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Sale Of Slavery Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

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Douglass' audience for this work is those who want to know the cruelty of slavery. His audience was anyone who was interested in the topic. A majority of white men and women either didn't own slaves and wasn't able to see the cruel inhumane nature of the act or they were numb to it because black people were viewed as less than humans. If you remove the humanity from a person you become numb to any cruelty. Douglass' goal was to prove and show how slavery was inhumane and offered nothing but cons to the slaves and their masters. The beating of Douglass' Aunt removes the innocence from the young Douglass. Before the whipping of his Aunt, Douglass was kept away from the cruelty of slaveholders. His grandmother prevented Douglass from seeing the …show more content…

Auld taught Douglass' how to read. Mrs. Auld never owned a slave so she didn't know that there was a certain way to treat them. Since Douglass was here first slave she wasn't affected by the harsh nature slavery gave to the slaveholder. She stopped teaching Douglass because her husband informed her that slaves couldn't be taught these things. Mr. Auld claimed teaching slaves to read was unlawful and not safe, if you give a slave a little they will take the whole lot. He also mentioned that slaves who could read weren't slaves anymore. I found a particular sentence from Mr. Auld interesting "It would make him discontented and unhappy" (Douglass,250). That sentence alone shows the lies that were spread in order to justify the nature of slavery. I have read a lot of work on slavery thanks to my mother, during my reading I learned about how slaveholders would comment on how their slaves are happy on the plantation. I also read that slaveholders would claim that they are giving slaves shelter and safety rather than living in the huts in Africa. It is hard for me to recite these lies without feeling completely disgusted. The method of slavery alone was completely inhumane, the ways the act was justified is as inhumane as the act of slavery

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2009 Words | 9 Pages

Auld. He felt the need to learn how to read, and so he would give bread to the poor boys in return for reading lessons. Douglass feels the need to mention these boys’ names as he writes but it was still a crime to educate a slave. When he was about twelve he discovered a book called the Columbian Orator, which gave a slaveholders opinion on slavery and then a slave’s opinion. He realized Mr. Auld was right, and that knowledge of the unfairness made slaves unhappy and unmanageable.

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732 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the narrative, the author includes his personal stories about experiencing the violence of slavery first-hand. For example, on page 20, he writes about the first time he witnessed a slave, his own aunt, getting the whip. “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest…I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition… It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery…” The author including his experience of his aunts whipping, in detail, appeals to the emotions of the reader.

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145 Words | 1 Pages

During the period in which there was the terrible fight against slavery, Frederick Douglass considered himself as a delegate for political cause. The African American author tried to refute every single argument employed against slaves and it was clearly seen throught several scenes of his narrative especially in the scene with the wife of Master Hugh, Sofia Auld who taught him the art of reading. She had never owned a slave before. Thus, she was very sympathetic with him. Using this statement, Hugh Auld detailed some joint ideas concerning slaves and the widespread slave holding in the South over the 19th century.

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486 Words | 2 Pages

Douglass also emphasizes how owning slaves does not only hurt the slave but the slave owner. He says that owning

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765 Words | 4 Pages

He speaks by saying that a city slave is almost always feed and clothes properly. He also talks a lot about his mistress, and how she tried to teach him to read. In this chapter Douglass details his master explaining to his wife why a slave cannot be taught to read. From here Douglass has a goal of teaching himself to read, he realizes the white man is very fearful of a slave holding that power. Douglass also speaks of this mistreatment of his neighbor slaves, how they are emaciated.

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648 Words | 3 Pages

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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1080 Words | 5 Pages

All the terrible and inhuman things that Douglass describes are the practical and usual things that happened in his time, they are not extraordinary. His true stories and multiple details from his life give the reader an idea about the effects of slavery on the life of different people in the

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814 Words | 4 Pages

In the 1700-1800’s, the use of African American slaves for backbreaking, unpaid work was at its prime. Despite the terrible conditions that slaves were forced to deal with, slave owners managed to convince themselves and others that it was not the abhorrent work it was thought to be. However, in the mid-1800’s, Northern and southern Americans were becoming more aware of the trauma that slaves were facing in the South. Soon, an abolitionist group began in protest, but still people doubted and questioned it.

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410 Words | 2 Pages

Douglass begins his letter with his intent, an elaborate and formal appeal to Douglass’ real audience: readers of the North Star to bring forth the atrocities caused not only by Auld but by slavery as a whole. Throughout the letter, Douglass refers to his treatment by Auld; further driving his point that slavery is terrible and that slaves deserve the same basic rights as those who own slaves. Douglass is quick to speak about his own experience as an escaped slave and his success outside of Auld’s ownership to help solidify that point further. Douglass occasionally does this specifically to belittle and call forward Auld’s actions, even referring to himself as more intelligent (Douglass 102). Throughout the letter, Douglass’ common theme is one of anti-slavery and often directly attacks Auld’s actions.

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1344 Words | 6 Pages

He truly tapped into the reader’s emotions to allow them a deeper connection with the story. To see the way that the slaveholder would dehumanize the slave to the point of seeing the slave as just a piece of property was truly heartbreaking. It was at moments such as this that the reader saw a glimpse of the mood, tone and theme. Douglass makes clear his tone of understanding, the theme of both the slave and the slaveholder being affected, and the mood of the reader being

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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?

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560 Words | 3 Pages

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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973 Words | 4 Pages

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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1574 Words | 7 Pages

Douglass’s position differ from those who supported slavery is that people who supported slavery, they thought it was a natural thing to do because on the Document “ Slavery a positive Good” on paragraph 1 it says, “ To maintain the existing relations between two races, inhabiting that section of the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of both…. But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between two races in the slaveholding states is an evil: - far otherwise; I hold to be good, as it has thus far proved itself both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition.” What this piece of evidence is saying is that slavery is a good thing and not a bad thing and that abolition should stop. Another way that Frederick Douglass’s position is different from people that support is that people who support slavery is that the people who support slavery has a different perspective of what is right and what is wrong because on the Document “ Slavery a Positive Good” paragraph 2 it says,” I hold in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two is, instead of an evil, a good- a positive good… I hold then, that

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902 Words | 4 Pages

Douglass’s goal in writing his narrative is to persuade the reader to stand against slavery and realize

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