Fredrick Douglass: Poem Analysis

The most explicit theme of the reading that stood out to me was racism in the form of slavery in the southern United States. Throughout the narrative, Douglass included excellent examples of how slaves are dehumanized, mentally and physically, by the slave system. In many ways, slavery and segregation were the main obstacles in his personality growth. One of the most powerful lines in the narrative was in chapter ten, when Douglass directly addresses the relationship between slavery and the denial of manhood when he says, ''You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.’’ Because slavery was bound up in denying full selfhood to both men and women, many slaves were denied the ability to perceive themselves as full human beings. Not only by the people but also by the science. The introduction of psychological thinking into the Jim Crow South produced neither a clear victory for racial equality nor a single-minded defense of traditional
For Blake, innocence was not enough it was also ignorance of the reality of the ‘fallen' world. The apparent vulnerability was of the little black boy and his lack of experience. Innocence is an empty trait. As children grow and experience life their innocence is tainted by the world that surrounds them.. Still obtaining the innocence as a child the mother tries to instill love and equality in the boy” My mother taught me underneath a tree “. The racial differences are not only celebrated but also no existent under the divine light of God. According to Jeremy Waldron equality, is the proposition that humans are all one another's equals. In addition , it is a spiritual awakening for a little boy who is growing up to recognize he is unique and his status in society and his destiny when he finally meets God that he is on equal ground with to his white