Preview

Frederick Douglass

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1353 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Frederick Douglass
Narrative of Frederick Douglass Essay
The life of a slave can be an adventure, a hardship, a living nightmare, or all of the above. It all depends on the master that owns you and the environment those influences what needs to be done. In the South slaves had harder work to attend to and would be disciplined more than in the city. Violence was allowed because of the corrupted state government and regulation forces. From the day you are born into this lifestyle, suffering will be a normal thing. A slave is forced to work at their master’s pace and not at theirs. If a slave would to not perform to satisfy his/her owner they would be punished. Depending on the personality of their master, a slave could get severely punish to a point where you can see him or her dripping their own blood. However, it’s not all bad. In fact, sometimes-good things may come your way like in the life of a slave named Frederick Douglass. 
Born as a slave, Frederick Douglass would experience some harsh things that kids should never see. Scenarios like seeing your aunt get “tied up to a joist, and whipped upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood.” Frederick discovers as a kid that slaves are seen as individuals beneath their masters. He describes how every year he would receive one brand new set of clothes and shows. Most of the time slaves would almost be seen working almost naked or in rags. Year round, including in the winter, they wouldn’t get a change of clothes until the following year. Slaves would sleep altogether on the damp wet clay floor with a ripped blanket. The living conditions were almost impossible to cope with. Slave families would be separated due to trading between slaveholders. Douglass met his mother a few times and never really bonded. She would sneak out of her farm, walk a few miles and try to spend the night with him. They wouldn’t speak much but did spend time together at least until sunrise. Frederick Douglass’ early childhood would consist of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    frederick douglass

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Frederick Douglass - The author and narrator of the Narrative. Douglass, a rhetorically skilled and spirited man, is a powerful orator for the abolitionist movement. One of his reasons for writing the Narrative is to offer proof to critics who felt that such an articulate and intelligent man could not have once been a slave. The Narrative describes Douglass’s experience under slavery from his early childhood until his escape North at the age of twenty. Within that time, Douglass progresses from unenlightened victim of the dehumanizing practices of slavery to educated and empowered young man. He gains the resources and convictions to escape to the North and wage a political fight against the institution of slavery.…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass, is a story about Frederick Douglass’s life as a slave and how he goes on his quest to achieve freedom. Douglass was born into slavery and goes from master to master, and he finally sees the power of education when he reaches Baltimore to work for some new people. Here Douglass begins to learn how to read and write and he uses this to his advantage in hopes of becoming free one day. He manages to teach himself how to read in secret and then helps the other slaves become more literate. Eventually Douglass does manage to escape but he doesn’t stop there, he becomes an activist himself in hopes of ending all slavery one day. Through this book, Douglass reveals that learning is essential in order to achieve freedom, friends can help you to achieve your goals, and that slavery can have a very negative effect on a slave’s mind.…

    • 1379 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Slavery, the dark beast that consumes, devours, and pillages the souls of those who are forced to within its bounds and those who think they are the powerful controllers of this filth they call business. This act is the pinnacle of human ignorance, they use it as the building blocks for their “trade,” and treat these people no more than replaceable property that can be bought, sold, and beaten on a whim. The narrative of Frederick Douglass is a tale about a boy who is coming of age in a world that does not accept him for who he is and it is also told as a horror that depicts what we can only imagine as the tragedies placed on these people in these institutions of slavery. It is understood as a chronicle of his life telling us his story from childhood to manhood and all that is in between, whilst all this is going on he vividly mixes pathological appeals to make us feel for him and all his brethren that share his burden. His narrative is a map from slavery to freedom where he, in the beginning, was a slave of both body and mind. But as the story progresses we see his transformation to becoming a free man both of the law and of the mind. He focuses on emotion and the building up of his character to show us what he over time has become. This primarily serves to make the reader want to follow his cause all the more because of his elegant and intelligent style of mixing appeals. Through his effective use of anecdotes and vivid imagery he shows us his different epiphanies over time, and creates appeals to his character by showing us how he as a person has matured, and his reader’s emotion giving us the ability to feel for his situation in a more real sense. This helps argue that the institution of slavery is a parasitic bug that infects the slave holder with a false sense of power and weakens the slave in both body and spirit.…

    • 1321 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Just like the majority of slaves, Frederick Washington Bailey learned very young that he as a human being had no value or respect in a “white mans world”. He estimated his birthday, he didn’t know he’s white father’s whereabouts and was separated from his family young enough to barely remember. Throughout his life, under the ownership of various Masters, Douglass experienced many life-changing battles. While Douglass lived in the wye plantation, he witnessed the cruelty of slavery first hand. Beatings, starvation, cruelty like that off his aunt Hester (that was whipped to death), the murder of Demby, and he’s wife cousins (a young girl, babysitter) that was also brutally beaten by Mrs. Hicks. Death and whippings left and right and no penalties were given. Under Mr. Covey’s the slave – Breaker command, Douglass mentions no one had ever worked him so hard to the point where he though of committing suicide because he was so exhausted. Until then, Fredrick describes its readers how a “ man was made a slave” stripped from his entire god given rights and privilege’s.…

