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Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Argumentative Essay

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Frederick Douglass points out in his book,” Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass,” that slavery was not only negative for slaves but also the slaveholders. The slaveholders had big responsibilities by keeping their reputation, keeping the slaves ignorant, and it also turned good people into cruel human beings. The negative effects on slavery had an impact on everyone involved throughout the process. The slaveholders had to keep a good reputation so they could keep buying slaves. Often masters would whip their slaves. They had to be careful about how and where they were whipped. If someone felt they were treated unfairly the masters reputation would be on the line. In douglass’ book he and his master,Covey, gets into a fight because he wanted to whip him but douglass resisted, causing a physical fight that lasted hours. Covey stated after the fight that “if Douglass had not resisted he would have whipped him bad but he was saving his face.” What Covey meant by saving face was he was looking after his reputation, if he would have been caught it would look bad on his part. …show more content…

The slaveholders were to believe that slavery was a natural state of being. Therefore, the whites were meant to be smarter than the blacks so they could keep power. They had to keep slaves from learning to read or write, which was a difficult task. In Douglass’ case he had several methods of learning. The first method of learning Douglass came to was one of the mistress’ from his master’s house. She taught him until she was told to stop. Next Douglass gave food to some of the boys from a school in change of teaching him to read. Even though the task might seem so simple for the slaveholders, slaves like Douglass sometimes found was around their

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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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From a young age, Douglass wanted to learn to read and write, as he knew it would get him closer to freedom. The wife of Douglass’ master had begun teaching him to read and write,

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‘’ They were frequently whipped when least deserving, and escaped whipping when most deserving it.’’ (page 18). Douglass captures the audience by using parallelism to explain how the slaves was regularly whipped. Douglass use of parallelism displayed how slavery was inhuman. Douglass again uses parallelism to show how slavery was heartbroken by describing how the overseers didn’t care.

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Slaves obtaining knowledge or an education were then viewed as unmanageable. One can see that through Frederick Douglass’s gain of education; Slavery began to look more than an imprisonment and his mind would not cease to think. With this depressing state of mind, Douglass would begin to plot for ways to obtain his education. Despite living in a country were teaching slaves was unpardonable, Frederick Douglass began to incorporate various ways for his education. He would hide in a separate room and would be suspected by his mistress that he could be reading a book.

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In this biography ,”narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass” shows how slavery doesn't only negatively affects not only the slaves but also the slaveholders too. Way back when slaves were almost necessary for a farmer in the south, the slaves acted up and the cruel harsh punishments the slaveholders did to keep the slaves in line. Slaves had a cruel terrible life but the slaveholders were almost as bad, from getting threatened when crop wasn't done to becoming a slave himself. According to Douglass in his article, biography of the life of “Frederick Douglass” slavery was one of the most popular and most expensive things on the market yet everybody had one.

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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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This shows how Mr. Covey only wants his own needs fulfilled. It angers him when he doesn’t get his way. Mr. Covey is by far the weakest character in this book because he relies to much on the false power of the masters of the slaves and the harsh power of a whip. His need for power is problematic due to the fact that it makes slaves, who he already has power over, more vulnerable to his

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According to Mistress Hugh, “education and slavery were incompatible with each other” (Douglass, 33). Although Mistress Hugh had stopped teaching Douglass how to read, the seed of knowledge had already been planted. In the years that followed, his hunger for knowledge did not dissipate. Douglass devised various methods to learn to read and write in very clever ways.

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Mrs. Auld taught Douglass his ABCs and how “to spell words of three or four letters”, but stopped when her husband told her it was illegal to educate a slave (Douglass 1196). Douglass found others to teach him to read (1197-1199). When he was twelve, Douglass read “The Columbian Orator” and learned about emancipation (1199). 4.

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When Douglass collapsed because of ill, Covey was kicking and hitting Douglass until he was satisfied, then left Douglass bleeding on the floor. Covey successfully broke

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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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With all the knowledge he was gaining, he began to comprehend everything around him. The things he was learning fascinated him, but the “more [he] read, the more [he] was led to abhor and detest [his] enslavers”(Douglass 35); however, that should not be viewed as a negative affect but a positive one. No one should want to be deceived for their entire life. This hatred that he built up motivated him to continue to further educate himself. As a result, he later motivated other slaves to earn an education by having “[availed] themselves to [an] opportunity to learn to read” (Douglass 69) by Douglass teaching them every Sunday.

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Throughout the Narrative of Frederick Douglass, we can see Douglass state in the Narrative that learning how to read changed his

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”(78) This comment must have been extremely hurtful to Douglass, as the connotation of the word ‘spoil’ equates him to meat or something of the sort, rather than the person that he was. Auld said, “If you teach that n-----r (Douglass) how to read, there would be no use in keeping him.” (78) This statement proves that the master really knew that the black man was equally capable of becoming intelligent, but that by deceit, the black man could be made the bondservant of the white man by keeping him ignorant. After Douglass had educated himself by reading, he became more

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Douglass believe education was the strength for slaves to gain freedom. Douglass finally succeeded in learning how to write when he was left alone by his mistress and started to practice writing in his Master Thomas’s copy-book. Learning how to read and write help Douglass see slavery as intolerable cruel punishment, so he did not sleep until he became free. By doing so, Frederick Douglas began to write in support of

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