Ethos In The Narrative Of The Life Of Fredrick Douglas

In “The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas” he begins to build his ethos in the opening of chapter one when he says that he doesn't know his birthday, unlike white citizens, who know all the details of their lives. Beginning with this fact establishes that Douglass can be trusted because of his direct personal experience. He also uses ethos referring to those who had great authority over him. In chapter 3, he talks about Colonel Lloyd and gives a very detailed description about him. Another example of the use of ethos is when he talks about Mr. Gore, the man who replaced Mr. Hopkins. He talks about the authority of Mr. Gore and about his faithfulness to the colonel. Fredrick Douglass also used ethos when he talks about how he never said anything negative about his owner. This is ethos because it relates to ethics and

Pathos is used to produce feelings and emotions and in this case, mainly sympathy. It provides lots of feelings because it’s his words he is telling. Another time he uses pathos is when he narrates what happened to Demby: “His mangled body shrank out of sight, and blood and brains marked the water where he had stood” (pg. 36) There are all types of examples in these two chapters were you can find pathos. An example is where he talks about how a man of sixty years of age got whipped, all the way until the end of chapter four were he talks about Thomas Lanman once killed a slave with a hatchet, by knocking his brains out. In the same page, he also tells how a woman killed his wife’s cousin in the cruelest way. Afterwards, he talks about the horrible feeling this murder produced throughout the entire community. Douglass also recounts the experience of watching the slaveholder whip his aunt until she was covered in blood and the pleasure the slaveholder seemed to take in it. The graphic description of her abuse makes readers feel the same anger Douglass must have