Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

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

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

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