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How Did Frederick Douglass Escape From Slavery

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Frederick Douglass’s “Escape from Slavery” is an account of why he chose to risk his life for his freedom. Douglass does not reveal how he escapes for fear it would endanger those who assisted him in addition, to preventing future escapes from other slaves. In other words, helping a slave escape was punishable in the same manner as a murderer. In view of, the dangers of revealing the how, Douglass only reveals to his readers the why’s of his desire to escape and his journey to becoming a free man. The author attempts to satisfy our curiosity with his story of “Escape from Slavery”. Our author becomes restless in 1838, no longer inclined to turn over his full wages to his master. Often master Thomas would allow Douglass to keep a few pennies of his pay, which angered Douglass even more since this affirmed that his master knew that Douglass was entitled to all of It (Douglas, 1855). Douglass believed his chance for freedom would be successful if he could “hire his time” and save some of the wages (Douglass, 1855). In the 1800’s the term hiring my time refers to a slave hiring his own time for compensation outside of the time …show more content…

On the other hand, he is still in fear for he is a fugitive slave and still at risk of being caught. In his words, he could trust no one and was alone without a place to stay. Douglass wants his readers to understand the conflict he is going through, freeing himself from slavery mentally and physically. The author describes a great feeling of loneliness and the life and death situation of getting caught by a slaveholder. One of Douglass’s main points is for his audience to understand the danger he is in and the consequences of his capture. He is afraid to speak to people in public for fear of saying something wrong that may reveal to a stranger he is not a free

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Douglass details his experiences and life after running away “Since I left you, I have had a rich experience. I have occupied stations which I never dreamed of when a slave. […] I soon learned, however, to count money, as well as to make it, and got on swimmingly” (103). During this time period, it was a common presupposition that African Americans were incapable of making a living on their own. However, Douglass uses his own experiences to prove otherwise, which was important in proving his main argument that he was not a slave but rather his master’s fellow man.

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In the passage, Frederick Douglass speaks about the particulars of his state of mind as an escaped slave, a fugitive, in 1830’s New York. Throughout the passage, Douglass comprehensively uses similes and metaphors, as well as tone shifts, and repetition, to fully impart unto the reader his not only elation at being free but also his fears, exhaustion and his anxiety towards trusting people. This garners both empathy and understanding from his audience. Douglass opens the passage by describing parts of his escape to New York, comparing his elation to that of a “mariner . . .

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In this moment, by eavesdropping and allowing the words of his white master to fester in his soul, Douglass came to know how the white man had power over the black man. By knowing the information of what caused his suffering, Douglass easily knew how to reverse the suffering he was facing into the enlightenment that freedom from slavery poses. This is a profound, and thus efficacious, moment in the text of the novel considering the fact that it was the turning point from hopelessness to optimistic aspiration in Douglass’

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140 Words | 1 Pages

There are a few themes presented in the narrative of Frederick Douglass. In this narrative, he demonstrates his journey, born in slavery around the 1830’s, discusses his journey, environmental influences, slaves among him, and his travels to escaping slavery. Moreover, he brings his writing into life as he discovers the superiority of the whites in their advantage of slavery and Frederick Douglass in realization; a slave being taught to read and write can be the greatest victory of their freedom. In the ending of the book, the author brings alive the writing to the reader about America and the slave organization.

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296 Words | 2 Pages

Frederick Douglass uses diction to express that the emotions of being free are equally as taxing as the emotions he experienced while he was a slave. He says that being free was the highest excitement he ever felt even though the answer does not satisfy him. By contradicting himself he seems to want to show that an answer to the question of how he felt in a free state is as inexplicable how it felt to be a slave. He later states that one must just experience or imagine themselves in a similar situation to understand his emotions. He compares escaping slavery to escaping a ‘’den of hungry tigers,’’ but the relief is shortly lived because loneliness consumes him.

