Douglass begins by telling us he was born into slavery in Maryland, his mother’s name was Harriet Bailey, and he was separated from her at birth. He reveals he is not sure how old he is and that his father was a white man rumored to be his first master. He was later sent to Baltimore where his new master’s wife began to teach him to read. His Master Hugh found out and put a stop to it insisting Douglass would become unmanageable and unhappy. When Douglass heard this he realized that the lock on the bonds of slavery was ignorance, and education was his key to freedom. Eventually he succeeded in teaching himself to read and write with help from his white friends. After educating himself he developed a better understanding of slavery and began to regard his enslavers as wicked. When he is sent to be broken by Mr. Covey he is whipped on a regular basis and almost loses hope, but he ends up fighting back regaining confidence in himself. Douglas marks this as a turning point and vows never to be whipped again. Later, Douglass learns the trade of caulking, has a disagreement with his master over wages, attempts another escape and succeeds in reaching New York…
As I read this excerpt by Douglass I learned the important event that Douglass recalls in his life, and the immoral nature of slavery.The important event that Douglass recalls in his life is learning how to read. Douglass was taught how to read by a woman named Lucretia Auld. Douglass compared enslavers to criminals. Douglass said he could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers. He compared them to this because the enslavers left their homes,came to Africa and stole homes…
As a slave himself, he understands from first-hand experience how badly slaves were treated. He mentions emotional and physical abuse he received from his slaveholder. He talked about how the slaves were not allowed to know how old they were or information that might expose them to more about their families. Douglass mentioned the fact that slaveholders would whip the slaves until bloody while making other slaves watch. Slaveholders would shoot and kill their slaves if they did not follow orders, Douglass…
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.…
By the time he was twelve he had been sent to live with, professor of religion and poor farm-renter, Mr. Covey. Covey was notorious for taking slaves from different slaveholders “for the sake of training” (Ch.9 pg.69). While living with Covey, he underwent being a field hand for the first time. Being a first-time field hand meant experiencing severe whippings. One specific beating left a sour taste in his mouth, but lead to his next glimmer of hope. While working alongside three other men on the hottest day in August 1833, Douglass fell ill, so ill he could barely stand on his feet; Consequently, Covey beat him so horribly he was bleeding not only from his side but from his head. On his hike, back from talking to Master Thomas, he encountered another slave that gifted him a “root” of protection. To Douglass, I believe this root was the sign of hope that he needed to stand up to not only Mr. Covey but to all slaveholders. Eventually, Douglass got his hands-on Covey then, gave him a taste of his own medicine; This event scared startled Mr. Covey so much he “trembled like a leaf” (Ch. 10 pg. 81). I believe this event was significant to Douglass because, it gave him a taste of what freedom was to not take orders from any slaveholder. I also believe Douglass was proud of himself for showing the slaveholders what it’s like to be in the hands of another person and have no control over what comes next.…
In the opening of the novel Douglass makes it clear to the reader that he is not sure of which the exact year he was born, because shortly after birth slaves are torn from their mothers, and given a blank life at a new location. Douglass was never allowed the nurturing and playfulness that most children receive in their early stages of life. "Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of [my mother's] death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger" (Douglass). The separation from his mother that Douglass describes was done purposely ensure that Douglass did not develop familial feelings toward his mother. He shows the reader through vivid imagery of his experiences, how his innocence was stripped from him due to the cruelty of his several different masters. Douglass devotes large parts of his Narrative to explanations of how slaves are not born but rather made, and molded by their masters. He explains that slaves never get the chance to grow up on their on will, and become who they want to be, but they are rather a reflection of who their master wants them to be. If their master…
Douglass's slave narrative reflects a search for his identity. Douglass did not know his origins, and age. He was a slave, and considered a piece of property that lack understanding, but with his narrative he proves the contrary. His narrative proves that he was a human being that have many capacities to succeed and demonstrated that African-Americans were capable to learn just like anybody else. Since, Douglass taught himself to read and write he acquired an identity and he found the way to break slavery because by then he knew that he was a human being and not an object. Douglass was trying to find a reason for the abuse he received on the hands of his master and he could not find any justification and he reflects it on his narration. Douglass…
Douglass begins his narrative as far back as he can remember, explaining that shortly after birth he was separated from his mother Harriet Bailey and was never truly sure of who his father was, although everyone suspected it to be his master, Captain Anthony. Douglass describes the horrible conditions by which slaves were forced to live, including intense labor and exhaustion, meager to no portions of food each day, a few shabby articles of clothing, and the absence of a bed. He goes on to talk about the frequent whippings slaves received, whether they were guilty of breaking rules or their masters simply wanted to express and establish their dominance. Douglass tells of how he was sold to several different masters, one of whose wives (by the name of Sophia Auld) decided to teach him the fundamentals of reading -- an act that became the beginning of Douglass’s realization that he could change his circumstances for the better. He talks about his continuation to work his way through the learning process by gaining help from local boys who could read, and as he learns to read and write, he becomes aware of the actual evil nature of…
He spoke with a purpose, which was to get his opinion across, and little did he care if he offended someone in the process. His use of emotions triggered the intensity levels throughout the text. This is because he made references to his own life, in the way he, his friends, and family were treated. It had to have been frustrating for Douglass to tell the listeners about it personal life because it got him very worked up. However, his intensity with his actions brought an understanding of his purpose for writing, to the people listening to his speech. “....with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America!” (Douglass 66-67). In this quote, it shows that Douglass did not hesitate when he spoke about the way he felt about…
Douglass’s autobiography is one of a personal fate and the other a documentation of the horrors of slavery. With his first recollection of his childhood, being the relentless whipping of his aunt Hester and the horrified of shrieks he heard with every blow of the whip. Living in Baltimore for about seven years he went with no hunger, then only to return to a plantation as an adult to suffer the gnawing pain of hunger. He knew the difference of what it was like to be treated with kindness and to live in the callous bondage of slavery. Douglass sought to bring a sense of order to his life by writing his journey from slavery to…
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…
On the very first page of Douglass’s narrative he states that “the white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.” Douglass was kept ignorant of dates and was expected to only be concerned about harvesting time. As the novel continues and Douglass has a desire for education, he includes dates to show that he can prove himself to be an equal of a freed man. He invites any dissenter to check him of his dates and facts and that in general boots the credibility of his claim that with an education a black man can accomplish the same goals as any white man. By securing this equality with his audience, he is then able to tactfully evoke emotion and influence a need for change. By evoking emotion through word choice, Douglass was able to interpret his story so notably that the reader or audience felt pity for the slaves, and desired a…
Slaveholders and masters were brutal and treated their slaves like animals and property. Douglass recalls a traumatic event for him when he was a child, the whipping of his Aunt Hester, stripped naked because she was caught with another slave from another plantation. Whipping was a common punishment for slaves, given whenever the master felt like it even without a sufficient reason. Gender or age was not important, some masters enjoyed whipping their servants and slaves until they were bloody. Masters were always cruel and slave lives did not matter thus murder though unjustified is also common. Slavery transforms people, both master and slave. Douglass remembers one of his master’s wives as being good and warm hearted then explains how having…
Slavery is an evil institution that, once established, robs not only the humanity of the enslaved, but also the morality of the slaveholder. It deprives the slave’s natural desire for knowledge, and hypocritically denies a man of his God given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, stated in the Declaration of Independence for the very country that enslaves him. Douglass uses specific examples, in the case of Hugh and Sophia Auld, Thomas Auld, Colonel Lloyd and Edward Covey, the slaveholders’ reliance on religion, and the harm caused to the slaves themselves, to show that although slavery is in itself a blatant disregard for human life, it also has drastic effects on the degradation of the slaveholder’s own morality.…
Before Douglass realised he was willing to change, he had suffered from unconceivable cruelty in many occasions, which marked him and made him a slave. Slavery stole his humanity from the very first moment he was born. As it has been exposed before, he was separated from his mother at a very early age, causing Douglass to lose the familiar affection and closeness. Moreover, he was also a witness of the brutal abuse his aunt Hester suffered from their master. In addition, not only did he witness all the whippings, but he also suffered from countless whippings himself. The act of whipping was used both to punish the slaves and to show that the…