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How Does Frederick Douglass View Of America

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Frederick Douglass believes America has been altered by a mass hysteria, slavery, thus affecting its ideals, values, culture, practices, or myths. At the time, no one knew better when it came to slavery. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass depicts certain instances where he exploits the American perspective of slavery rather than challenging it. To begin with, Frederick Douglass intertwines witnessing graphic events with his personal experiences to represent how slave owners exploited African American female slaves. According to chapter 10, Douglass says, “…He was only able to buy one slave; and, shocking as is the fact, he bought her, as he said, for a breeder” (Douglass, 45). Not only were women seen as an object of possession, but rather as an inhuman being, whose unwanted duty was to satisfy their master’s pleasures. Douglass thoroughly describes his introduction to another world and doesn’t hold back. His description of being introduced to “hell” demonstrates how the majority of America engaged in slavery. By engaging in whipping acts, Douglass reinforces how slave owners …show more content…

Instead of staying with them to overcome obstacles, he learns how to read and write and uses it for his own benefit. According to chapter 10, Douglass says, “I was broken in body, soul, and spirit, my natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died” (Douglass, 45). Douglass believes ignorance played a major role in destroying any shred of hope a slave had left. The idea of slavery was to keep slaves ignorant; therefore, they wouldn’t question their past, their future, or their overall existence. Douglass doesn’t challenge the American beliefs of slavery, but uses their ideals to better enhance his motivation to

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Douglass uses paradox to demonstrate that slavery degragrates the slaverholder. When Douglass under Mr. Sever’s care he described that: “He was less cruel, less profane… He whipped, but seemed to take no pleasure in it. ”(Douglass 24). Most slaveholders are characterized to be cruel and inhuman because of the whipping and the way they treated the slaves.

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Throughout Frederick Douglass’s Narrative, he recalls the inhumane acts that were thrusted upon him as a slave, but overcame the abuse of the common practice. Specifically, Douglass since childhood worked in a plantation as a slave, but from him learning to read and write, he escapes and teaches the people of the North the hardships of slavery, where he faced deprivation through exploitation, discovered there were more opportunities for slaves as he approaches the North, and gains power to change of his life due to his knowledge. For instance, the slaves were put into lower social positions than their masters through social manipulation, in ways of isolation and deprivation, so they would not leave the plantations. To illustrate, in the plantations many of “the white

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1353 Words | 6 Pages

If a slave could learn how to read or write, they could create a plan to escape. The slaveholders only traded their slaves when it benefitted them, the slaves did not have a say so. The only way they were disloyal was when they tried to escape. When it came to holidays, the slaveholders did not tell them that they should have the time off, being that it was a holiday. They all gathered around and joked about their ignorance towards it. Douglass seemed to see through all of the slaveholder’s doings. He was determined to get away

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666 Words | 3 Pages

This juxtaposition is also serving the purpose to convey one of Douglass’ messages: the pervasive impacts of slavery. While Douglass appreciates the fact Mistress treats Douglass “as she supposed one human treat another” (¶ 2), he alludes to the Bible once again, to speak of the Golden Rule: treat others the way you would like to be treated. This allusion allows the audience to get only a gist of how even Christianity could not stop the horrors of

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740 Words | 3 Pages

After Douglass’s time with him he was no longer interested in reading or freedom, capable only of resting from his injuries and exhaustion. The turning point comes when Douglass

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1080 Words | 5 Pages

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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1257 Words | 6 Pages

While describing his escape and life after, Douglass uses strong words to depict the horrors of slavery to support his later feelings. One example of this specific diction is when he uses the words “wretchedness” (1) and “tortures” (22) to directly describe the enslavement. By using these words, Douglass not only establishes his hatred of slavery, but it helps to explain why at first he felt excited to be free and also why his feelings develop into fear eventually. After living in cruel conditions for so long, Douglass could not help but look forward to what was ahead of him, until he realized he had to always protect himself from going back to what he left. Additionally, Douglass includes many words to suggest the difficulties a fugitive slave might encounter.

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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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In Chapter 10, Douglass fails to make an escape from slavery. Douglass explains “ They at once seized me, and, without giving me any satisfaction, tied me - lashing my hands closely together” (96). This confirms that slaves don’t have the right to be free. Furthermore, the narrative continues with Douglass learning how to read and write. Douglass suggests “He would at once become unmanageable, and no value to his master” (51).

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753 Words | 4 Pages

Frederick Douglass’s narrative provides a first hand experience into the imbalance of power between a slave and a slaveholder and the negative effects it has on them both. Douglass proves that slavery destroys not only the slave, but the slaveholder as well by saying that this “poison of irresponsible power” has a dehumanizing effect on the slaveholder’s morals and beliefs (Douglass 40). This intense amount of power breaks the  kindest heart and changes the slaveholder into a heartless demon (Douglass 40). Yet these are not the only ways that Douglass proves what ill effect slavery has on the slaveholder. Douglass also uses deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion to present the negative effects of slavery.

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405 Words | 2 Pages

Fredrick Douglass autobiography was significant to the abolition movement in many ways by giving people hope for a new America were it made many people aware of racial prejudice making it as a sickness in one’s imagination he levied a powerful indictment against slavery and provided a voice that embraced antislavery politics and gave examples of slave narrative traditions.(PUT IN AN EXAMPLE OR QUOTE.)*Douglass gives a sense of his circumstances and sentiments, but he also insists that no reader can fully sympathize with his feelings without experiencing all of the conditions he went through. Douglass wants the reader to imagine his feelings while forcing the reader to recognize the impossibility of this imagining. Douglass request for freedom was an accomplishment (WHAT WAS THE ACCOMPLISHMENT?) Douglass wanted to target educated northern

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392 Words | 2 Pages

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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543 Words | 3 Pages

Douglass’s Message to Women Frederick Douglass gives many examples of the treatment of women like the following passage: “this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and made a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable; for by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father.” (Douglass 1183) Through this passage, Douglass brings to light that enslaved women are raped by their masters because of the master’s lust and the master’s desire to produce more slaves. By looking at the passage in the context of the rest of Narrative of Life, Douglass makes it clear that women who are raped by their masters and birth a child from the rape have it worse than others because of the excess brutality they receive from the master’s wife.

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560 Words | 3 Pages

Douglass states: “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery” (Douglass 51). Reading and writing opened Frederick Douglass’s eyes to the cause of the abolitionist. He became knowledgeable about a topic that white slave owners tried to keep hidden from their slaves. Literacy would eventually impact his life in more ways than what he could see while he was a young slave under Master Hugh’s

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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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