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Natural elements would not prevent the slaves from working, even during harsh winters. We grasp a connection between the harsh conditions and horrid treatment the slaves endured. The cycle of a slaves life is exemplified in this example in how their lives solely revolved around working all the time. Douglass shows an antithesis in how to Mr. Covey, “The longest days were to short for him, and the shortest nights too long for him” (38). This is used to convey how the quantity of work Mr. Covey wanted to be accomplished was never done in that day.

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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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This excerpt from “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave"—Frederick Douglass’s autobiography published on May 1st, 1845—tells the story of Douglass’s life shortly before and following his escape from slavery and explains Douglass’s belief that slavery has detrimental effects on all parties involved. He utilizes a variety of rhetorical devices, including repetition, imagery, and analogy, to depict the powerful emotions and hardships he encountered on his path to emancipation. Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in rural Maryland. He spent many years enduring the torture that comes with enslavement. He was subjected to horrible injustices, witnessing and often experiencing the cruel treatment of the enslaved.

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Frederick Douglass was a slave from Maryland who, through luck and intelligence, was able to escape slavery at 20 years old. In his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, he describes how it felt being a slave throughout his childhood and adolescence, as well as the traumatizing conditions on plantations. Douglass also discusses how he learned to read and write, which causes him to consider his position in slavery and helps to inspire his escape. Nevertheless, once he arrives in New York, Douglass’s hope quickly fades as he is faced with the reality of his situation; he is all alone in a place where he could easily be caught and returned to slavery, making the efforts of his escape in vain. In the excerpt from his autobiography,

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Analysing Frederick Douglass’s Narrative Frederick Douglass’s narrative of his slavery experience, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” was published in 1845. It discussed the truly horrific accounts of what legalized slavery looked like for him. Frederick Douglass uses diction in the form of explicit negative connotation in his narrative to reveal the horrible legacy of slavery. Douglass uses connotation in his narrative to help the reader understand the drastic realities of being a slave, especially a runaway slave, during the time of legalized slavery. He describes his experience of being in a free state as, “the unarmed mariner to feel when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate.”

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597 Words | 3 Pages

Thomas Jang Usso 101 Professor … [TITLE] The narrative of Fredrick Douglass is both powerful and pitiful. It gives a first-person perspective on the life of a slave laborer in both the rural south and the urban. Despite the horrible treatment, he was able to give himself an education with the help of those around him. By doing so he is able to read and think about the evils of slavery. Douglass’s narrative consists of the many difficulties a slave must endure, and reasons as to why slavery must be abolished.

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1326 Words | 6 Pages

Douglass had always retained an ambitious flame within himself and honed his drive into freedom from the brutalization of slavery. When Douglass moved to work under Mr. Freeland’s hand, he met and became good friends with a few other slaves. Douglass filled them with dreams of freedom and unveiled their ambition for abolition. They gathered up canoes and attempted to paddle their way to freedom (Douglass, p. 95). While they failed, it shows how simple it is for slaves to desperately want to try; ambition.

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When Douglass master unexpectedly died, he and other slaves were to be sent off to be claimed or sold to family and friends, because these slaves are “considered property” This is a hard time for slaves because then “families are divided and friends separated, never to see each again.” Douglass was lucky enough to be sent back to Baltimore. His grandmother ;however, is sent into the woods to fend for herself, considered “not valuable enough to sell.” Soon after these events, Douglass is sent to the country. When he becomes aware of this, he realizes that it may be too late to escape saying that “ it’s much harder to escape in the country than in a big city like Baltimore.”

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935 Words | 4 Pages

Many slaves fear even the idea of escaping because of the possible consequences that come along with it. Therefore, the escape of Frederick Douglass is relatively substantial. Douglass says he feels “like the one who escaped a den of hungry lions.” He feels fortunate to have accomplished something that not many have been able to. Unfortunately, his happiness is short lived.

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Douglass managed to overcome the maltreatment of his wretched slave owners through the eventual attainment of freedom. The injustice imposed upon the African-American slaves by their owners was the crux of Douglass’s motivation to escape this inhumane life. Adolescents in today’s society could use Frederick’s determination as an example of moving forward to better oneself or one’s situation regardless of

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