Wendell Douglass Literary Analysis

Douglas used a chronological order in this memoir first published in 1845. His first person narrative discussed several themes including the cruelty and brutality of slavery, deprivation of basic needs to sustain his life, the domination of slave owners, the crushing oppression of slaves to dull development of their personalities and abilities and his extraordinary journey to learn to read and write and, ultimately, to gain his freedom from slavery. William Lloyd Garrison (in Douglass 10) wrote that Douglass was fortunate to avoid some of the harshness of most slaves. However, Wendell Phillips (in Douglass 18) commented that readers of this autobiographical book can still begin “to gauge the wretchedness of the slave, not by his hunger and

He was separated from his mother at an early age. As an adult, he conjectured that this separation was “to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child” (Douglass 24). Once separated, Douglass saw his mother only four or five times in his life and could not “recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day” (Douglass 25). Douglass (28-30) remembered as a young boy hearing the piercing screams of his aunt as she was stripped, tied and then whipped into unconsciousness. The incident struck him “with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle.” Overseers submitted slaves to beatings and atrocities and were often inconsistent in their enforcement (Douglass 47-50,

Slaves lacked enough food and clothing especially in cold weather. They were kept “almost naked” (Douglass 51). Slaves received monthly allotments of food (pork or fish and corn meal) and ate coarse corn meal that had been boiled, placed into troughs or set on the ground and then devoured by any means possible by hungry slaves desperate for food (Douglass 52). Often slaves received no food (Douglass 82). Children who did not work in the fields did not receive clothing given to most adult slaves. Men and women used sleep time to finish cleaning and cooking duties before the horn awakened them from their blankets on the floor for the next day in the fields (Douglass