The great Rosa Parks once said “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.” The authors Frederick Douglass and Paul Laurence Dunbar, both wrote about the mistreatment and discrimination towards people, usually being African Americans. Frederick Douglass used diction and figurative language to help convey his message to his readers. Meanwhile, Paul Laurence Dunbar used imagery and diction to help his readers connect to his thoughts and emotions.
Authors tend to use political and or social statements to express themselves in literature. Paul Laurence Dunbar talks about the inequality and discrimination that African Americans were facing in his poem “Douglass.”
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In Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick Douglass discusses the political issues dealing with slavery. He uses diction to explain his complications of gaining knowledge and the struggles of being a slave. Douglass was a slave and as most people know, slaves weren’t supposed to be able to read or write. However, Douglass was fortunate enough to have someone who was willing to teach him, but it happened to be his master’s wife. However, the master made the mistress turn on Douglass and she started treating him just as the other slaves were treated. In the autobiography, Douglass says “How could she, then, treat me as a brute.” Douglass also struggled with the idea of him never being a free man. He would play with the other kids, whom were white, and tell them how he would never be free. He says “I wish I could be free, as you will be when you get to be men… but I am a slave for life.” Douglass used his diction in this autobiography to show the political struggles that he went through as a slave. It is obvious, however, that he did become a successful man and his words of wisdom will live on