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How Does Frederick Douglass Use Ethos In Letter To My Master

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While a building may look entirely beautiful without columns or pillars, they are what hold the building up and give it support. In the same way, an essay needs to have something that supports the claim and hold the entire essay intact. In order to successfully persuade the audience a discourse must not only sound good, but be backed with a significant amount of support and evidence; Without it the piece would be meaningless as it holds no real content. Frederick Douglass, a runaway slave, abolitionist, and writer who wrote Letter to my Master, Thomas Auld employs logos in order to provide the support that his claims need to effectively persuade his audience. He states the reason why he believes he is justified in mentioning his master’s name …show more content…

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. If each individual can make a living on their own, then they should, which is what he goes on to explain when he makes the claim that they were both distinct and equal …show more content…

First Douglass writes about his relatives who were still being held by his old master. He begs Thomas Auld to tell him how they are doing and set them free. However, this is not enough so he asks his master how he would "look upon me, were I, some dark night, in company with a band of hardened villains, to enter the precincts of your elegant dwelling, and seize the person of your own lovely daughter, Amanda, and carry her … make her … compel her … place her … disregard her … feed her … and so on" (105). This is an important rebuttal which asks not only his master, but oppressors in general to imagine the reverse, where they are the ones being treated like that. It allows them to think about what it would be like were they in the same position as Frederick Douglass and his fellows. It would be no different what the whites were doing to the blacks, more specifically what his master had done to him. Essentially, it emphasizes just how immoral it was aiding his overall argument that people should not be treated in such a

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