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Frederick Douglass Inhumane Essay

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The story of Frederick Douglass’ is one of the most gruesome stories ever written in American literary history. The narrative goes in-depth about how the process of slavery was. It talks about how people would get whipped for the smallest of issues, dying if they resist enough, and even the process of the slave trade. It even shows how people become very different after the entire system of slavery gets into their minds. Through his powerful narrative, Frederick Douglass demonstrates how slavery dehumanizes not only the enslaved but also the enslaver, as it strips individuals of their basic humanity and perpetuates a system of cruelty and oppression. Frederick Douglass was a very young child when he was introduced to the culture of how …show more content…

Many masters act very cruel to their slaves and give no regard for their well-being or how they feel. They will whip them if they do something wrong, cut off an ear if they try to escape a multitude of times, and even kill them if they feel like the slave is doing too much. An example of this is how Mr. Gore had shot Demby. Demby had been resisting Mr. Gore’s call and had been in a creek trying to resist punishment. After the third call, Mr. Gore shot Demby and brutally murdered him. As Douglass recalls, “His mangled body sank out of sight, and blood and brains marked the water where he had stood.” (Douglass 20) The worst part of this entire case is how Mr. Gore got off scot-free because he had told the people that he was setting an “example” to intimidate the other slaves. The last example of this is when Douglass moves in with Sophia Auld and Hugh Auld. Sophia is a very sweet lady and had never had slaves. She is unfamiliar with the way slaves are treated so she occasionally gives Douglass great life lessons. One of them is teaching him how to read and write. Douglass records this incident by saying, “She very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. ... Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read.” (Douglass, 29) After

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More evidence of objectification is shown in the murder of Demby by Mr. Gore. To escape more whipping, Demby submerges himself into a creek and refuses to come out, resulting in Mr. Gore shooting Demby in the face. Justifying the murder, Gore argues that “if one slave refused to be corrected, and escaped with his life…the result…would be freedom of the slaves.” Gore’s justification objectifies Demby’s mortality by turning it into a tool to teach the other slaves of what would happen should they disobey. Finally, Douglass tells of his own dehumanization through violence as master Covey, the “slave breaker,” beats him after becoming too weak to work.

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Douglass uses paradox to demonstrate that slavery degragrates the slaverholder. When Douglass under Mr. Sever’s care he described that: “He was less cruel, less profane… He whipped, but seemed to take no pleasure in it. ”(Douglass 24). Most slaveholders are characterized to be cruel and inhuman because of the whipping and the way they treated the slaves.

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In his article "Learning to Read and Write" Frederick Douglass portrays how he figured out how to read and write furthermore the difficulties he needed to manage in his state of being a slave since youth. We find that Douglass was in hand by the Hugh family for a long time. it's inside this day and age that he figured out how to read and write. At the beginning, Douglass was told to read by Mrs. Hugh, notwithstanding, a little while later she took identical approach towards slavery as her significant other and normally much more dreadful. Where as once she would support Douglass' learning, she immediately attempted to end it at any expense.

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Frederick Douglass was born in 1818 to slavery, with a black mother and a white father who was rumored to be his master. Douglass was enslaved during his entire youth and 7 years after escaping slavery; he wrote “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” which entails his horrifying experiences in slavery and his journey to ultimate freedom. Douglass was a well-known American abolitionist and activist. In his narrative, he used emotive, descriptive language in combination with personal anecdotes to appeal to his white Christian audience to expose the reality of the dehumanization that comes with slavery. Douglass refers to several different instances of dehumanization throughout his narrative.

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Modern Day Slavery We will never quite understand what it was like to experience slavery. While there are many different types of slavery that exist today, such as forced labor, sex trafficking, and domestic servitude, to name a few, we are lucky to have never experienced or witnessed, the type of slavery that great American abolitionist Frederick Douglass endured. In the book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, we as readers encounter an in-depth description of the beatings that Frederick had a testimony for. We genuinely do not realize how much privilege we hold in the 21st century. Douglass saw horrifying, blood drawing, and angry beatings of his loved ones, was unaware of how old he was, was not granted an education, and so much

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In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.

