of his freedom. He won’t stand by and let people accept what society has told them about slaves. Douglass wants them to come to their own decisions about slavery and all the comes with

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