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Rhetorical Analysis Of Dialectical Actions Of Frederick Douglass

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Dialectical Journaling ( The focus of your final essay will be on rhetoric. These quotes and commentaries should be considered brainstorming. ) Quote & Citations Rhetorical Strategy (Refer to this list as needed.) Appeals to: (Highlight one) Commentary (3+ Objective sentences that explain how the rhetorical strategy identified is used and an analysis how that strategy appeals to the audience. ) “Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute” ( Douglass 62-63). Sentimental Appeals Pathos Logos Ethos In this section, sentimental appeals is shown because Frederick Douglass uses emotions to let us readers know how Covey brutally abused him. Mr. …show more content…

Exposure to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse: Frederick Douglass was exposed to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in these two chapters. Not only does he witness this abuse, but he is now always receiving or getting these abuses. Douglass himself often gets whip and treated horribly. He often gets treated poorly, to the point where it makes it seem like he is going to die at that very moment. For example, Douglass states, “Just as I did that, one of their number gave me, with his heavy boot, a powerful kick in the left eye. My eyeball seemed to have burst. When they saw my eye closed, and badly swollen, they left me” (Douglass 85). Here, you can clearly see and get an image of how bad they treated him and got abused. This was very unfair and cruel for the carpenters to do. However, Douglass never gave up and he always tried to continue no matter how hurt he was! Also, we see the amount of abuse that Mr. Covey gave Douglass in chapter ten. Covey was the one who kept abusing him since he whip him many times causing many injuries where he would lose lots of

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Frederick Douglass published two similar versions of his fight with the ‘slave-breaker’ Edward Covey in the tenth chapter of his The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, and in the seventeenth chapter of My Bondage and My Freedom. By comparing the two accounts it is possible to see an evolution of his thoughts on abolishing slavery and person hood which occurred in the years which transpired between the two works, 1845 and 1855. In the first account which Douglass wrote at around the age of 27 he narrates a physical confrontation where he refuses to allow himself to be whipped. Douglass struggles for two hours with Covey and also fights off Covey’s cousin at the same time.

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Douglass uses paradox to demonstrate that slavery degragrates the slaverholder. When Douglass under Mr. Sever’s care he described that: “He was less cruel, less profane… He whipped, but seemed to take no pleasure in it. ”(Douglass 24). Most slaveholders are characterized to be cruel and inhuman because of the whipping and the way they treated the slaves.

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Frederick Douglass was fearless in many ways. For instance, in the beginning of chapter 10, Douglass is sent away from his master, Master Thomas, to live with Mr. Covey. Mr. Covey was known for breaking slaves, but Frederick was not worried what would happen because he did not think he could be broken. This shows how fearless he truly was.

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His beatings and lack of food were only part of his miserable daily life. Eventually Douglass was able to successfully escape this life and vowed to forever actively support the equality of all

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Rhetorical strategies are a variety of parts that make up an essay. The strategies include everything from explaining a process, to structure of writing. Whether the author 's purpose is to entertain, inform, or persuade, ultimately these strategies will strengthen not only the author’s purpose, but also the writing itsef. Typically when authors use these strategies, they are very precise to how they use them, and when deeply analysing a piece of writing, this is very clear. In Bell Hooks’ “Understanding Patriarchy”, she used rhetorical strategies to convey her purpose.

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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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The Narrative of Frederick Douglass is a very great perspective for people of today to understand what it was like to be a slave in the 1800’s. It tells the story of the slave Frederick Douglass and how he began as an uneducated slave and was moved around from many different types of owners, cruel or nice, and how his and other slaves presences changed the owners, and also how he educated himself and realized that he shouldn’t be treated so poorly It was at the point later in the book that I realized how some slaves might have felt during slavery in the 1800’s. When Douglass is sent away to Mr.Covey he is treated pretty badly but eventually he stands up to Mr.Covey and demands that he stopped being treated like an animal.

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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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This shows how Mr. Covey only wants his own needs fulfilled. It angers him when he doesn’t get his way. Mr. Covey is by far the weakest character in this book because he relies to much on the false power of the masters of the slaves and the harsh power of a whip. His need for power is problematic due to the fact that it makes slaves, who he already has power over, more vulnerable to his

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Douglass encountered multiple harsh realities of being enslaved. For example, the ex-slave was practically starved to death by his masters on multiple occasions. In fact, “[He was] allowed less than a half of a bushel of corn-meal per week, and very little else... It was not enough for [him] to subsist upon... A great many times [he had] been nearly perishing with hunger” (pg 31).

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Obviously, a slave is bound to his master , so when Douglass hits Mr. Covey it speaks a powerful message to the general public. He feels at ease, and almost free when he disobeys his master, a path which many slaves wouldn't dare to take. Douglass also was taught to read and write, a forbidden task among slaves as it could make them have status and plot ways to escape their masters, by Mrs. Auld, a former mistress of his. So when Douglass was “sent of errands” he always “took his book” with himself and “by going one part of “ his “errand quickly” he would find “time to get a lesson” before he returned to the Aulds household (Douglass). When Mrs. Auld taught Douglass how to read, it brought his perspective of life as a slave to a whole new level.

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