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Slavery By Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

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Frederick Douglass wrote his narrative as a freeman, therefore, he is able to reflect on his life as a slave and decode the cryptic artifice of his former slave owners. Douglass lived a harsh life in the south before he made his valiant escape to the north, in order to evade further physical and mental torture. Therefore, Douglass is able to understand what it is like to be an invisible entity with a lack of identity, on physical earth. Metaphors are like string that Douglass uses to weave together a cohesive argument to support the eradication of slavery. As Douglass reminisces on his life he states that he “was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery...” (Douglass) Slavery, in this instance, is taken out of its literal context and liquefied …show more content…

Douglass further explores this idea when he mentions that “No words, no tears, no prayers, from his glory victim, seemed to move his iron heart form its blood purpose.” (Douglass) The repetition of the word “no “displays the concrete and unmovable morals and beliefs of slave owners. The hearts of slave owners, overtime, became cold and hardened by their immoral acts, which is shown through Douglass’s comparison of the slave owner’s heart to iron. Iron is typically utilized to make strong structures such as buildings due to the fact that is a material that is strong and unable to be broken with the bare hands of humans. Within the human body the most vital organ is the heart; it pumps blood throughout the whole body, without a healthy heart, a person is unable to live. As opposed to pumping blood, the hearts of slave owners pumped iron throughout the entirety of their bodies ultimately causing their whole state of being to be stone cold and lifeless. Slave owners, even in their actions, were mechanical in the way they completed their everyday actions and constantly abused slaves without the slightest twinge of remorse. Slavery froze human emotion and made society as whole frostbite and numb to its negative effects; it was not until the 14th amendment was enacted that warmth and returned back to America. Douglass accentuates the fact slave owners are halt the progression of society, as a whole, through their refusal to allow African Americans

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