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How Did Frederick Douglass Have A Resistance To Slavery

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Frederick Douglass was one of the only few slaves to be able to read and write and used this ability to free himself. To gain support against slavery, many abolitionists in the 19th century would detail the brutality of slavery as an institution, and explain the helplessness and dejected condition of black slaves under this cruelty. However, I don’t believe Douglass would agree with their statement that black slaves were helpless and dejected. Slaves were physically strong, capable of hope and ambition, and Douglass showed that there are other ways to learn than through a proper education since they did not have one. Under the cruelty of slavery in U.S. history, most slaves were not helpless or dejected and were fully capable of a resistance to slavery. Slaves had the ability to resist slave owners through physical resistance. Douglass proves this by telling how he overcame the infamous slave breaker Mr. Covey when he was supposed to be …show more content…

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. Slaves were not savages, they didn’t want to be illiterate - any chance they got, they would try to learn. Douglass ran a program that was to teach fellow illiterates how to read and for anyone who wished to attend could receive a whipping, but they came because they wished to learn (Douglass, p. 93). Denying a slave’s ability to learn how to read and write is an overlooked brutality of slavery; it turned their image to that of

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Frederick Douglass’s 1845 excerpt, “Learning to Read and Write” (paragraphs 7+8), shifts from slavery and abolitionism to learning how to write as a slave, utilizes homogenous analogies, parallel structure, and anaphoras, in order to show that although “learning how to write” is a “treacherous” and a “long, tedious effort” for slaves, hard work will eventually lead to success. Homogenous analogies, such as the fruit of abolition and the light breaking upon Douglass, accentuate how the word “abolition” can literally bring a person closer to freedom. For instance, Douglass mentions how a slave who “ran away” or “set fire to a barn” is associated with abolition. It took Douglass sometime to acquire the definition of “abolition” because he had

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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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Douglass empathizes with other slaves, and their morbid conditions and lack of affection has made the community family, because of this Douglass is determined to devote his life to promote the abolitionist movement. When expressing gratitude towards being translated to the plantations in Baltimore, Douglas projects he is very true to himself when he recites, “I prefer to be true to myself, even at incurring the ridicule of others than to be false and incur my own abhorrence.” Pg.45 This justifies Douglas’ determination and desire to remove slavery which consumed him. It became an obsession, something he was going to put everything in his power to achieve.

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In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.

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In particular, when Douglass learned to read he began reading documents that contained argument against slavery and in doing so, he became conscious of the true horror of slavery. He writes, “I often found myself regretting my own existence and wishing myself dead…” (ch. VII). However, he continues, saying “...and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself…”(ch.

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Throughout history, many different races have been oppressed, but none more than the African-Americans. Black Americans have been subjugated by the color of their skin for hundreds of years. However, by disobeying his “master”, Mr. Covey, Frederick Douglass was able to achieve freedom. Douglas depicts his fight for freedom in his autobiography, The Narrative of Frederick Douglass. After being enslaved his whole life, separated from his parents and abused for years, he was able to stand up to his oppressor, disobey him, and become free.

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In the 1700-1800’s, the use of African American slaves for backbreaking, unpaid work was at its prime. Despite the terrible conditions that slaves were forced to deal with, slave owners managed to convince themselves and others that it was not the abhorrent work it was thought to be. However, in the mid-1800’s, Northern and southern Americans were becoming more aware of the trauma that slaves were facing in the South. Soon, an abolitionist group began in protest, but still people doubted and questioned it.

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Also, the narrative showed up the resistance of Douglass which was demonstrated in his meeting with Edward Covey. The nonviolent resistance was decisive for him in acquiring manhood. Frederick Douglass had many qualities such as the patience, the courage and the endurance. Even when things and situations became very diificult for him and his fellow slaves, he had a noteworthy ability to hide and point his anger to the right side and the good way of resistance distinguished by maturity and wisdom.

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Douglass points to the vast unwillingness from the group of whites that refuses to fully perceive and accept African-Americans as deserving and equal citizens of the nation. Based on his personal experiences as a slave, Douglass is abundantly aware that the battle to abolish slavery is not an easy task. For the first twenty years of his life, he witnessed firsthand the abject cruelty of that institution in our country. Tactfully, Douglass seizes this opportunity to publicly highlight the unmerited and coarse differences in the treatment between the whites as opposed to the blacks living in the United States during this time period. He makes a “powerful testaments to the hypocrisy, bigotry and inhumanity of slavery” (Bunch 1).

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498 Words | 2 Pages

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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442 Words | 2 Pages

Douglass argues that slavery has a horrible effect and it is a bad thing. One piece of evidence is when in excerpt 3 paragraph 3 the text states that ¨Mr. Covey gave us enough to eat, but scarce time to eat it.¨ Another piece of evidence is in excerpt 4 paragraph 12 ¨Causing blood to run where I touched him with the ends of my fingers.¨ This shows that slavery is a thing that can cause pain and has a horrible effect on slaves. This disproves people who believed that was a good thing because this shows that someone can get hurt when they are enslaved.

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392 Words | 2 Pages

African-American slaves were forbidden to obtain the knowledge of being able to read or write, stemming from the fear of white masters that educated slaves will overpower them. Douglass managed to learn to read by bribing poor and hungry white boys into teaching him in exchange for bits of bread. Douglass illustrates his thirst for literacy through “[The] bread [he] used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give [him] that more valuable bread of knowledge” (pg 23). This reveals how much Douglass valued education and took advantage of all the knowledge he had access to. Today’s youth, especially the ones belonging to a minority

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973 Words | 4 Pages

Because of this, he successfully creates a contrast between what the slave owners think of and treat the slaves and how they are. Douglass says that slave’s minds were “starved by their cruel masters”(Douglass, 48) and that “they had been shut up in mental darkness” (Douglass, 48) and through education, something that they were deprived of, Frederick Douglass is able to open their minds and allow them to flourish into the complex people that they are. By showing a willingness to learn to read and write, the slaves prove that they were much more than what was forced upon them by their masters.

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836 Words | 4 Pages

Furthermore, Education opened Douglass’s eyes to the reality of his injustice as a slave; thus, compelling him to action as he recalls, “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. ”(Douglass, 2014, p.133) Education caused Douglass heartache. While attaining his education benefited Douglass, he could not relate to his fellow slaves. The fellow slaves had the ability to remain content with their current state of being since it was all they had ever known. Douglass knew otherwise and longed for the forbidden life as a free man, as it changed from an unattainable idea into an achievable

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Frederick Douglass was a great writer, but he wasn’t always. He was an escaped slave who used that in his speeches as a topic to gain the attention of his audience. His audience was a seemingly sympathetic one and got to them through rhetorical questions. Douglass wanted to convey the message that there are many changes that need to be made.

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