How Frederick Douglass Demystifies Slavery

How Frederick Douglass Demystifies Slavery

The Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by Frederick Douglass, demonstrates the severe reality of slavery as it had never been shown before. Douglass demystifies slavery by rebuking its romantic image, refuting the idea of black intellectual inferiority, and showing that the system promotes disloyalty among the slaves. Douglass rebukes the romantic image of slavery by displaying brutal realities that hadn’t yet been told. He shows the prevalent beatings that “[cause] the blood to run.”(Douglass 59). When Douglass witnesses his first beating, he characterizes it as “the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery.”(Douglass 16). He doesn’t refrain from depicting the barbarous details and describes many of the beatings to convey just how frequent they are. White people assume that the slaves’ singing is “evidence of their contentment and happiness,”; however, Douglass clarifies that the songs really represent the

Douglass explains that the slaves do not say anything bad about their slaveholders. Furthermore, there are fights between slaves who disagree which of their masters is better. Through their masters’ attempts to promote slavery, the slaves have been taught to think that “the greatness of their masters [is] transferrable to themselves”(31). The disloyalty was brought about by not being able to talk bad about their masters. Douglass also discloses that slaves “suppress the truth rather than take the consequences of telling it,” in the pursuit of self preservation, which can cause them to betray their fellow slaves (30). This demonstrates that the slaves’ drive to “prove themselves a part of the human family,” which results from their enslavement, is stronger than their loyalty to each other (30). There is a natural fellowship among slaves, but the system of slavery, nevertheless, promotes disunity between