Though both Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Written by Himself (1845) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself (1881) were both written after Frederick Douglass escaped slavery, the two autobiographies have a number of differences between them. Though the autobiographies are written about the same person, Frederick Douglass, some people and events in Douglass’ life have been deleted or added, creating, what appears to be, two different accounts of enslaved life. Seven years after Frederick Douglass escaped slavery, he wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Written by Himself (1845). In this document Douglass states that he has only had two masters, his first being Captain Anthony.…
Frederick Douglass argues in his narrative that slavery dehumanizes both the slave and the slave master generating a dependency for each other. For slave’s, this dehumanization came in the form of having their name, culture and personal identity stripped away from them and for the slave master, the inability to function when deprived of slave assistance. In this essay, I will use Frederick Douglass’s narrative; along with, first-hand accounts to demonstrate how both the slave and the slave master became dehumanized through the institution of slavery. Using Frederick Douglass’s narrative, I will explain how slaves became exploited for cheap labor by the slave master creating a society depended on slaves.…
A lot of slaves had to deal with hardship and cruelty. It's also what Frederick Douglass and Shyima(“Slave Girl”) had to deal with. Frederick Douglass had a lot of Struggles he and the other slaves didn't even know their own age or date of birth. The Fred Douglass book and the “Slave Girl” article have some similarities they were taken from their mothers at a young age and forced into labor. Fred Douglass and other kids were kept in a cabin near the plantation until they got to a certain age.…
Group 4. “I have observed this in my experience of slavery, -- that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.”…
Frederick Douglass had many view points on the horrendous culture of enslavement. He explained how cruel it was to sell human beings into slavery, stealing them from their homes. Frederick helped us to understand the agony and torture most slaves went through on a daily basis, and how that if he were an animal, he wouldn’t be able to comprehend what was going on around him. Douglass recalls reading a book about the inhumane act of slavery.…
Analysis of "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass" by Fredrick Douglass (Angela Davis Edition) Fredrick Douglass stood as a living counter-example to the arguments of the slaveholders that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as an independent American citizen (Wiley-Blackwell 155–156).Douglass was an inspiring influential writer and orator, shaping the abolitionist movements of the 1800's (Mosher, Jeffery). He is globally celebrated for his publication of his first autobiography the "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass" (Mosher, Jeffrey). Like many narratives of the time, "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass" is prefaced with endorsements by white abolitionist to establish a concrete level of credibility (Davis 87).…
Douglass addresses the unethical position of oppression and cases it to the fact that the Negro was not considered man or a person and ought to be dealt with as such in this article. He utilized investigative, historical, and biblical sources to make his contention. He argued that there is a typical lineage among different races of humanity, and in this manner people of all races should have the same benefits. He insisted that there is yearning among white researchers to separate the Negro race from each astute country in Africa; Egypt more specifically. He claimed that Egyptians were one of the early human advancements who progressed exceptionally in their times, and that today's present day social orders are modeled after them.…
Within the text “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” written in 1845, is the autobiographical account of Fredrick Douglas’s life as a slave which also gives insight into how the 1845th African American slave was marginalized at the time. Before the abolishment of slavery in 1865, the actions responsible for marginalizing slaves in 1845 can be depicted through several accounts in Douglas’s autobiography and regarded as a general picture into how other slaves were neglected at the time through actions such as the withholding of birthdates from slaves, separation from their parents, constant beating of slaves and keeping slave’s illiterate. The marginalization and silencing of slaves is also depicted by Douglass through…
During the 18th and 19th century slavery became a acceptable image in the United States. Heavily concentrated in the south due to the rapid expansion of the cotton industry and many of the other plantations growing the very profitable cash crops. Most African Americans experienced slavery on the plantations where they would live on units owned by planters who had twenty or more slaves; similarly to the experiences that were described by Frederick Douglass. Often times the planters and white masters of these communities would resort to physical and psychological tactics to ensure their personal safety and profitable enterprise, additionally causing the slaves to live in fear, resulting in obedience.…
“Move faster, you black gip!”(pg16). While both works show mistreatment, Gregors mistreatment was because of his actual appearance of literally being a bug; Douglass lets the readers know that his mistreatment was because of his race. Fredrick Douglass is a human who was considered by law to be 3/5th of a human because he was a black man. In the beginning of the narrative we are introduced with a background of Douglass and all other slaves around him. Douglass describes the inhumane lives of slaveholders illustrating damages and vicious treatments, which is unjust in today’s world.…
After reading the Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave, I learned a lot about the determination of man and the further horrors of slavery. Douglass was born as a slave and lived the first half of his life as one till he escaped. He didn’t have him mother growing up and he never knew who his father really was either. There was word it was his first owner and that he was a white man but that was the extent of Fredrick’s knowledge of the man. The moment he was old enough he’d be sold and witness horrors slavery forced upon him before being sent off to Boston to live with the Auld’s where he’d learn his ABC’s and soon enough start to teach himself how to read and write.…
Unsurprisingly, Douglass conveys that the life of the average southerner was the complete opposite, and slaves were hardly treated humanely. Southerners saw their slaves as animals who were greatly inferior to them. Douglass recalls when he is young that when his aunt was whipped by their master, “no words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest” (5). His shocking account of this event was effective in asserting his criticism of a southerner’s idealistic portrayal of slavery.…
Before the 13th amendment, Slave labor without a doubt transpires throughout history as one of the many attributes to receive mass attention when the idea of brutality comes to mind. Frederick Douglass, a former slave himself, goes through intentions to understand everyone’s oppression in the establishment of slave labor. Although the source of economy had to be based around cheap slave labor for a benefit of profit, the idea taken into consideration to also treat slaves terribly was sickening. Therefore, Douglass can absolutely claim that amongst many people involved with legal slave labor faced victimization through dehumanization, power imbalance, and corruption through advantages of oppression.…
Personal Reaction to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a book that has woken me up from a state I am ashamed to have been in in the first place, especially regarding such a sensitive time in our country’s past: indifference. Collectively, our society today has become desensitized to the heinous atrocity of slavery that those before us fell victim to. As a human being with even the slightest sense of morality, I of course vehemently disapprove of slavery and the values in which it was grounded. However, admittedly, my immediate emotional reaction to the word “slavery” prior to my reading of the book was borderline apathetic because our culture is so far removed from the cruelties that those before us were forced to suffer through. This detachment from the concept of slavery,…
Frederick Douglass’s use of his personal meanings of slavery and freedom in his writing were exercised to hasten the abolition of slavery in American society in the 19th century. Frederick Douglass defined slavery as a permeating system of oppression and abuse that is forced upon people of color, in such a way that they cannot fully understand the atrocity or determine ways to overcome it. Douglass made a very strong argument that a slave’s lack of knowledge is the reason for the…