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Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

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In one of the most famous slave narratives of all time, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave", Douglass makes known his full history, from his various masters to his multiple trades he learned to the tale of his journey as a slave into a free man, and he emphasizes the various hardships faced during these times. As a slave Douglass was beaten and whipped as well as forced to witness similar violence against fellow slaves. Through his precise use of diction Douglass creates scenes so vivid that the reader is left feeling as if he or she were present; furthermore this extreme attention to detail elicits greater emotional responses from his readers. The style of diction found in much of Douglass' memoir is analytical …show more content…

Within the memoir there are many instances in which a slave owner committed an atrocious act; ironically, Douglass capitalizes on the misfortune he experienced. For example, Douglass, in which he is a young slave hand, writes "I have often been awakened at dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom [the slave master] used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back until she was literally covered with blood" (Douglass 51). This intense and brutal depiction of a whipping is designed to inflict an emotional response through word choice. Douglass acquires this lifelike description through his diction. Certain words and phrases such as "...heart-rending shrieks...", "...whip upon her naked back...", and "...covered in blood..." are both explicit and vivid to such an extent that the reader has no choice but to picture the grotesque scene in his or her mind. This forced imagery of such a horrendous scene causes massive sympathy and rage towards the situation that Frederick Douglass has been forced into. Here the sympathy is secondary when compared to the …show more content…

As he tells his life story, he comes to a point in which his previous master has died and all of his respective property, which includes his slaves, must be divided. When describing one of the people that could take ownership of him, Douglass references a man by the name of Master Andrew. A brutal, vicious, downright twisted man. Retelling a specific display of violence forced on his younger brother, Douglass writes "[Master Andrew] took my little brother by the throat, threw him on the ground, and with the heel of his boot stamped upon his head till the blood gushed from his nose and ears" (Douglass 91). Along with telling his life story, this section was emphasized in such a fashion in order to gain both sympathy and emotion from the audience. Like the prior two examples, there are multiple levels of diction that add to the overall effect. He describes gore and violence with phrases such as "...with the heel of his boot stamped upon his head..." and "...blood gushed from his nose and ears..." that have a major shock factor and are often used to grab the attention of the reader. Once violence based diction has focused the reader's attention, more sympathy is created when the audience reads "... took my little brother by the throat...". An example of diction points in that phrase would be the "...took..." and "...by the throat...". Those both specify helplessness of the abused character. The

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Throughout the narrative, the author includes his personal stories about experiencing the violence of slavery first-hand. For example, on page 20, he writes about the first time he witnessed a slave, his own aunt, getting the whip. “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest…I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition… It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery…” The author including his experience of his aunts whipping, in detail, appeals to the emotions of the reader.

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Frederick Douglass’s Hope for Freedom Hope and fear, two contradictory emotions that influence us all, convicted Frederick Douglass to choose life over death, light over darkness, and freedom over sin. Douglass, in Chapter ten, pages thirty-seven through thirty-nine, of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, utilizes various rhetorical techniques and tone shifts to convey his desperation to find hope in this time of misery and suffering. Mr. Covey, who Douglass has been sent to by his master to be broken, has succeeded in nearly tearing all of Douglass’s dreams of freedom away from him. To expound on his desires to escape, Douglass presents boats as something that induces joy to most but compels slaves to feel terror. Given the multiple uses of repetition, antithesis, indirect tone shifts, and various other rhetorical techniques, we can see Douglass relaying to his audience the hardships of slavery through ethos, the disheartening times that slavery brings, and his breakthrough of determination to obtain freedom.

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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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His “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave”, (Document G) makes emotional reading (lurid descriptions like "bitterest dregs of slavery" or "broken in body, mind, and soul" elicited reactions of disgust and dejection, which is the what abolitionists were hoping for) and showed that ultimately a slave, long thought to be a possession and less than human, was very much a person with reason and intellect. It provides unsurmountable proof that like any man, a slave deserved a life of dignity and liberty. His work shed light on the constant hard-working and abusive lifestyle that slaves

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One impressive line is “I was seldom whipped by my old master and suffered little form any thing else than hunger and cold.” As a the victim who was really suffered and tortured, he told the fact like a robot looker-on. As writing the narrative in first person, Douglass can easily show his anger and grief, however, he just used the unadorned facts and let the readers to judge themselves. Contrast with the analysis of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass stated above, Mark Twain, unlike Douglass, shaped the subjectivity in the book as an important and powerful characteristic.

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To show his perception on the very cruel slaveholders, Douglass uses a multitude of adjectives to create an image in his reader’s mind, while also using metaphors to better comprehend the situation. For example, Douglass stated, “No words, no tears, no prayers, for his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose.” By using this metaphor, Frederick Douglass made the reader question how one could be so cruel to another human being. By visualizing one whipping another without any guilt, it makes the audience understand the inhumanity of slavery. In total, this metaphor creates a agonizing image in the reader’s

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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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He truly tapped into the reader’s emotions to allow them a deeper connection with the story. To see the way that the slaveholder would dehumanize the slave to the point of seeing the slave as just a piece of property was truly heartbreaking. It was at moments such as this that the reader saw a glimpse of the mood, tone and theme. Douglass makes clear his tone of understanding, the theme of both the slave and the slaveholder being affected, and the mood of the reader being

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The legendary abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass was one of the most important social reformers of the nineteenth century. Being born into slavery on a Maryland Eastern Shore plantation to his mother, Harriet Bailey, and a white man, most likely Douglass’s first master was the starting point of his rise against the enslavement of African-Americans. Nearly 200 years after Douglass’s birth and 122 years after his death, The social activist’s name and accomplishments continue to inspire the progression of African-American youth in modern society. Through his ability to overcome obstacles, his strive for a better life through education, and his success despite humble beginnings, Frederick Douglass’s aspirations stretched his influence through

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Looking at this passage in the context of the rest of Narrative of Life, the woman being beaten is not only innocent and undeserving of the whipping but she is also whipped to the extent of blood pouring from her wounds. Douglass’s specific phrasing, “(amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him)”, is a clear example of who the victim is and the mentality of the perpetrator. By going into such graphic detail of the beating of the enslaved woman, Douglass evokes more pathos and empathy from the female

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This shows that the way a Master behaves around a slave can be very influential, and Douglass explains that he was compelled to give all his hard-earned money to Master Hugh because the influence the Master had on him was to give him everything he worked hard for. Next, on page 10 of his Narrative, Douglass proclaims, “They never knew when they were safe from punishment. They were frequently whipped when least deserving, and escaped whipping when most deserving it. Every thing depended upon the looks of the horses,

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Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis Essay The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by Frederick Douglass himself, is a brutally honest portrayal of slavery’s dehumanizing capabilities. By clearly connecting with his audience’s emotions, Douglass uses numerous rhetorical devices, including anecdotes and irony, to argue the depravity of slavery. Douglass clearly uses anecdotes to support his argument against the immorality of slavery. He illustrates different aspects of slavery’s destructive nature by using accounts of not only his own life but others’ alsoas well.

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