The Golden Rule found in Luke 6:31 says, “Do unto others as you have them do upon you”. During the early 1800’s humans were brutally abused by other humans. In 1844, Frederick Douglass illustrates his brutal time as a slave through his narrative The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass. Douglass writes his story using rhetorical elements to convey that slavery should be abandoned because it takes a mental and physical toll on the slaves plus, that slaves need to try and escape from slavery.
Douglass uses logos and a periodic sentence to apply logical details to show how worthless and what value the slaves were to the slaveholders. During his lifetime Douglass basically sees his entire family members die. His last relative was his grandma, a “very old” and “fiendish” woman; she has been in slavery since she was a little infant. She severed very little or no use to her master so, “they took her to the woods, built her a little hut, put up a little mud chimney …., thus virtually turning her out to die” (Douglass 61). The slave holders didn’t care about anything or anyone accept money and abusing slaves. Douglass tells about his grandma to show that they
…show more content…
Douglass uses pathos and analogy to show slaveholders that they need to abolish slavery because their lives will always be dominated by fear. Mr. Douglass finds his way to freedom in the north and has to be careful of who he talks to because he never knows when a kidnapper is right around the corner. Douglass compares the “money loving kidnappers” to “ferocious beast” trying to catch the easy prey. Once the slaves fought and achieved their freedom they had to make sure they didn’t run into the “beast” or kidnappers. The way Mr. Douglass describes the slave as a “panting fugitive” makes the reader feel sympathy for the slave because he/she can never catch a break and for the rest of their lives they will always be looking over their shoulders which causes fear in their