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Juxtaposition In Frederick Douglass

506 Words3 Pages

Through juxtaposition and diction, Frederick Douglass intensifies his urge for freedom and symbolizes the ships and bay as his escape. By employing descriptive diction, Frederick Douglass creates an image for the reader that highlights the ship's importance. Douglass had mixed feelings about what impact the ship had on him. He imaged the ships with their “beautiful vessels, robed in purest white” exemplifying how eye-catching they are, yet the ship's beauty “[to him they] were so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment”. This imagery gives the reader a precise picture of what he sees and illustrates how the ships haunt him through the beautiful sea. The bay being flooded with ships strengthened the meaning they had for him. Douglass drew …show more content…

Douglass associates the white sails with angels to implicate a sense of spiritualism. This slight religious diction brings hope into his narrative. The angelic ships would carry him to freedom with the help of God. Through the ship's imagery, his urge and motivation for freedom grow and continue to symbolize it as his way to freedom, the very freedom that comes with spirituality. Using juxtaposition, Douglass contrasts the ship's freedom with his bondage which illustrates his jealousy and despair of liberty. The ships provide Douglass with a sickening feeling. The ships force him to understand his condition and how he is forever tied there, wishing to be as free as the ships one day. He knew the truth that “[they] move merrily before the gentle gale, [while he] before the bloody whip”! He sets a jealous tone knowing “They [were] loosened from [their] moorings, and are free; [yet he is] fast in [his] chains and are a slave”. Douglass constantly highlights their difference in freedom. He wanted what the ship had. It intensifies his urge to leave because he, who is a man, has less freedom than an inanimate object. It just wasn't fair. Through his jealousy, it gives him a glimpse of

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