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Rhetorical Analysis Of Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

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In Narrative of the Lift of Frederick Douglass, Douglass succeeds in grasping the attention of his audience by using countless rhetorical strategies, enabling him to portray slavery as it truthfully was. Written 20 years before the Civil War, the memoir served as a tool to influence and alter the minds of those supportive of slavery. While times have changed and slavery has been abolished, the memoir is continually used as a means to remember the past, preventing recurrence. Throughout the memoir, Douglass recounts his experiences as a slave, illustrating to his audience how slaves were brutally treated. His experiences consist of violence upon a fellow slave or upon himself. The acts of cruelty break down the slaves bodily and mentally, having no respect for human life. An example of this cruelty was when the slaveholders abandoned Douglass’ grandmother and “made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself… in perfect loneliness; thus virtually turning her out to die!” (Douglass 48) Douglass uses these experiences as the logical basis for his argument, being that slavery is unjustified acts of hatred and dehumanization. …show more content…

The publication of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was monumental, a rhetorical strategy in itself. Frederick Douglass establishes his credibility by being one of the first African slaves to write of the brutal nature of slavery. He also writes on a personal level, connecting to those who had the same experiences and appealing to those yearning to learn of the situation. Douglass’ personal affiliation with slavery can be seen at times when he shares that “slavery would not always be able to hold [him] within its foul embrace.” (Douglass

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By appealing to the emotions of the reader, Frederick Douglass can build his argument of how awful slavery was and how the slave owners used Christianity to justify what they did. In the book, Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, the author uses his language to bring meaning to what he is writing. He creates an emotional connection to the reader using pathos, and builds his argument using the credibility of others, using ethos. In his book he uses his words to prove his argument to the reader of how the slave owners would use Christianity to justify slavery and violence, and how slavery affected everyone who was

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In his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass uses numerous devices and an unvarnished tone to soften a notoriously divisive subject and reveal the cruelty of slavery to a mostly white audience. Throughout the piece, Douglass employs numerous devices such as irony and aphorisms to camouflage the stark realities of slavery; such as when he says “a still tongue makes a wise head”(p.23) or Douglass’ ironic description of Mr. Gore as a “good overseer.” His wields this language to hide the realities that would alienate or turn off the white reader from his writing. Douglass also uses unembellished language to allow him to speak of some of the harshest parts of being a slave, and leave the moral deliberation up to the

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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.

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Douglass begins uses paradox to show how slavery was inhuman by acknowledging how slave overseers treated the slaves when did wrong or doing what was not told by them. ‘’ He would whip her to make her scream and whip her to make her hush. ’’(page 5). Douglass appeals

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In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.

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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.

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The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass; an autobiography consisting of Frederick Douglass’ search for freedom from the slaveholders who kept many African Americans captive, allowed many to understand the pain and misery in the midst of slavery. Published in 1845, Douglass conveyed the lives of African Americans and how they have suffered a great deal of pain and discomfort through a provocative tone . Throughout his autobiography, Douglass used countless metaphors to portray his life. From Mr. Plummer to Mrs. Auld, the reader could better perceive the text by visualizing the metaphors that Douglass has used. Using Frederick’s writing, youthful audiences can gain knowledge about slavery and its effects.

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When Frederick Douglass published his self-written narrative, people finally got a fully comprehensive view of the life of a slave. To debunk the mythology of slavery, Douglass presents the cold, hard truth, displays slaves true intelligence,

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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

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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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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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The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass’s autobiography in which Douglass goes into detail about growing up as a slave and then escaping for a better life. During the early-to-mid 1800s, the period that this book was written, African-American slaves were no more than workers for their masters. Frederick Douglass recounts not only his personal life experiences but also the experiences of his fellow slaves during the period. This book was aimed at abolitionists, so he makes a point to portray the slaves as actual living people, not the inhuman beings that they are treated as. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slaves are inhumanly represented by their owners and Frederick Douglass shines a positive light

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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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The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an autobiography told through the eyes of Frederick Douglass himself. Douglass was born as a slave; he was an African-American abolitionist and orator. In the book, Douglass highlights numerous cases of irony associated with slaveholding. Throughout his narrative, Douglass examines the irony of religious slaveholders and one of his non-religious slaveholder. He also speaks of the irony in which slaves are treated below animals.

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With this, Douglass is addressing the topic of slavery and whether to abolish it or not. And goes about telling the hardships he went through.

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