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Gore is a very great example of using deadly force to control slaves. When he had whipped Demby (a fellow slave) but a few times, Demby dashed to the river to cool down the wounds on his back, and resisted Mr. Gore's calls for him to come out. After Mr. Gore's third call to come out, (…raised his [Mr.Gore’s] musket to his face, taking deadly aim at his standing victim, and in an instant Demby was no more." (Douglass, 67). This part of the book can show that the use of deadly force to keep slaves under control can be actually deadly.

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1153 Words | 5 Pages

Douglass was born a slave, so he could not get any sort of education. He really was interested in learning how to read, which his mistress was attempting to teach him. It worked for a little while, until her husband forbade her from teaching Frederick, so he tried to learn on his own. This didn’t work either, though because the mistress would become so angry with him, and he would get in trouble. He said, “I have had her rush at me with a face made of fury, and snatch me from a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension.”

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498 Words | 2 Pages

The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass shows the imbalance of power between slaves and their masters. In his book, Douglass proves that slavery is a destructive force not only to the slaves, but also for the slaveholders. “Poison of the irresponsible power” that masters have upon their slaves that are dehumanizing and shameless, have changed the masters themselves and their morality(Douglass 39). This amount of power and control in contact with one man breaks the kindest heart and the purest thoughts turning the person evil and corrupt. Douglass uses flashbacks that illustrate the emotions that declare the negative effects of slavery.

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In the 1800s, for a slave to know how to read and write was not only unheard of, but illegal. Frederick Douglass was born a slave in rural Talbot County, Maryland. For about seven years, he received reading lessons from his mistress Hugh, but that all changed as soon as she commenced her duties as a slaveholder. The once kind hearted woman was changed into a woman to be feared. She stopped teaching Douglass how to read and would monitor his whereabouts in her home to ensure that he was not reading anything.

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702 Words | 3 Pages

According to the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, on page 11, it states,”... Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her that it was unlawful as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read…” Slaveholders would put the blame on slaves for not knowing how to read, when it was actually them who forbid slaves from learning the ability at all. Reading was against the white people’s advantage because a slave could overpower them with such knowledge, which is a factor that brought Douglass to success. In addition to the text, on page 28 it states,”By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slave thus ignorant.”

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753 Words | 4 Pages

Frederick Douglass’s narrative provides a first hand experience into the imbalance of power between a slave and a slaveholder and the negative effects it has on them both. Douglass proves that slavery destroys not only the slave, but the slaveholder as well by saying that this “poison of irresponsible power” has a dehumanizing effect on the slaveholder’s morals and beliefs (Douglass 40). This intense amount of power breaks the  kindest heart and changes the slaveholder into a heartless demon (Douglass 40). Yet these are not the only ways that Douglass proves what ill effect slavery has on the slaveholder. Douglass also uses deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion to present the negative effects of slavery.

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The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass’s autobiography in which Douglass goes into detail about growing up as a slave and then escaping for a better life. During the early-to-mid 1800s, the period that this book was written, African-American slaves were no more than workers for their masters. Frederick Douglass recounts not only his personal life experiences but also the experiences of his fellow slaves during the period. This book was aimed at abolitionists, so he makes a point to portray the slaves as actual living people, not the inhuman beings that they are treated as. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slaves are inhumanly represented by their owners and Frederick Douglass shines a positive light

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Throughout the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Douglass is violently oppressed repeatedly. When being treated so inhumane , he starts to understand it's becoming a way of life for a slave (Douglass 45). It's not until later on in his experience that Douglass begins to stop being violently oppressed by his master. “ To maintain his reputation,he suffered me to go unpunished. ”(Douglass

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PAGE 2 In the Narrative Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, he uses this text to explain his purpose in “throwing light on the American slave system”, or show it for what it really is, as well as show his position on how he strongly believes slavery is an issue that needs to be addressed and how it differs from those who defended slavery, with experiences from his own life to support his argument. Douglass uses experience from his early days as a young slave to throw light on the aspect of physical abuse. According to his narrative, Douglass states, “Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder.

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