What is courage? According to Webster’s Dictionary, it is the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. Douglass demonstrated how he put his courageous heart to the test in multiple ways. This novel is just one example. Douglass, along with many other souls lost to slavery, lived very cruel, inhumane lifestyles. From eating out of pig troughs to receiving deathly slashes to the back for even the slightest mistake. Douglass set out to expose the horrendous truths of slavery by writing this eye-opening novel. Imagine how many realizations came to the light when this novel set out to the world. So many hearts were broken and appalled. One could not fathom at just how cruel and sick the human mind …show more content…
I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. (Douglass 46) The fact that there were hardly ever any slaves that had even the slightest idea of when their birthday was is just ludicrous. Inside this autobiography, one of Douglass’ main reasons for writing this novel is not to just tell his story, but wanted to make the world understand that blacks are human beings and that they deserve rights just like everyone else. In this case, Douglass was very successful. In order for Douglass to write this novel, he basically had to go back and relive these tales in his mind so he would be able to share every last detail of his time as a slave. This will be seen by the fact, that the slaveholders like to have their slaves spend those days just in such a manner as to make them as glad of their ending as of their beginning. Their object seems to be, to disgust their slaves with freedom, by plunging them into the lowest depths of dissipation. (Douglass 142). This piece of literature is highly informal about the tragedies of slavery and for Douglass to have shared his story with people all over the world is a highly respected act. Sometimes, you sit and wonder how people could be so vile towards others based solely on the color of their