...Even though Frederick Douglass uses a dispassionate tone in his writing, he is still able to appeal to his audience’s emotions of pity and empathy by using heartrending personal anecdotes in his autobiography. Douglass describes his life as a slave matter-of-factly, just as any person would explain a casual life experience. His numbness to emotion and the world makes his life even more distressing to his audience. Douglas simply states, “... 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” (par. 4). This reaction to the death of his mother conveys two ideas, as it illustrates both how slavery ripped Douglass from his mother and how living as a slave made him emotionally...
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...During the first two centuries of American history, slaveholding spread throughout the American landscape and resulted in the maltreatment of slaves and abusive practices that came to characterize American slavery prior to the Civil War. By evidencing his own emotional hardships and trials and accentuating the illogical procedures employed by the slaveholders, Douglass persuades the readers of the inconceivable cruelty present in the ideology of slavery and urges the American people to take action against this atrocious institution. Overall, Frederick Douglass employs many rhetorical devices in order to convince the audience that the practice of slavery should be abolished in order for America to reach its pinnacle of success. Through the...
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...halfway point, slavery continued on in the United States with a constant fight between multiple sides on how it should be dealt with. One of the most memorable writers of this time was Frederick Douglass, who wrote a memoir of his life that was published in 1845 under the name of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. The purpose of his work was to visualize and convince whites all over the nation that the horrors of slavery, terrible conditions, and unjust actions cast upon blacks were immoral and should be abolished. Frederick Douglass uses many forms of rhetoric including appeals and devices to build a profile of reasonability and credibility that help him further and effectively explain his argument and reasons why slavery should be abolished....
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...The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was written by Frederick Douglass. It explains both slavery for slaves and slave owners. Douglass tells the story of his most important and inspirational moments and he tries to explain one of the most lethal and sad years of our country's times. He was the odd one out of all the slaves, he had hope. He believed that freedom for slaves was possible and he would do anything in his power to make it come true. One of Douglass first steps to freedom was to learn how to read and write and Mrs. Auld had covered that for him until she had been blinded by the power of controlling people, slaves. Douglass has gone through many adventures and has seen what it means to be free and not to be free. He has...
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...Another rhetorical device he relies on throughout the text is imagery. With the use of imagery he explains the systematic process of slavery and what impact transitions towards both the slave and slave owner due to such process. In the text he explains that: “Mr.Covey’s forte consisted in his own power to deceive. His life was devoted to planning and perpetrating the grossest deceptions. Everything he possessed in the shape of learning or religion, he made conform to his disposition to deceive. He seemed to think himself equal to deceiving the Almighty(pg 82).” Using this the example of Mr. Covey, Douglass explains how he was a claimed to me a righteous and devoted believer but still did such cruel wrongful acts to slaves. Also in the text...
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...The triumphant and disheartened tones in Frederick Douglass’s passage reflect his first reaction towards freedom compared to his later realization of living as a black man in New York. Following his escape, he ecstatically rejoices but is soon trapped in the chains of oppression as he recalls the cruelties against him and worries about being captured again. The author’s diction intertwines his hopeful expectations of life after release with his painful reality of being an enslaved free man. When he arrives in a free state, Douglass commemorates “the blessedness of freedom” after his escape from “a den of hungry lions” by savoring this “moment of highest excitement.” As a slave, he figuratively faced indefatigable lions that existed to relentlessly...
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...expresses Douglass’ style of writing by choosing the words that have a way to affect the reader and convey the message of a mother and child’s affection towards one another. (Chapter 1, page 18) #2 Hyperbole “No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose.” This exaggerates how cruel and brutal the master was when whipping slaves who disobeyed him. (Chapter 1, page21) #3 Simile “The competitors for this office sought as diligently to please their overseers,...
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...In my opinion, there are several tones that Frederick Douglass used while writing this book describing his life in slavery. At most times, he was very concise and reserved. He portrayed everything in detail, but didn’t really let his inner feelings come out. Then there were times when he was very emotional. He got angry sometimes when explaining what horrible things he had seen. He also expressed sadness. For example, he says: “I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own” (Douglass, pg. 24). In parts where he was describing his personal experience as slaves, he was extremely emotional and it could be felt just by reading. The style of Frederick Douglass’ writing to me is very old-fashioned, of course. He was very sophisticated...
