ipl-logo

Frederick Douglass Speech Analysis

1802 Words8 Pages

“After apologizing for his ignorance, and reminding the audience that slavery was a poor school for the human intellect and heart, he proceeded to narrate some of the facts in his own history as a slave, and in the course of his speech gave utterance to many noble thoughts and thrilling reflections. (Preface.4)” In this quote, Frederick Douglass is giving a big speech in front of an even bigger audience. This is one of Douglass’s earlier speeches, so he hadn’t had much practice when it came to public announcements. In the quote, Douglass is simply trying to inform the audience of the education that slaves and blacks, in general, are given. Douglass tries to tell his audience that they are not dumb or retarded, they are plainly uneducated and the slaves have know one to blame for this but their …show more content…

Frederick Douglass has a deep understanding of power and how it plays a huge role in his life along with everyone else. In his quotes as well as in his narrative, “The life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass tells his people and informs the world merely how important power can be in life. The definition of power from the Merriam Webster dictionary is, “ possession of control, authority, or influence over others”. When talking about power it can be thought as a vastly broad term, with many different aspects that are looked at from all types of different perspectives. With all this being said concerning the matter power and how it can be looked at, the way Frederick Douglass looked at power was from three different perspectives. The three different perspective being power through education, religion, and suppression power

Show More
Related
732 Words | 3 Pages

Christianity was, to the slaves of America, (something with a double meaning). In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Frederick Douglass, the author, argues about how Christianity can mean one thing to a free white man and something completely different to a black slave. The slave owners follow the ‘Christianity of the Land’ while the slaves follow the ‘Christianity of Christ.’ Frederick begins to build his credibility to a, white, northern, audience by including documents from trustworthy writers and by getting into personal experiences through his writing. Throughout the narrative, he is articulate in how he writes, and it shows the reader that he is well educated.

Read More
828 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
1056 Words | 5 Pages

First, Frederick Douglass uses rhetorical questions to elucidate to the listener the many social inequalities between black and white people. For example, Frederick Douglass says, “Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in the Declaration of Independence extended to us?” (para. 1). He is implying that the rights stated in the Declaration of Independence are not given to those of African American race. The audience will begin to realize that they are not treated with the same liberties as those who are considered free.

Read More
648 Words | 3 Pages

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Rhetorical Analysis By Migion Booth Social reformer, Frederick Douglass was an African American man who decamped from slavery. He has drafted several books including Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Mr. Douglass writes about his perspicacity as a slave. Mr. Douglass repeatedly uses paradox, imagery, and parallelism to display how slavery was inhuman and heartbroken.

Read More
464 Words | 2 Pages

Throughout Douglass's speech, he exceeds expectations by adding excellent examples of ethos, pathos, and unique tone. These examples help the audience see his viewpoints and helps him connect with them. The literary devices used in his speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, aided in his fight against

Read More
104 Words | 1 Pages

There are many tones observed in this narrative. Tone is defined as the general attitude of a piece of writing. A very important tone present shown through the novel is emotional. Throughout the narrative, Douglass truly lets his emotions run wild whether it was from telling his brutal experiences while enslaved or his famous speeches that really questioned what your view of freedom is. Overall, Frederick Douglass’s tone is generally straightforward and serious as he covers emotional, heart wrenching topics.

Read More
1657 Words | 7 Pages

“The Hypocrisy of American Slavery: Slavery at its best” Frederick Douglass an activist for anti racism and also an abolitionist’s speech “The Hypocrisy of Slavery” was given on the occasion of celebrating the independence day. Here, in this speech he actually brought out some questions like why we should celebrate Independence Day while almost four million people were kept chained as a slave. He actually mocked the fact of the people of America’s double standards which is that they are singing out the song of liberty, on the other hand holding the chain of slavery. Frederick Douglass, a former American-African slave who managed to escape from his slavery and later on became an abolitionist gave this speech on Fourth of July,

Read More
864 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
935 Words | 4 Pages

Slavery is equally a mental and a physical prison. Frederick Douglass realized this follow-ing his time as both a slave and a fugitive slave. Douglass was born into slavery because of his mother’s status as a slave. He had little to go off regarding his age and lineage. In the excerpt of the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Read More
498 Words | 2 Pages

Douglass tells about his own childhood and how his father might have been a slaveholder. He explains

Read More
1344 Words | 6 Pages

“One who is a slaveholder at heart never recognizes a human being in a slave” (Angelina Grimke). This quote was created to show the effect that slavery had on not only the slave, but the slaveholder. The slaveholder would dehumanize the slave to the point where the human was no longer recognizable; instead, the slave was property. Throughout this autobiography, Frederick Douglass uses language to portray the similarities and differences between the two sides. He allows the reader to spend a day in the life of a slave to see the effects from it.

Read More
1025 Words | 5 Pages

He declares, “to forget them [the slaves], to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world,” (para. 5). He discusses that slavery is unjust, and says that celebrating freedom with slavery would be treason. This helps the audience realize that celebrating freedom in their country is not a peccadillo, and they naturally will try to right the wrong because of their moral instincts by stopping their celebration. He also says, “to him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages,” (para. 15). In this quote, Douglass says that celebrating liberty is covering up a crime: slavery.

Read More
636 Words | 3 Pages

He proclaims that "…While we are…living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!" By showing the mundanity of the slave, Douglass shows the audience that the slaves are human and therefore unable to be considered property. He forces his audience to examine their own lives and realize their similarities to the slaves and the hypocrisy of slavery. He doesn't give his audience a chance to disagree with his stance on slavery because he makes such a blunt argument. Douglass asks again, "Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man?

Read More
1067 Words | 5 Pages

The level of education of the slaves on the plantation allow them to be manipulated by their masters. In many situations during the 1800s when slavery was prominent we can see that education holds power in society. Slave masters were educated and due to this, they were able to exert control over the slaves on the plantation. Douglass was self-educated and was able to analyze slave behavior and see slavery occur firsthand as a slave himself. In the book, we can see how the slave’s ignorance is actually bliss from the perspective of Douglass, how information like knowing how to read was withheld from the slaves and why and why slave-owners preferred non-educated slaves to educated ones.

Read More
257 Words | 2 Pages

Frederick Douglass was a great writer, but he wasn’t always. He was an escaped slave who used that in his speeches as a topic to gain the attention of his audience. His audience was a seemingly sympathetic one and got to them through rhetorical questions. Douglass wanted to convey the message that there are many changes that need to be made.

Read More

More about Frederick Douglass Speech Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document