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Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

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When your freedom or even your own life is challenged, you will do most anything to get what you deserve. In the novel Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass shares his experiences with regard to the risks he took to gain what he felt he deserved, his freedom. Douglass shares his life story by appealing to ethos, pathos, and logos to demonstrate the horror and inhumanity of slavery, which he not only wanted to escape, but fight to end. Douglass’s appeal to ethos is strong because of his first hand experiences. He is able to share real-life stories and help explain to the audience why this is inhumane, foul, and unsound. Douglass first shows this appeal in the first chapter saying, “I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday… The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege” (Douglass 19). This was good to start showing that slaves know no details about their own life, but the white people even the children know every detail of theirs. …show more content…

As he shares his experiences he helps the audience feel the shame of being a slave, as every slave had. Douglass talks about Colonel Lloyd’s sons and son-in-laws saying, “All of these lived at the Great House Farm, and enjoyed the luxury of whipping the servants when they pleased… I have seen Winder (One of Colonel Lloyd’s son-in-laws) make one of the house servant stand off from him a suitable distance to be touched with the end of his whip, and at every stroke raise great ridges upon his back” (Douglass 34). Sharing this experience and detail shows how cruel whites were to the

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By appealing to the emotions of the reader, Frederick Douglass can build his argument of how awful slavery was and how the slave owners used Christianity to justify what they did. In the book, Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, the author uses his language to bring meaning to what he is writing. He creates an emotional connection to the reader using pathos, and builds his argument using the credibility of others, using ethos. In his book he uses his words to prove his argument to the reader of how the slave owners would use Christianity to justify slavery and violence, and how slavery affected everyone who was

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Frederick Douglass, born a slave and later the most influential African American leader of the 1800s, addresses the hypocrisy of the US of maintaining slavery with its upheld ideals being freedom and independence on July 4th, 1852. Douglass builds his argument by using surprising contrasts, plain facts, and provocative antithesis. Introducing his subject, Douglass reminds his audience about the dark side of America for slaves, in sharp, surprising contrasts with the apparent progressivity within the nation. He first notices “the disparity,” that “the sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and deaths to me,” as an African-American former slave. It is surprising for the audience to hear that the Sun does not bring him any prosperity, that the Sun, the source of life on earth, brings him destruction.

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‘’ No words, No tears, No prayers, from his glory victim, seemed to move his iron heart fro his bloody purpose.’’ (page 5). Douglass appeals to the mournful emotions of the audience by expressing how the overseers gave no mercy or cared about the effect of whippings to the slaves. Douglass use of parallelism displayed how slavery was

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By Douglass stating just how his mistress begun to take precautions of him being able to read, and how furious his mistress became, Douglass brings irony in his writing to convey to his audience that the same woman that provided for the unfortunate and aided the ones that needed it the most… is now restricting a slave from his freedom. Douglass transitions onto concluding the effects of slavery and how his mistress has been affected prior to and after the effects of slavery. He states “She was an apt woman; and a little experience soon demonstrated, to her satisfaction, that education and slavery were incompatible with each other.” Douglass recognizes how his mistress altered with “experience” of becoming a slave owner and his greater purpose is to reveal how it had brainwashed his

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By being a slave, he witnesses first hand all of the dehumanizing events that have taken place, such as the unprovoked torment of innocent slaves. This information is important because it provides trust. Subsequently, it is easier for the audience to empathize with the slaves because of this new trust. Douglass uses ethos to provide credibility to his narrative, and it allows the readers to build a trusting relationship with

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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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The autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written in 1845 in Massachusetts, narrates the evils of slavery through the point of view of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass is a slave who focuses his attention into escaping the horrors of slavery. He articulates his mournful story to anyone and everyone, in hopes of disclosing the crimes that come with slavery. In doing so, Douglass uses many rhetorical strategies to make effective arguments against slavery. Frederick Douglass makes a point to demonstrate the deterioration slavery yields from moral, benevolent people into ruthless, cold-hearted people.

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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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Douglass encountered multiple harsh realities of being enslaved. For example, the ex-slave was practically starved to death by his masters on multiple occasions. In fact, “[He was] allowed less than a half of a bushel of corn-meal per week, and very little else... It was not enough for [him] to subsist upon... A great many times [he had] been nearly perishing with hunger” (pg 31).

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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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PAGE 2 In the Narrative Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, he uses this text to explain his purpose in “throwing light on the American slave system”, or show it for what it really is, as well as show his position on how he strongly believes slavery is an issue that needs to be addressed and how it differs from those who defended slavery, with experiences from his own life to support his argument. Douglass uses experience from his early days as a young slave to throw light on the aspect of physical abuse. According to his narrative, Douglass states, “Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder.

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