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Frederick Douglass Figurative Language Analysis

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave was written by Frederick Douglass himself, and was published in 1845. Douglass takes the readers through his own experience with American slavery while holding back very little. Douglass’s narrative goes on a journey beginning in his birthplace, Talbot County, Maryland. While Douglass mainly focuses on his own experiences with the American slave trade, he also shares the trials and tribulations of those around him throughout the book. Another attribute of this narrative is the high level of literacy Douglass has. While reading this narrative, there were plenty of passages that included figurative language and insightful religious references. Along with religion, brutality is another …show more content…

At the beginning of Chapter I, while describing his childhood, Douglass mentions the mystery of his age, recalling, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their age as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant” (40). This is one of the tactics slave owners used to strip slaves of their humanity early on in their life. Almost to make them seem like animals. As a child, Douglass knew that white children were aware of their own ages, and was confused as to why he was “deprived of the same privilege” (40). This was just the beginning stage of the machine called …show more content…

To preface the incident, Mr. Gore (the active overseer under Colonel Lloyd) was described as, “artful, cruel, and obdurate”, just the man for the job (Douglass, 54). In my opinion, Gore’s presence is a product of the personality of the previous overseer, Mr. Hopkins. Mr. Hopkins was not viewed as a cruel man, and was even called a “good overseer” by the slaves (48). Mr. Hopkins didn’t hold the position long. Douglass recalls, “Why his career was so short, I do not know, but suppose he lacked the necessary severity to suit Colonel Lloyd (54). To an extent, Mr. Gore was everything Mr. Hopkins

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When slavery was abolished in 1865, it was a critical turning point in the journey towards equality for African Americans. Prior to the eradication of slavery writers like Frederick Douglass sought to free millions of slaves in America. While slavery was a well-known and growing problem in the south, it wasn’t as widely recognized in the north. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave‎ Douglass recounts his experiences and tribulations as a slave. In the narrative Douglass effectively uses rhetorical imagery, antithesis, and irony in order to expose the harsh reality of slavery during the 19th century.

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Frederick Douglass is a renowned author of his autobiography and many other books throughout the years, but he didn’t start out that way. When he was born, he was taken into slavery, and worked hard day in and day out since he was a child. But, he ran away and lived a free life. Slavery was one of the many things Americans did wrong back in those times, and it is still going on today. There are many injustices in slavery and motivations that had made people want to join the abolitionist cause back then, but there is also some sensible age limit to children who will learn about Frederick Douglass.

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Frederick Douglass, born a slave and later the most influential African American leader of the 1800s, addresses the hypocrisy of the US of maintaining slavery with its upheld ideals being freedom and independence on July 4th, 1852. Douglass builds his argument by using surprising contrasts, plain facts, and provocative antithesis. Introducing his subject, Douglass reminds his audience about the dark side of America for slaves, in sharp, surprising contrasts with the apparent progressivity within the nation. He first notices “the disparity,” that “the sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and deaths to me,” as an African-American former slave. It is surprising for the audience to hear that the Sun does not bring him any prosperity, that the Sun, the source of life on earth, brings him destruction.

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Rhetorical Analysis By Migion Booth Social reformer, Frederick Douglass was an African American man who decamped from slavery. He has drafted several books including Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Mr. Douglass writes about his perspicacity as a slave. Mr. Douglass repeatedly uses paradox, imagery, and parallelism to display how slavery was inhuman and heartbroken.

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The autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written in 1845 in Massachusetts, narrates the evils of slavery through the point of view of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass is a slave who focuses his attention into escaping the horrors of slavery. He articulates his mournful story to anyone and everyone, in hopes of disclosing the crimes that come with slavery. In doing so, Douglass uses many rhetorical strategies to make effective arguments against slavery. Frederick Douglass makes a point to demonstrate the deterioration slavery yields from moral, benevolent people into ruthless, cold-hearted people.

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The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; an autobiography consisting of Frederick Douglass’ search for freedom from the slaveholders who kept many African Americans captive, allowed many to understand the pain and misery in the midst of slavery. Published in 1845, Douglass conveyed the lives of African Americans and how they have suffered a great deal of pain and discomfort through a provocative tone . Throughout his autobiography, Douglass used countless metaphors to portray his life. From Mr. Plummer to Mrs. Auld, the reader could better perceive the text by visualizing the metaphors that Douglass has used. Using Frederick’s writing, youthful audiences can gain knowledge about slavery and its effects.

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When Frederick Douglass published his self-written narrative, people finally got a fully comprehensive view of the life of a slave. To debunk the mythology of slavery, Douglass presents the cold, hard truth, displays slaves true intelligence,

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Slavery is equally a mental and a physical prison. Frederick Douglass realized this follow-ing his time as both a slave and a fugitive slave. Douglass was born into slavery because of his mother’s status as a slave. He had little to go off regarding his age and lineage. In the excerpt of the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

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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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“One who is a slaveholder at heart never recognizes a human being in a slave” (Angelina Grimke). This quote was created to show the effect that slavery had on not only the slave, but the slaveholder. The slaveholder would dehumanize the slave to the point where the human was no longer recognizable; instead, the slave was property. Throughout this autobiography, Frederick Douglass uses language to portray the similarities and differences between the two sides. He allows the reader to spend a day in the life of a slave to see the effects from it.

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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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Douglass uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling his audience how unfairly Douglass is treated and how white men or slaveholders take control of the life of a slave because in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass on page 1 paragraph 1 it says, The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.” What this piece of evidence is demonstrates is that Frederick Douglass did not even now his own birth and that he had to guess on what his master said and that his master knows more what Frederick knows about his life. Another way that Douglass’s uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling their audience how unfairly Frederick and many other slaves were treated because because in the Document “‘ Pro Slavery Arguments South’’ on paragraph 6 it says,”Southern slaveholders pro-slavery arguments defended the interest of the plantation owners against attempts by abolitionists, lower classes, and non-whites to institute a more equal social structure.”

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Similarly, Douglass implements irony in his tone as he describes Mr. Gore in chapter four4 as “what is called a first-rate overseer” (32). Those with no sense of the injustice of slavery see Mr. Gore as a good overseer because he was “artful, cruel, and obdurate” (32). However, those with an awareness of the immorality of slavery saw Mr. Gore as being a truly cruel man. Douglass frequently uses this ironic tone in the nNarrative to highlight the discrepancy between fictitious and actual

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812 Words | 4 Pages

In chapter 3, Douglass talks about how Colonel Lloyd treats his horses: “This horse has not had proper attention He has not been sufficiently rubbed and curried, or he has not been properly fed; his food was too wet or too dry; he got it too soon or too late; he was too hot or too cold; he had too much hay or not enough grain” (Douglass 10). Douglass’ describes the obsessive attention that his former master, Colonel Lloyd, paid to his horses. If the slaves in charge of caring for the horses made any mistakes, Lloyd would beat them up. Douglass uses irony here to show that Lloyd treats his animals better than he treats the human slaves. He states that while the slaves got little to no food, clothes, and a bed, the horses get much better

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Frederick Douglass writes his narrative to educate the reader on the horrors of southern slavery. Douglass writes with the purpose of turning the reader against slavery and fight for abolishment. Throughout Frederick Douglass’s narrative he crafts figurative language such as imagery, repetition, and similes to shed light on the horrors of slavery and to get people to fight against slavery. To give the reader a detailed picture Frederick Douglass utilizes imagery. Douglass uses imagery in great detail when describing the beating of Aunt Hester, Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely naked.

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