Frederick Douglass Reflection

Narrative of Frederick Douglass is an autobiography. It's the story of his life from the time he was born a slave to the time of his escape to freedom in the North. He then added a valuable political viewpoint in his story. When Douglass wrote this book in 1845, slavery was still legal in most of the Country. He became educated and then a public speaker and writer to try to stop it. He believed that if he showed people what he and many slaves went through, they would understand why it needed to be ended. Even though he tell us his personal story, he never forgets his goal of abolishing slavery.
Douglass would eventually become the best known abolitionist in the country because he managed to do more than just write about slavery. Instead of just arguing against slavery, Douglass asks some questions about what freedom really is.
Frederick Douglass's Narrative is not just about slavery. It it is a powerful point of view of what it was like to be a slave, how the world looked, and what kind of place America was, when it was only free for white people. But while a lot of books were written by ex-slaves, Frederick Douglass's narrative is by far the most important one, because he wants us to think about more than just the legal, historical, and political issues of slavery and freedom. He wants us to think about it as a question: what does it take
for humans to be free?
Douglass wants to show us that he made himself free and the pain and sufering that he went through, both mentally and physically.
Freedom isn't something that is given to us; it's something we have to find for ourselves in order to reach it. Although Douglass had it a lot harder than most of us ever will, we each have something to learn from his perspective and the courage in search of his own freedom, and his refusal to quiet before finding what he deserves. One of the lessons Douglass has to acquire is that this battle never really stops. As long as anyone is a slave, Douglass knows he himself is not going to be fully
free.
Douglass's Narrative is like highway of his life, showing us the roadas he has been through from slavery to freedom. At the beginning of the book, Douglass is a slave physically and mentally. When the book ends, he gets both his legal freedoms and frees his mind. And if the book is like a road, he figured his life out along the way. He tries his entire life to make not only his life better but everyone else’s. These events are turning points in Douglass's life, but they also help show how he became who he was, and what he had to learn along the way.
The first big step is Douglass's realization about what slavery is. He was born a slave on Colonel Lloyd's plantation, but as a child he was mostly spared the worst kinds of suffering, such and beatings and work overload. He sees his Aunt Hester get beaten, but he's too young to be whipped himself. Instead, he suffers knowing that could be him and also feels horrible for his aunt. He never knows his father and only meets his mother a handful of times before she dies and then, he isn't allowed to go to her funeral. But he doesn't really know that this isn't normal. he thought it was just a way of life.
The next stage of his life begins when the seven-year-old Douglass is sent to work for a new set of masters in Baltimore. Baltimore is a whole new world for him, with a lot of new experiences, but the most important thing he learns there is the power of education. He had a good thing going in his life when his master's wife starts teaching him to read, which gets her in big trouble with her husband. Douglass finds ways of educating himself, but the real lesson is that slavery exists not because the masters are better than their slaves, but because they keep their slaves ignorant. Douglass starts to suspect that if slaves managed to educate themselves, it would be impossible to stop them from becoming free.
As Douglass becomes a young man, he starts fighting to actually be free. When he talks back to his master, his master sends him to work for a notorious "slave breaker," Covey, who tries to destroy Douglass's spirit. For a while it works, and Douglass is reduced to the state of mind of an animal. This is the lowest point in his life. His third epiphany happens, however, when he decides that he'd rather die than be treated like a slave anymore. So the next time Covey tries to whip him, he stands up to him, and after a two-hour fight, Covey leaves him alone. Douglass vows never to be whipped again. And he never is.
After this, Douglass bounces from master to master, but he's always on the lookout for a way to escape to freedom. And after one failed attempt, he finally succeeds and makes his way first to New York, then to Massachusetts. But even after he's free, he discovers that his journey isn't over. This is his final epiphany: even after he acquires his own freedom, he realizes he can't rest until all slavery is abolished. He not only becomes an abolitionist activist himself; he writes the narrative of his life to teach others, white and black, how to follow in his footsteps.