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Frederick Douglass Speech Analysis

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“After apologizing for his ignorance, and reminding the audience that slavery was a poor school for the human intellect and heart, he proceeded to narrate some of the facts in his own history as a slave, and in the course of his speech gave utterance to many noble thoughts and thrilling reflections. (Preface.4)” In this quote, Frederick Douglass is giving a big speech in front of an even bigger audience. This is one of Douglass’s earlier speeches, so he hadn’t had much practice when it came to public announcements. In the quote, Douglass is simply trying to inform the audience of the education that slaves and blacks, in general, are given. Douglass tries to tell his audience that they are not dumb or retarded, they are plainly uneducated and the slaves have know one to blame for this but their …show more content…

Frederick Douglass has a deep understanding of power and how it plays a huge role in his life along with everyone else. In his quotes as well as in his narrative, “The life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass tells his people and informs the world merely how important power can be in life. The definition of power from the Merriam Webster dictionary is, “ possession of control, authority, or influence over others”. When talking about power it can be thought as a vastly broad term, with many different aspects that are looked at from all types of different perspectives. With all this being said concerning the matter power and how it can be looked at, the way Frederick Douglass looked at power was from three different perspectives. The three different perspective being power through education, religion, and suppression power

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