Olaudah Equiano begins his journal entry by describing the ocean and the slave ship, which were the first things he saw when he was taken onto the slave ship. He was fascinated by them, but he soon realized that it was going to be a horrific journey. Equiano’s first thought was that they were going to kill him, for they had a different skin tone, bore long hair, and spoke a different language. The crew beat Olaudah when he refused to eat. The conditions under the deck where Equiano lived were dreadful: people were packed together so tightly that they were fighting for breathing room. This compactness caused some people to die of sickness and disease. Once there were three slaves who committed suicide by drowning themselves in the sea even though
The publication of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was monumental, a rhetorical strategy in itself. Frederick Douglass establishes his credibility by being one of the first African slaves to write of the brutal nature of slavery. He also writes on a personal level, connecting to those who had the same experiences and appealing to those yearning to learn of the situation. Douglass’ personal affiliation with slavery can be seen at times when he shares that “slavery would not always be able to hold [him] within its foul embrace.” (Douglass
In Chapter 1 and 2 of “Creating Black Americans,” author Nell Irvin Painter addresses an imperative issue in which African history and the lives of Africans are often dismissed (2) and continue to be perceived in a negative light (1). This book gives the author the chance to revive the history of Africa, being this a sacred place to provide readers with a “history of their own.” (Painter 4)
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.
Slavery is wicked and gory and monstrous and that is well known today but during the time it was well known. In Frederick Douglass’s, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass tries to persuade everyone to stop the madness and recognize how awful slavery is; to do this he uses comparison and realization leading to the reader being blown away by this one slave’s life story.
Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and accomplished orator, provides in his autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, a definitive and first-hand account of slavery in America in the mid-Nineteenth Century. This short piece of American literature is filled with rhetorical knowledge, and Douglass uses his remarkable sense of rhetoric and subtle literary techniques, with plenty of ethos, logos, and pathos, to bring his message of hope for change to an entire nation pitted against him. Combining his unfortunately intimate knowledge of slavery and his literary abilities, Douglass does what all slaves wanted: exposing a nation’s great sin and providing the evidence for its salvation.
Christianity was, to the slaves of America, (something with a double meaning). In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Frederick Douglass, the author, argues about how Christianity can mean one thing to a free white man and something completely different to a black slave. The slave owners follow the ‘Christianity of the Land’ while the slaves follow the ‘Christianity of Christ.’ Frederick begins to build his credibility to a, white, northern, audience by including documents from trustworthy writers and by getting into personal experiences through his writing.
Through deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion, Frederick Douglass shows the readers what negative effects slavery has on the slaveholders themselves. Douglass successfully shows that slavery makes the slaveholder bitter and brings ultimate sadness into their lives. In addressing the harmful effects of slavery on the slaveholders, he makes one reconsider their moral righteousness and better comprehend the difference between humanity and atrocity. Though there are many other ways that slavery could have been harmful to the slaveholder, Frederick Douglass has shown that these ways given were true and has proven that they were indeed negative effects on the
“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. Within “My Bondage and My Freedom,” Douglass uses diction throughout the autobiography to display his tone of understanding, and how slavery affects both the slave and the slave holder which causes the mood of frustration for the reader.
In this paper the short story by Olaudah Equiano Life of Olaudah Equiano and The Journal of Christopher Columbus by Christopher Columbus will be compared. I will go over various points such as descriptive details, emotional appeal, and word choice to find what the author's purpose is in these two different narratives.
Human rights is defined as “the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are considered to be entitled, often held to include the rights to life, liberty, equality, and a fair trial, freedom from slavery and torture, and freedom of thought and expression.” This isn’t what Equiano or Rowlandson were allowed. Though both had different situations, they had many similarities as well. The two narratives, Equiano and Rowlandson, are similar in that they both were captured for money, but different because of their attitude towards their individual situation.
This was the corruption of the white men of that time who were afraid of the truth surfacing and everyone finding out the truth about slavery. Equiano was able to share a little detail about how slaves were treated by saying that “[he] was first transported to Barbados and then Virginia, where he was purchased by a local planter,” (512). This action shows the reader that the slaves were treated as a form of property that was sold for labor. Equiano was never given the chance to gain the same freedom as a white man, he had to work for money. He goes on to say "I was now exceedingly miserable, and thought myself worse off than any of the rest of my companions ... In this state, I was constantly grieving ... and wishing for death rather than anything else" (525). Equiano explains the horrible living and working conditions that the slaves have to go through every day of their lives. The slaves were considered to be the outsiders of society from the superior and dominate race, also known as, the white man. Equiano then goes on to say that “It is not enough that we are torn from our country and friends, to toil for your luxury and lust of gain? Must every tender feeling be
From 1807 in Britain to 1865 in the United States the process and finalization of the abolishing of slavery began with Olaudah Equiano and William Wilberforce.
Individuals can empathize and grow from learning from the past experiences of others. The pre-civil war era in United States was a time where many humans were mistreated both psychologically and physically. Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave gives readers the opportunity to understand exactly how America’s history shaped modern-day social norms and behaviors. Douglass’ personal account not only positively influenced the abolitionist movement, but raised questions of morality and human rights. The story of Frederick Douglass’ life shows exactly the repercussions of humans unjustly mistreating other humans. It is natural human tendency to act in one’s own self-interest, and the era where slavery
He describes the anguish, anxiety and despair that surrounded him on the slave ship with vivid detail. He leaves no detail spared as he describes slaves throwing themselves off of the boat seeing death as a better alternative than the fate that awaits them. Equino uses imagery in his text to show the reader the anguish they felt and appeals to the readers emotions to elicit a response to the wrongdoings of the white men that had enslaved them and kept them in such horrible conditions. For example he writes, “One day they had taken a number of fishes; and when they had killed and satisfied themselves with as many as they thought fit, to our astonishment who were on the deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat, as we expected, they tossed the remaining fish into the sea again…”(pg. 173) this shows the reader the cruelty of the men on the boat and makes the reader feel an emotion. This contrast with the more ethos driven writings of Frederick