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Frederick Douglass Use Of Pathos In The Heroic Slave

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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 narrates in his autobiography, The Heroic Slave, a time when he was sent to labor on an Eastern Shore plantation. There, he gives an example of a time when he fought against a harsh overseer named Covey, who decided that by breaking the boy’s body would correlate to also breaking his spirit. Covey may have wanted to crush Frederick’s spirit by mercilessly beating him, but Douglass wanted to stand his ground. To vividly grasp us into his story of perseverance and courage, he effectively uses three strategies: pathos, imagery, and anecdotes. The use of pathos in this piece is highly effective on the terms that it grabs the reader 's heart from their chest and holds it until the very end. This nonfictional piece takes readers back to a time in America that was hard and painful to hear about, and vivid language puts the reader in young Douglass’s shoes through all of his pain and suffering. An example of
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