Human Rights: A Paine in My….Douglass?
According to Frederick Douglass, a nineteenth-century northern slave, “Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.” Thomas Paine, a rebellious eighteenth-century Englishman, finishes and furthermore expands this thought, saying that “those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” While both of these men grew up in separate worlds, miles and years apart, their idealisms and life missions are very much alike. This is evident through the investigation of Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
Frederick Douglass is the …show more content…
Like his name, Douglass was also denied the privilege of knowing his own birth date, the identity of his father, and a true relationship with his mother. He explains the reasoning of this later in the novel, because “to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason...[so that] he ceases to be a man” (CHAPTER TEN). Douglass’s life of rebellion began there, when rather than mindlessly accepting slavery, he became aware as his status as a slave and put in the effort to change that. He picked a birthday for himself, February 14th, in memory of his mother’s nickname for him, …show more content…
Douglass accomplished what so many other slaves had failed to do: creating his own identity. The final turning point for Douglass happened when he was a mere child. His Aunt Hester was beaten bloody and raw in front of him, traumatizing him as a young boy and ending his period of innocence. From there on, the seeds of becoming a future abolitionist were planted in Douglass’s heart. He describes his life on several plantations, the song sung by his fellow slaves that “was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains” (Douglass 8), the cruelty of his overseers, and the streams of opportunities that come by him that ultimately lead to his success as an abolitionist. After being partially taught to read, “with [aid from the local little white boys], obtained at different times and in different places, [he] finally succeeded in learning to read” (CHAPTER SEVEN), further showing Douglass’s strength and determination in achieving his goals. This new skillset enabled Frederick to later escape slavery and its confinements of strictly limited knowledge, and become the strong fighter for women’s rights, education, and against slavery that he is recognized as today. By that point in the novel, “you have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a