    • 887 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fredrick Douglass

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Literacy is an important aspect of Fredrick Douglass’ life. We see many instances where he is either trying to read and write, or teaching others to read and write. Initially, he learns to read and write from his first master’s wife. His reading and comprehension improves through the reading of the book “Columbian Oracle”. His knowledge increases even more when a white man named Mr. Wilson teaches Fredrick about the Bible. This sparks interest in religion for Fredrick. After learning about the Bible, he uses this source to teach children about literacy and religion.…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Narrative of Frederick Douglass is a memoir of a former slave who is known now as an abolitionist. This autobiography takes place in Eastern Shore of Maryland; Baltimore; New York City; New Bedford, Massachusetts. Douglass serves his life on a plantation where life is not thought to be that difficult. Being a child, he serves in the household instead of in the fields. At a very young age he was given to Hugh Auld, who lived in Baltimore (Douglass 1845). In Baltimore, Douglass lives more freely. In general, city slave-owners are more aware of not making them look cruel when handling slave so that their neighbors would not think of them as evil. Sophia Auld, Hugh’s wife, has never owned slaves before, and therefore she is very nice to Douglass at first.…

    • 1540 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through Douglass’s Phrases [1] In the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” Frederick Douglass successfully introduces various conflicts in the novel. Many of which expose the cruel treatment of slavery, and show changes Frederick made that led him to have courage to leave slavery behind and find peace and freedom. However, three of these conflicts highlight the impacts of the overall plot of the novel. One of the main conflicts is the dehumanization of African Americans. This conflict gave light in a more like manner to the empowerment, and self discovery that fed into the freedom of Douglass.…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Visualize the torment being separated from your family at birth and being forced to work untill your back breaks. This is what many slaves had to endure while captive. During this time, many people thought that slavery was fine. Despite this, there were a select brave few who would fight for the rights of slaves. These people were known as abolitionists, and they changed the world for the better. In summary, there were many people who fought for the rights of slavesf…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Heroes are not famous. Heroes are those forgotten into days society because they do not flaunt their actions for everybody to see. Certainly not a football star who donates to charities out of the millions they earn in a single paycheck since that is giving when you have everything or their manager told them it would look good. Or the people that sit behind the desk for a charity instead of adventuring to the places that need that support and help. A hero is someone who is not ignorant to the problems in the world and devotes him or her selves to building their vision of an exceptional world on a based on honesty.…

    • 1068 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Frederick Douglas

    • 1585 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Cited: * Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. New York: New American Library, 1968. Print.…

    • 1585 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” seeks to enlighten and, inform readers about slavery first hand through the eyes of Frederick Douglass. Douglass not being the only freed slave to write an autobiography, but his work being considered one of the most accurate and authentic. Douglass uses his writing to demonstrate what events happen due to the power abuse of slaveholders over their slaves. Frederick Douglass describes with examples from personal experiences, the tremendous physical and mental destruction slavery has on both slaves, and slave-owners. Douglass provides us with vivid imagery of what actions were taking place during this enslaved period.…

    • 1117 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    When he returned, Douglass created a few abolitionist daily papers: The North Star, Frederick Douglass Weekly, Frederick Douglass' Paper, Douglass' Monthly and New National Era. Other than being an abolitionist he was likewise a supporter of women's' rights. In 1848, he was the only African American that went to the first women's rights rally at Seneca Falls, New York. At the time of the Civil War Douglass was at that point a standout amongst the most well known black men in the nation. So he utilized his influence to change the parts and status of African Americans amid the war. In 1863, Douglass met with President Abraham Lincoln in regards to the treatment of black soldiers, and later with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black…

    • 200 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Frederick Douglass

    • 728 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Typical slaves work on cotton plantations, are uneducated, and do not receive special treatment. This does not describe the life of the slave, Frederick Douglass. He is not your typical slave. He wrote this narrative in order to share his life, and discuss how slavery is harmful to not only the slaves, but also to their owners. He shares many similar aspects of a normal slave, but we can also see that he was not treated like most slaves during this time. We see how Frederick Douglass shares his interesting and different experience and how the relationship between him and his owners differed than most.…

    • 728 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a riveting story that shows how cruel and dehumanizing slavery truly is. Slavery was an issue for nearly all of the 70 years it plagued America. In this narrative Douglass brings to light the sickening experience that slavery is for slaves themselves. Douglass is able to communicate how terrible the institution of slavery is because of the physical abuse many masters forced the slaves to endure, the necessities that were not provided to them, and their treatment as something like cattle.…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Beloved Frederick Douglass

    • 1913 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Frederick Douglass once said “A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation to appreciate it”. Douglass reflects on the aftermath of the civil war, and although the slaves were now freed, the nation as a whole needed to comprehend the damage that occurred. In both Beloved, by Toni Morrison, and The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass, the excruciating pain inflicted upon the slaves appears in both fiction and nonfiction. The differences of the two most prominently appears in the detail of the stories, Douglass’s in less detail, and Morrison’s in explicit detail. Publishing Douglass’s autobiography…

    • 1913 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays