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Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis Essay

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Prompt: How does Frederick Douglass use rhetorical strategies in this excerpt from his narrative to convey his thoughts on slavery and on his grandmother?

In the excerpt from Frederick Douglass’s narrative, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass uses rhetorical strategies to express his utter disgust towards slavery and the pain for his grandmother. The strategies he used in his book include figurative language, imagery, diction, descriptive detail, and syntax. These techniques enhanced and emphasized Douglass’s emotions on the bondage he and his grandmother dealt with for long periods of time. The selected section of text taken from Frederick Douglass’s book centers around the idea of slavery and how it has greatly impacted Douglass and his grandmother. Because of this practice of physical and mental bondage, Douglass’s grandmother didn’t have a proper family to be around with. Her children and grandchildren were never beside her due to their inferior status as slaves. This has caused Douglass’s grandmother great pain, which ultimately led to her aging rather quickly. …show more content…
Douglass foreshadows this by using syntax in the excerpt. “She stands-she sits-she staggers-she falls-she groans-she dies.” (Page 93, lines 14-15) These particularly short two word sentences give the reader a sense that her life is being cut short. After her tragic death, Frederick Douglass’s hate towards slavery deepens as he feels it was because of slavery, his grandmother had to die. Other than using syntax to describe the way she died, Douglass incorporated figurative language to demonstrate the fact that his grandmother was suffering even till the moment she died. He compared her to “few dim embers” because when a fire dies out, a few dim embers are left behind. Douglass uses this analogy to describe his grandmother’s death in a melancholy

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