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...stopped. Now, I know what slaves like Douglass thought about slavery. After reading the excerpt from the Narrative of Frederick Douglass, I understand how Douglass learned about the cruel nature of slavery and why he thinks of his enslavers as criminals. I also understand why he wanted to be an animal and why he began to think of reading as a curse instead of a blessing. Douglass learned about slavery by reading a book called “The Columbian Orator”. In this book, he reads some of Sheridan’s speeches over and over again with great interest. After reading, he learns about the nature of slavery and human rights. This is what Douglass says in the excerpt: “What I got from slavery was a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights.” However, later in the excerpt, Douglass begins to regret reading these speeches as they begin to make him think about his enslavers and freedom....
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...Frederick Douglass intends to express his different states of mind as he thinks about slavery and freedom. He wants to convey the effect slavery can have on a normal, sane person. Douglass contrasts freedom to his enslavement when he writes, “You are freedom’s swift-winged angels [...] I am confined in bands of iron!”. He compares the boats to the feeling of freedom, then continues to juxtapose that to his situation, where shackles and slavery which restrain him to the plantation. This metaphor conveys Douglass’s depressed mental state at this specific point as he thinks about what his life could be like if he wasn’t a slave. This negative mindset begins to make Douglass question the existence of God. He exclaims, “God, deliver me! Let me...
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...Frederick Douglass had a way with words. Douglass wrote many essential speeches to help win the fight against slavery. One of the most famous speeches written by Frederick Douglass is called “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” along with the time of slavery but it was hard for him to win over the white majority of the audience. The speech was used to give the idea how bad slavery was by using persuasive techniques. Douglass used many techniques such as rhetorical questions and Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Logical claims and statements made by Douglass. Douglass is giving a logical point of view about the situation. Douglass states “There are seventy-two crimes in the state of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment.” The quote...
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...Life isn’t fair, but it is. There will always be things that afflict us from the injustices of the past, present, and future. And one of the most horrific and brutal times in history was the time of slavery. In this case, Frederick Douglass (a former slave who escaped and joined the abolitionist movement to speak out), used his experiences of dehumanization and inequality to justify the injustices of his world in The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by using the appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos in his writings and speeches. On July 5, 1852, Douglass spoke out to the almost 600 people in the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Sewing Society to deliver what would become one of the most revolutionary speeches in all of U.S. history. His delivery of...
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...Douglass, in regards to abolitionism, briefly touches on the roles that each individual has in building and progressing America. To those who he regarded as privileged, white Americans, he called them to action. At the moment of the speech, they had the most power to enact change and free those in bondage. He argues that the white community had dehumanized blacks and therefore, by viewing them as animals or objects, have become more so immune the injustice of owning another human. His argument in trying to show the illogical double standard of slavery is shown as he confronts Thomas Auld, saying that “[Thomas Auld’s] mind must have become darkened, [his] heart hardened, [his] conscience seared and petrified” for if he was to enter the precincts...
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...Every time an author writes a book, they have some sort of purpose. Whether it is to tell the reader about an experience or inform the reader about a situation. In Narrative of Frederick Douglass his goal in the story is to not only to show/inform the reader the cruelty of slavery but to persuade the reader of the evils of slavery to the slaveholder and the slave. He uses many devices to portray his thinking, and to persuade the reader that not only are slaves affected by slavery, but the slaveholders too. He uses literary devices to show slavery in a different light such irony, anecdotes, and imagery. • Throughout the book Douglass uses many rhetoric and arguementive strategies to persuade the reader. He often uses irony to show the reality...
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...The first thing I notice that Fredrick Douglass does is he uses very specific words, and imagery like, “Bloodiest” “Consummate” and “obdurate”. I believe he uses these words to put an emphasis on how badly they were treated, it was bloody, it was sexual assault, and along with that it wasn’t even the worst that a slave was treated. He also gives a very visual example of how cruel the overseer was, he even says that even his master thought that they were sometimes treated a little too harshly, but it was only on rare occasions. He also gives a very descriptive view of what would happen if you were even a little disobedient. You would be experiencing, “the bloodiest most foul murders,” that more likely than not was from the person that didn’t...
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