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Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Frederick Douglass

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Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis Essay

In the book the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by Frederick Douglass readers are given a walk through of his life dating back to when he was a slave up until the point when he became a free man. Throughout the novel, one of the primary things Douglass attributes his freedom to is education. “Literacy [was his] ticket to freedom from the enslavement of his mind and body.” Learning to read gave Douglas an incentive to seek his freedom.
Douglass was only able to comprehend the magnitude of his situation by learning how to read. “It had given me a view of my wretched condition,”(61) Douglass stated when speaking about learning to read. To give someone a view refers to allowing …show more content…

Unlawful means that it is against the law. Things that are against the law are usually bad and unfavorable. Readers can infer that the only reason that teaching a slave to read was unlawful is because illiteracy keeps the slaves in chains. It keeps them tapered down and controllable. If a slave was to be taught how to read, she or he would start taking in new ideas (such as freedom). The person will be able to decipher that they do not need to continue living in their current situation. When someone has a decent education, they can think outside of what they know. In Douglass case, when he read the book The Columbian Orator he learned that freedom is a possibility. By furthering his education he learned that freedom is attainable. His mind became filled with ideas and his physical self became motivated to reach his goal of attaining freedom.
Using his case as as example, it becomes clear that if slaves are taught to read, they will want more than they have. They will seek freedom, thus dismantling slavery because the entire point of slavery was to keep the slaves bonded so that there entire family tree will only know one thing (that one thing being slavery). It is clear that outlawing teaching a slave to read shows the significance of literacy because when Douglass learned how to read, his ways of thinking changed and his situation disgusted him to the point of thinking of committing

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The Struggles Of Frederick Douglass As a young man Frederick Douglass was struck with the inability to read nor write these troubles dawned on him due to his state of slavery. Frederick Douglass was born a slave, a slave will not read, a slave will not write, and a slave is not a human, these thoughts were planted in the head of his white owners cursing him to inequality and illiteracy. Imagine never being able to write a love letter or read a funny note, imagine never being able to put your ideas on paper and making them permanent. Frederick Douglass had a great mind, one that was chained up and held back by the slavery and illiteracy his forced lifestyle brought along.

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Douglass for example emphasized the importance of education for slaves. Douglass is a first had observer of the strategy of slave owners to keep their slaves ignorant. By keeping slave uneducated they are unable to express the horrible things that happen to them to the world. Hugh Auld forces his wife to stop teaching Douglass to read (auld stopping teaching quote) , so Douglass teaches himself. For him learning to read was a major turning point in his quest for freedom and it enabled him to put out his book, which would inspire many to turn against slavery.

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Douglass was so determined to become literate that he learned in so many unorthodox ways that it made him a better thinker, reader, and writer. As a child Douglass got his hands on The Columbian Orator, which instilled an influx of ideas in his mind. Although with the spark the Columbian Orator arisen, Douglass wasn’t able to do much with it because he was unable to create a coherent answer or response to the questions and ideas he had. With the arrival of these thoughts also brought along heartache. He was a prisoner to his own mind, when he learned to read he got a rude awakening by being aware of his situation as a slave.

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By doing this, he unknowingly teaches Douglass about the power of education. “Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master.” Through this rejection, he cultivated the drive to teach himself to read and write. As his learning expanded, Douglass became conscious of the evils of slavery and of the existence of the abolitionist movement. He knew that while his awareness of the world around him could bring incredible sorrow, it could also give him power over his enslavers who preferred he remained uneducated and in the dark.

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Immediately upon reading The Columbian Orator, Douglass experienced thoughts he’d never had before. With the skill of reading, “the silver trump of freedom had roused [his] soul to eternal wakefulness” (Douglass 57). This clearly indicates that with his education in literacy, Douglass successfully comprehends The Columbian Orator. He understands, through reading, the demand for freedom. The quench he has on this subject was only given to him by the ability to be literate.

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Douglass began to view reading as a curse more than a blessing; a way in which he felt more imprisoned by the slave state he was in. Thus, the more he read the more he began to detest enslavers; which nonetheless in his mind would be nothing but thieves whom robbed slave’s homes. For it was not only reading but his ceaseless mind getting the best of him; such reading would create endless thoughts which haunted him and made him wish that he would remain an ignorant slave. Nonetheless, during Douglass’s thoughts, Douglass began to learn to

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A theme that is found in the novel “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” is that being educated is essential for freedom and liberty. In the novel, Douglass shares his experience as a former slave and how he became free. However, if it weren’t for his ambition to learn how to read and write, Douglass may not have accomplished his goal to be a free slave. When Douglass went to live with Mr. Auld, his wife, Mrs. Auld, “kindly commenced to teach [him] the A, B, C” and “how to spell words”. Unfortunately, Mr. Auld discovered what was going on and apprised his wife about how perilous teaching a slave was and said, “if you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him” and that he “would become unfit for

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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.

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“I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom” (Frederick Douglass 42). In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass’ education is what ultimately helps Frederick Douglass to become a free man. In his narrative, it is shown how slave owners keep slaves and deprive them of knowledge and education, so that slaves must seek knowledge and education to pursue freedom. Because Douglass has more knowledge than his peers, he has a strong want for freedom. He is able to be free because of his awareness of the evils of slavery, and his knowledge of what the free world is like.

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Douglass states: “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery” (Douglass 51). Reading and writing opened Frederick Douglass’s eyes to the cause of the abolitionist. He became knowledgeable about a topic that white slave owners tried to keep hidden from their slaves. Literacy would eventually impact his life in more ways than what he could see while he was a young slave under Master Hugh’s

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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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Slaves often do not understand their condition fully, since they do not know life beyond slavery. His unawareness of the liberating power of education bound him in a misleading bliss, causing him to believe that his state of being had permanency and to remain unaware of his injustice. However, once education had revealed to Douglass his ignorance, he says, “. . . I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy.”

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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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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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However, literacy turns out to be not only bliss, but also painful. Indeed, while learning to read Frederick becomes more and more aware of the injustices of slavery, and this leads him to regret this knowledge “Learning how to read had become a curse rather than a blessing” ( Douglass ) . Douglass believes in the importance of education. He thinks that education is a key part to our life; it is the only way to get freedom. Literacy is very powerful because it can set anyone free to pursue dreams.

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