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What Is The Life Of Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Devices

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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an interesting autobiography of the life of Frederick Douglass, an African American who spent time in slavery, then eventually escaped. Douglass was born into slavery, and accepted it for a good while of the time that he was in slavery. Once he realized that escaping was the only option to settle for, he finally tried to escape, and succeeded. In order to get the point across that slavery is bad and that slaves are people as well as Caucasian Americans, Douglass uses several rhetorical devices including repetition, anecdotes, and imagery, as well as some others. ` By using repetition in this narrative, Douglass gets his point across by sticking specific ideas into the reader’s head. For example, he writes, “Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order…” (Douglass, X, 37), and the word “work” is repeated. By repeating this word, he sticks the idea that all the slaves did was work, and that it is what their lives revolved around. So, Douglass uses repetition to get ideas stuck in the heads of the readers. …show more content…

For example, Douglass gives an anecdote that “...she fell into the fire, and burned herself horribly.” (Douglass, IX, 33), recalling a story when one of the weaker slaves was injured badly, proving what horrible conditions the slaves lived in, regardless of their masters. This specific anecdote also works with pathos to make the reader feel bad for the slaves, helping Douglass’ point that slavery is

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This article discusses how Frederick Douglass uses irony, rhetorical devices, and facts to argue that slavery is not sanctioned by the Constitution. - Frederick Douglass was an American slave born in Maryland in 1817. He escaped slavery at the age of twenty and became an impressive orator. His work is a prime example of what can be accomplished when using rhetorical devices effectively. In his narrative, Douglass cites examples from the Constitution that support his argument against slavery.

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By appealing to the emotions of the reader, Frederick Douglass can build his argument of how awful slavery was and how the slave owners used Christianity to justify what they did. In the book, Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, the author uses his language to bring meaning to what he is writing. He creates an emotional connection to the reader using pathos, and builds his argument using the credibility of others, using ethos. In his book he uses his words to prove his argument to the reader of how the slave owners would use Christianity to justify slavery and violence, and how slavery affected everyone who was

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The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass (University of Virginia Library. Web. 15 Dec. 2015) puts readers in a position that allows them to understand the great struggles and misfortunes that came with being an American slave and how Frederick Douglass’ managed to escape from the grasp of slavery and find his own liberating freedom. A daring feat that can be defined by a series of epiphanies, a man’s great determination, and the constant regrowth of a broken man’s soul. From the excerpt, previously shown above, Douglass depicts a vivid image of just how severe the work conditions of slaves were, how difficult it was to please a slave master, and how horribly a man can be ripped of his will.

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‘’ No words, No tears, No prayers, from his glory victim, seemed to move his iron heart fro his bloody purpose.’’ (page 5). Douglass appeals to the mournful emotions of the audience by expressing how the overseers gave no mercy or cared about the effect of whippings to the slaves. Douglass use of parallelism displayed how slavery was

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He explains how he is “in the midst of thousands,” and yet a “stranger,” cannot tell the other African Americans in New York of his “sad conditions,” and is starving, emphasizing that he has nothing solely because he is a “fugitive slave.” The repetition creates a feeling of something being unattainable: he can see the possibility of friends and food, and yet, they are just out of reach. For Douglass to see what he wants but be unable to achieve it indefinitely must make him feel alone; this readers can understand and have likely experienced, thus effectively communicating his loneliness. This is further illustrated through Douglass saying how he is “wanting” shelter and bread, but is unable to have it. It is easy for readers to tell that the reason he cannot have bread or a house is based on the belief that he is a “fugitive slave,” thus closing himself off to others who could provide a home, and preventing him from getting a job which could give him money.

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The usage of these rhetorical strategies in his narrative really helps to emphasize the dehumanization of slaves and indubitably forms Douglass’s opinion for slave owners, as well as slavery as a whole. One of the biggest rhetorical strategies used by Douglass throughout his narrative is showing the comparison between common white people and the slaves. On page one he states, “The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.”

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In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.

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African American Abolitionist, Frederick Douglass composes a autobiography known as Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, which is based on his experiences as a slave and feelings towards slavery. The main purpose to his autobiography is to illustrate the miserable experiences that slaves went through. He also describes his autobiography in a frank tone to explain to the audience about his tormenting experience as a slave. Douglass embodies his syntactical structure by inaugurating his syntax with various brief declarative sentences then transitions to polysyndeton, and ends with juxtaposition in order to illustrate his emotions toward slavery. Douglass introduces his autobiography by using various brief declarative sentences to illustrate

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The autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written in 1845 in Massachusetts, narrates the evils of slavery through the point of view of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass is a slave who focuses his attention into escaping the horrors of slavery. He articulates his mournful story to anyone and everyone, in hopes of disclosing the crimes that come with slavery. In doing so, Douglass uses many rhetorical strategies to make effective arguments against slavery. Frederick Douglass makes a point to demonstrate the deterioration slavery yields from moral, benevolent people into ruthless, cold-hearted people.

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To show his perception on the very cruel slaveholders, Douglass uses a multitude of adjectives to create an image in his reader’s mind, while also using metaphors to better comprehend the situation. For example, Douglass stated, “No words, no tears, no prayers, for his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose.” By using this metaphor, Frederick Douglass made the reader question how one could be so cruel to another human being. By visualizing one whipping another without any guilt, it makes the audience understand the inhumanity of slavery. In total, this metaphor creates a agonizing image in the reader’s

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When Frederick Douglass published his self-written narrative, people finally got a fully comprehensive view of the life of a slave. To debunk the mythology of slavery, Douglass presents the cold, hard truth, displays slaves true intelligence,

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Douglass used his slave narrative as a propaganda tool to show the injustices of slavery. Douglass showed the readers that the slave holding system separated families such as the slave

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“One who is a slaveholder at heart never recognizes a human being in a slave” (Angelina Grimke). This quote was created to show the effect that slavery had on not only the slave, but the slaveholder. The slaveholder would dehumanize the slave to the point where the human was no longer recognizable; instead, the slave was property. Throughout this autobiography, Frederick Douglass uses language to portray the similarities and differences between the two sides. He allows the reader to spend a day in the life of a slave to see the effects from it.

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Because of this, he successfully creates a contrast between what the slave owners think of and treat the slaves and how they are. Douglass says that slave’s minds were “starved by their cruel masters”(Douglass, 48) and that “they had been shut up in mental darkness” (Douglass, 48) and through education, something that they were deprived of, Frederick Douglass is able to open their minds and allow them to flourish into the complex people that they are. By showing a willingness to learn to read and write, the slaves prove that they were much more than what was forced upon them by their masters.

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He uses similes throughout his narrative to compare his struggles with slavery and show how the African American is negatively portrayed with something the reader can easily imagine and relate. When discussing his tiresome days working , Douglass compares himself to being held down by a weight, When I could stand no longer, I fell, and felt as if held down by an immense weight.” (55) The simile between him and the weight shows how slavery is weighing him down and it is something the reader can easily imagine and relate too. Later in the narrative Douglass compares slaves to wild beasts, “In the midst of houses, yet having no home,--among fellow-men, yet feeling as if in the midst of wild beasts,” (90).

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