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Similarities Between My Bondage And My Freedom And The Story Of An Hour

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How free is free?

The purpose of realism in the 1800s was to get people’s attention. The authors did that by relating to real life situations or adding in things people wanted or needed. For example, Frederick Douglass wrote My bondage And my freedom and Kate Chopin wrote “ The story of an hour”. Both authors included the point that people wanted to be free. When they both got what they wanted, they were not really free. The authors used methods to draw their points across by using conflict and irony.

The author Frederick Douglass used conflict in his story My bondage and My freedom to get his point across that free isn’t free. The quote from the story “Nature had made us friends; slavery made us enemies”. This shows there was conflict between the master and the slaves. The master took away freedom from the people and made them slaves. Although Frederick Douglass at the time was free from the abuse often seen in slavery, he wasn’t free from his mind. He still has flashbacks and things that scared him forever. The quote “The feeding and clothing me well, could not atone for taking my liberty from me. The smiles of my mistress could not remove the sorrow that dwelt in my young …show more content…

Her main character Mrs.Mallard was not very independent but not in a happily marriage. Women couldn’t do much without their husbands saying so. In the story, Mrs. Mallard's husband “dies” So she gets all happy and thinks she is finally free. The irony was when she thought she was free, her husband walks through the door. Then she dies from heart disease.This is clear in the story where it states: “but Richard was too late. When the doctors came in they said she had died from heart disease — of joy that kills!”. The irony shows that women in the 1800s had it bad from where they couldn’t do anything. The time when they do, everything goes wrong and freedom is

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Frederick Douglass uses diction to express that the emotions of being free are equally as taxing as the emotions he experienced while he was a slave. He says that being free was the highest excitement he ever felt even though the answer does not satisfy him. By contradicting himself he seems to want to show that an answer to the question of how he felt in a free state is as inexplicable how it felt to be a slave. He later states that one must just experience or imagine themselves in a similar situation to understand his emotions. He compares escaping slavery to escaping a ‘’den of hungry tigers,’’ but the relief is shortly lived because loneliness consumes him.

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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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Within “My Bondage and My Freedom,” Douglass uses diction throughout the autobiography to display his tone of understanding, and how slavery affects both the slave and the slave holder which causes the mood of frustration for the reader. When communicating a tone of understanding in “My Bondage and My Freedom”, Douglass uses diction to support it. The author uses language to truly present his tone towards the text. Throughout the story he manages to stay quite neutral with his tone. He appears to be understanding of the slaveholder’s point of view.

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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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What common themes bond together the literary works of the 1800’s? Frederick Douglass and Kate Chopin both realized that people were not being treated fairly and thus it influenced their writing. Through personal experiences and observations Frederick Douglass conveyed how African Americans in My Bondage and My Freedom were treated unfairly. Kate Chopin used the plot to show how women were treated unfairly in “The Story of an Hour”. My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass tells of some of the experiences he went through as a slave.

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During the time that this story took place married women were highly dependant on their husbands. The problem that is encountered with Mrs. Mallard is that she lacks the joy of Independence. At the beginning of the story freedom to Mrs. Mallard seems like an awful idea because she has been restricted in multiple ways such as the house, her marriage etc. Despite the love that is shared between a husband and a wife Mr. Mallard’s death seems to come as a release from oppression to Louise. As stated by Chopin “ There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself.

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