Frederick Douglass Research Paper

Dr. Kamal

American Prose and Fiction

1st April 2016

Narrative of Frederick Douglass:

Life and psychology of Douglass and American slaves in general

Frederick Douglass’s narrative chronicles his youth that ended soon after he fled slavery at about twenty. This autobiography focuses on the incidents in his life that clearly stand out in terms for their demonstration of brutal treatment of all American slaves; moreover they illustrate his ability to endure and scrape through such cruel conditions with his humanity intact. The narrative begins with Douglass as a slave in both body and mind. Douglass pens down this narrative both to establish his identity, and to bring out his condemnation of slavery to the world. The events he recalls are pivotal

At several times over the course of the narrative, the reader can’t help but empathize and feel the pain and hurt Douglass goes through. In one instance, he describes how as a child he was unable to remember the simplest things such as his age. “The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. (1.1) He describes how the masters benefited from this ignorance. “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 to keep their slaves thus ignorant” (p. 21). This is cruelty of American slave culture at its

They were considered substandard and objectified by the whites in every frame of life. As for early public opinion on the mental aptitude of blacks, the words of Thomas Jefferson (1787/1972) spoke for many: "Blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind" (p. 143). Many early white Americans viewed blacks as un-evolved, inferior beings; that is, as less than human, physically impervious to pain, and mentally unfit for abstract or creative thought (Plous and Williams 796). In the narrative we see the kind of mental, physical and psychological torture Frederick is subjected to by the slave-breakers. The fact that the masters needed professional ‘breakers’ to discipline their slaves is sickening