The Beginning Of An Affair By Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Devices

20) When Douglass is discussing how he was parted from his mother at an early age to prevent the mother from gaining affection, he is trying to demonstrate the cruelty of slave owners. How could someone have the heart and the audacity to separate a young child from their mother? Only slave owners. Douglass’s mother would escape in the night to go visit Douglass. Although he never had the chance to view the complexion of his mother, he loved her. The affection Douglass and his mother had for each other shows endearment, thus proving that whites are not the only ones with genuine feelings of attachment and love. Douglass mentions the first time he witnessed a brutal whipping of another slave, and it was his Aunt Hester. He depicts a very cruel image in the reader’s mind, using very descriptive details on the whipping of his aunt. He stated “Before he commenced to whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from the neck to the waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back entirely naked.” (pg 24) Douglass demonstrates yet again the non merciful consideration of the slave owners. In the Narrative Douglass states “....It struck me with

In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, in 1845, Douglass is reflecting on his experiences as a slave, as well as the known experiences of others, following his escape from bondage. He is making a plea to the Northerners who do not have a complete knowledge or understanding of the conditions of slavery in the South or are otherwise unopinionated in relation to it. In a later passage of the narrative, he focuses on the common beliefs of slave owners through a description of Mr. Hopkins, a former overseer he reported to. He reflects on this ideal that any problematic actions, or “misbehavior,” of slaves is awarded with abuse and punishment. Douglass includes concise and sarcastic rhetorical questions and responses in order to shed

Douglass’ describes the obsessive attention that his former master, Colonel Lloyd, paid to his horses. If the slaves in charge of caring for the horses made any mistakes, Lloyd would beat them up. Douglass uses irony here to show that Lloyd treats his animals better than he treats the human slaves. He states that while the slaves got little to no food, clothes, and a bed, the horses get much better

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.

Slavery is equally a mental and a physical prison. Frederick Douglass realized this follow-ing his time as both a slave and a fugitive slave. Douglass was born into slavery because of his mother’s status as a slave. He had little to go off regarding his age and lineage. In the excerpt of the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave,” Douglass discusses the horrors of being enslaved and a fugitive slave. Through Douglass’s use of figurative language, diction and repetition he emphasizes the cruelty he experiences thus allowing readers to under-stand his feelings of happiness, fear and isolation upon escaping slavery.

Hope and fear, two contradictory emotions that influence us all, convicted Frederick Douglass to choose life over death, light over darkness, and freedom over sin. Douglass, in Chapter ten, pages thirty-seven through thirty-nine, of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, utilizes various rhetorical techniques and tone shifts to convey his desperation to find hope in this time of misery and suffering. Mr. Covey, who Douglass has been sent to by his master to be broken, has succeeded in nearly tearing all of Douglass’s dreams of freedom away from him. To expound on his desires to escape, Douglass presents boats as something that induces joy to most but compels slaves to feel terror. Given the multiple uses of repetition, antithesis, indirect tone shifts, and various other rhetorical techniques, we can see Douglass relaying to his audience the hardships of slavery through ethos, the disheartening times that slavery brings, and his breakthrough of determination to obtain freedom.

Throughout the passage the rhetorical and stylistic choices Frederick Douglass used convey a disgust towards a character who's actions set forth a series of events and the likemindedness he hopes to acquire from his audience. Metaphors, parallelism and emotional appeal are examples of the strategic ways Frederick expresses his

In the Narrative Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, he uses this text to explain his purpose in “throwing light on the American slave system”, or show it for what it really is, as well as show his position on how he strongly believes slavery is an issue that needs to be addressed and how it differs from those who defended slavery, with experiences from his own life to support his argument.

He claimed “Nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper.” Douglass integrates his personal encounter to elaborate on what he had experienced and reveal how his mistress had started acting like a “real” slave-owner. With strict laws to abide by in the South, Douglass’ mistress is turning from ignorant to experience. Douglass continues to emphasize why his mistress did not want him to read and states “She seemed to think that here lay the danger. I have had her rush at me with a face made all up of fury, and snatch from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension.” By Douglass stating just how his mistress begun to take precautions of him being able to read, and how furious his mistress became, Douglass brings irony in his writing to convey to his audience that the same woman that provided for the unfortunate and aided the ones that needed it the most… is now restricting a slave from his freedom. Douglass transitions onto concluding the effects of slavery and how his mistress has been affected prior to and after the effects of slavery. He states “She was an apt woman; and a little experience soon demonstrated, to her satisfaction, that education and slavery were incompatible with each other.” Douglass recognizes how his mistress altered with “experience” of becoming a slave owner and his greater purpose is to reveal how it had brainwashed his

“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 Douglass’s earlier years as a slave, he held a more optimistic outlook on his situation. In particular, when Douglass learned to read he began reading documents that contained argument against slavery and in doing so, he became conscious of the true horror of slavery. He writes, “I often found myself regretting my own existence and wishing myself dead…” (ch. VII). However, he continues, saying “...and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself…”(ch. VII). Even upon realizing the evil around him, and despite times

Douglass’s descriptions of the slave trade were extremely vivid, from the details of how American’s viewed slaves, to the sounds of whips cracking and how a woman was encumbered by the weight of the child she carried and the chains that she wore. These details would bring readers to know what it was like to be in a slaves shoes at that time. His speech is driven by first had accounts of the degradations of slavery and would not be credible if it wasn’t for this fact. I believe that Douglass’s tone throughout the speech was hopeful, he enforced the cause of the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society with the hopes of making the United States more complete when slavery ended.

Because of the statuses of each person who attends Douglass’ school, they have a common ground to discuss with each other. Although Douglass is not technically a slave like most of the others learning from him, he still is in the lowest social tier and African American. Because of their corresponding similarities, the slaves and Douglass bond over their hardships while understanding what the others are going through. It is easy to sympathize with each other because they are in the same situation. During the time period this was written, society purposely made African American slaves feel like they didn’t belong and like they were outcasts. However, Douglass manages to bring them together and start their own community that is positive and forward thinking. Everyone was thrilled to go to their sessions with Douglass, “We loved each other, and to leave them at the close of the Sabbath was a sever cross indeed” (49). They were more than pleased to be there and looked forward to their time spent with him.

Douglass uses vivid imagery to describe the horrible events that occurred in slavery. For example in chapter one, Douglass says, " I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an

He shows his consistency of nature and the way he continually pursued an education while facing extreme odds. He is fair in the way he judges the slaveholders, expressing both their negative sides and showing that he can see the positives as well. When he describes in detail the change his mistress underwent from a “tender-hearted woman” to someone zealous for his ignorance he expresses his ability to be an objective observer. This objectiveness one of main foundations of Douglass’s Ethos, or ethical appeal.