Comparing Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglas And Solomon Northup

In the years prior to the Civil War, countless black Americans found themselves forcibly bound by the chains of slavery and barred from basic human rights. As identities were stripped by slaveholders denying freedom and equality, slaves were imposed with the burdens of captivity and its inherent evils. As freed people, both Frederick Douglass in “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” and Solomon Northup in “12 Years a Slave” detail the true horrors, hypocrisy, and abuse they experienced while enslaved. Douglass and Northup effectively communicate and depict the slave system to a sympathetic anti-slavery audience using tone, imagery, and irony to enhance readers’ impressions and appeal to their pathos. Despite both

In Northup’s account of being denied the basic human right of water, lips parched, he could think of “nothing but water—of lakes and flowing rivers, of brooks where I [Northup] had stopped to drink, and of the dripping bucket, rising with its cool and overflowing nectar, from the bottom of the well” (Northup 36). He describes the agony of being deprived of any form of hydration and the intense craving his body develops as time passes. By painting such a romanticized image of thirst, Northup effectively conveys the desperation that overwhelmed him while being punished for defying his slavemaster. Northup builds up the figurative language describing water, and appeals to the readers’ visual, sensory, and gustatory senses. Through imagery of the flowing rivers and the cold, overflowing nectar of water, he effectively appeals to the emotional response of fellow black americans and sympathetic white citizens who can relate to the fundamental human need for water. Similarly, Douglass uses imagery to his advantage to describe the horror of witnessing the whipping of a fellow slave. Douglass recalls that he had “often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of [his] own aunt….The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped

In Northup’s narrative, he imparts the emotions of desperation he felt when discovering Bass was leaving the plantation. Bass was the first white man to offer him kindness in a decade. He treated Northup like a human being and risked his own life to discreetly send letters to Northup’s old friends. In his letter, Bass asked for papers that would free Northup (Northup 270-277). Northup defies any expectations of an attempt at escape by his own measures and instead confides in a sympathetic white man to assist in his freeing. The event utilizes irony because Northup is initially kidnapped and sold to slavery due to his blind trust in the actions and motives of white men, and twelve years later he is freed by that same trust. The use of situational irony intrigues the audience, and develops the imagination and interest of readers. Irony creates parallels to real life, where the outcome often diverges from expectations. While Northup uses situational irony to invert expectations, Douglas sought to expose the hypocrisy of Christian slaveholders through irony. Through God, one of Douglass’ slaveholders found “religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty…[he would] tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the