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Frederick Douglass Themes

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Themes within Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave The novel, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, by Frederick Douglass, shows how Frederick Douglass goes through slavery as a child up until he is an adult. Throughout Frederick’s life, you will see how he grows up as a slave and how much terrible stuff he has to go through to finally be a free man. Respect is earned not given, never lose faith, and you have to go through the bad to get to the good are three themes you will see throughout this novel. The first theme brought up in the novel is respect is earned not given. Slaves were expected to work day and night will minimum time to sleep or break, which is unfair. When people are given …show more content…

Believing in God and that one day you could possibly be a free me is one thing that kept many slaves alive. Rarely any slaves had faith; going through so much hurt after hurt made many slaves lose faith after an amount of time but, the ones that kept faith are the ones that were successful with becoming free. "From my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and in the darkest hours of my career in slavery, this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed not from me, but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom. This good spirit was from God, and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise." (Douglass,75) Escaping for slaves really took a lot of hope, faith, and heart. It was not something any slave could do, you had to really want it and have the strength. “Sincerely and earnestly hoping that this little book may do something toward throwing light on the American slave system, and hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds-faithfully relying upon the power of truth, love, and justice, for success in my humble efforts-and solemnly pledging myself anew to the sacred cause,I subscribe myself”.

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Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis A famous slave and abolitionist in the struggle for liberty on behalf of American slaves, Frederick Douglass, in his autobiography published in 1845, portrayed the horrors of captivity in the South. Douglass’s purpose in the narrative was to show how slaves lived, what they experienced, and how they were unquestionably less comfortable in captivity than they would have been in a liberated world. He implemented a didactic tone to portray the viciousness of slave-owners and the severe living conditions for the slaves. Employing his experience as a slave, Douglass accurately expressed the terrors that he and the other slaves endured. In chapter six, Douglass described his involvement with his mistress,

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Frederick Douglass was an African American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. Douglass wrote the novel “The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass” which depicted his life as a slave and enticed his ambition to become a free man. This novel helped form the big abolitionist movement. In the chapters of this novel, it explains important details like how he first learned to read and write, stays at different plantations, later in life events, leading up to his freedom.

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Slavery: Effective on Slaves and Slaveholders In Frederick Douglass’s autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Douglass recounts his life in slavery to reveal to his readers the horrors of the American slave system. To effectively inform his readers of the corrupt system, he publicizes the slaveholders’ hypocritical practice of Christianity. Although he himself is a Christian, Douglass’s narrative is a scathing commentary on the ironic role of Christian religion in the Southern slaveholding culture. Throughout his book, the author expresses and exemplifies his perspective on religion by illustrating the falseness and hypocrisy of the Southern people. To start off, Frederick Douglass suggests that the Southern people’s religion is false and insincere.

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The Detriments of Slavery In Narrative, Frederick Douglass describes his personal experience as a slave and how slavery is dehumanizing. As Douglass strives for freedom from slavery, both mentally and physically, he explains each of his masters and how they change throughout their lives of being slave holders. Douglas argues that slavery is not only physically and mentally detrimental to the slave but additionally, the slave owner. Both slave and slave holders suffer physically from slavery. For a slave, physical suffering is due to lack of necessities or being treated harshly.

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Frederick Douglass’s Hope for Freedom Hope and fear, two contradictory emotions that influence us all, convicted Frederick Douglass to choose life over death, light over darkness, and freedom over sin. Douglass, in Chapter ten, pages thirty-seven through thirty-nine, of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, utilizes various rhetorical techniques and tone shifts to convey his desperation to find hope in this time of misery and suffering. Mr. Covey, who Douglass has been sent to by his master to be broken, has succeeded in nearly tearing all of Douglass’s dreams of freedom away from him. To expound on his desires to escape, Douglass presents boats as something that induces joy to most but compels slaves to feel terror. Given the multiple uses of repetition, antithesis, indirect tone shifts, and various other rhetorical techniques, we can see Douglass relaying to his audience the hardships of slavery through ethos, the disheartening times that slavery brings, and his breakthrough of determination to obtain freedom.

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On July 5th 1852 Fredrick Douglass gave a speech to the anti-slavery society to show that all men and woman are equal no matter what. Douglass uses ethos, pathos, and logos in his speech to make look reasonable. Douglass demonstrates ethos by speaking in first person that of which he had experience slavery: "I was born amid such sights and scenes"(Douglass 4). When Douglass spoke these words to the society, they knew of his personal knowledge and was able to depend on him has a reliable source of information. The anti-slavery society listening to his every word, considering that Douglass spoke with integrity, knowledge and emotions.

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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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In life, humans have many different traits that describes themself. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass shows life a slave in the nineteenth century. In the story, Douglass brings us back in time to show his experiences of the hypocrisy of human nature. Disputes with Douglass and his masters are seen throughout the story showing both the good and bad traits of human nature. American literature of the nineteenth century reveals that human nature embodies contrasting traits such as love and cruelty through the uses of literary devices.

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In the book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass reveals his life as a slave and the valuable lessons he learned from his experience. Douglass wants the truth about slavery to be revealed and wants to eliminate the lies that portray slavery as beneficial. Douglass exposes the reality of slavery by criticizing the “romantic image” of slavery, showing the intellectual capabilities slaves had, and revealing the reasons why slaves were disloyal to each other. Douglass criticizes the southern, romantic image of slavery by exposing the harsh treatment and sadness that slaves endured. It was southerners who thought slavery as beneficial, because it benefited themselves and white society.

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