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Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Reflective Essay

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The concept of slavery is an idea that’s nearly universally shunned and considered barbaric in the eyes of modern society. However, as we all have learned in school, slavery was once considered one of the foundations of society in America. Rounded up and used like cattle, these people were forced from their home country, forced to do backbreaking work, and forced to dedicate their lives to their owners for profit. Yet, despite the haze of darkness and despair that enveloped the lives of American slaves, bits of light shine through, showing what life really was like for a slave. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is one such bright source of light, giving a unique glimpse of daily life in slavery. The book is essential to truly understanding slavery as it reveals the true thoughts and feelings of a person who suffered through some of the worst that the American people had to offer.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a powerful and …show more content…

Having read through and thoroughly studied this book, as well as many other writings on slavery in my school’s history courses, Douglass’s narratives offers more than a textbook or research paper; he gives a glimpse of the emotions that hide behind the stone-faced slaves in the black and white images. Having personally experienced the horrors of slavery, Douglass reveals the feelings of absolute terror and helplessness brought about by the oppressive slave overseers. His descriptions of the treatment of young children slaves are particularly vivid. In one instance, he describes the appearance of a fourteen year old slave girl, saying that “The head, neck, and shoulders of Mary were literally cut to pieces… and found it [Mary’s head] nearly covered with festering sores...were kept nearly half-starved ” (21). The

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In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave written by Frederick Douglass, the author asserts that slaves were treated no better than livestock. Douglass supports his claim by giving examples of the hardships he endured while living as a slave. Douglass’s purpose is to connect with the reader on multiple levels in order to abolish slavery. Based on the text, Douglass is writing to people with the power to achieve his goal of abolishing slavery. Douglass, a former slave, experienced the mistreatment of slaves to the worst degree.

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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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Slaves were treated with the lowest of respect, and had no form of justice or rights. The slave system during the time that Frederic Douglass was a slave was corrupted, and he made that very clear within his narrative. In Douglass’ narrative we are shown how little rights the slaves

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Slavery has been one of the most heart-wrenching and eye-opening segments in American history. While everyone is aware that slavery is terrible, few people realize that slavery took various forms and that no two stories are the same. Slaves that served in bigger cities had less work that revolved around labor, a better basic lifestyle and finally, they were treated better than their plantation counterparts. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by Frederick Douglass, Douglass uses his time in both posts to provide a valid and well-balanced comparison of the two very different but tragically similar lifestyles.

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Frederick Douglass, being a slave himself, knew the sorrows of slavery. Yet, the true cruelty of slavery was only made clear to him after he learned to read, as described in his piece, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.” In

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“The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” written by Frederick Douglass himself, is a piece of literature about slavery. Born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Frederick Douglass, the voice within the text, was an abolitionist and activist who wanted to reveal the cruelness of slavery. Douglass decided to expose slavery by writing his story down in 1845, making his age roughly 27 years old. Throughout the narrative, Douglass uses ethos, pathos, and logos to convince the readers that his story is the truth and to establish credibility by exposing the barbaric ways of slavery. Through the use of rhetorical devices, Douglass reveals that the slaveholders prove their looks and their words work together by the heartlessness

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In the book, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, we learn what it was like to be a slave in his time. We learn of the brutality and the horrible life imposed on the slaves by the slaveowners. Altogether, the book is very good at teaching us about the brutality, but who did he write this for, and why did he write it? Also, what did Douglass want the reader to take away after reading the book, and in what specific way did he recreate his time as a slave to convey his message? Overall, Douglass’s book has deeper meaning that what it was like to be a slave, and his choice of words, sentence structure, and imagery is very specific is a key example of this.

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Douglass points to the vast unwillingness from the group of whites that refuses to fully perceive and accept African-Americans as deserving and equal citizens of the nation. Based on his personal experiences as a slave, Douglass is abundantly aware that the battle to abolish slavery is not an easy task. For the first twenty years of his life, he witnessed firsthand the abject cruelty of that institution in our country. Tactfully, Douglass seizes this opportunity to publicly highlight the unmerited and coarse differences in the treatment between the whites as opposed to the blacks living in the United States during this time period. He makes a “powerful testaments to the hypocrisy, bigotry and inhumanity of slavery” (Bunch 1).

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Individuals can empathize and grow from learning from the past experiences of others. The pre-civil war era in United States was a time where many humans were mistreated both psychologically and physically. Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave gives readers the opportunity to understand exactly how America’s history shaped modern-day social norms and behaviors. Douglass’ personal account not only positively influenced the abolitionist movement, but raised questions of morality and human rights. The story of Frederick Douglass’ life shows exactly the repercussions of humans unjustly mistreating other humans.

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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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“I have observed this in my experience of slavery, – that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom.” Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, this autobiography was published in 1845. Frederick a prominent abolitionist figure was the first black “public intellectual.” At a time where many slaves were illiterate and prohibited to learn how to read and write, Douglass, despite being forbidden to do so by his master (Hugh Auld), managed to learn to read and write. His narrative has very astounding vocabulary which impressed many people.

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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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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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The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass’s autobiography in which Douglass goes into detail about growing up as a slave and then escaping for a better life. During the early-to-mid 1800s, the period that this book was written, African-American slaves were no more than workers for their masters. Frederick Douglass recounts not only his personal life experiences but also the experiences of his fellow slaves during the period. This book was aimed at abolitionists, so he makes a point to portray the slaves as actual living people, not the inhuman beings that they are treated as. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slaves are inhumanly represented by their owners and Frederick Douglass shines a positive light

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Douglass is a African American that was a slave and did a Narrative about his time being a slave and in his Narrative he “threw light” at the American slave system. African American slave Frederick Douglass lived through a time of racism and how slavery was a natural thing to do but was a very awful thing. And slavery is when families who had colored skin were separated and sold of to a person that can do anything to them, the slave is pretty much like the slaveholder’s property. And in this essay I will talk about how Douglass’s position differs from those who supported slavery and also I will be talking about How Douglass used his Narrative to share his position. How Douglass “throws light” on the American Slave system is by showing

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