Frederick Douglass Life And Time Analysis

Frederick Douglass was the minister resident and general American consul to Haiti; while defending himself was a primary priority for Douglass, he also seemed much invested in constructing a particular image of Haiti as well to his audience. Frederick Douglass constructed an image of Haiti that is conflicting and variant at best in his document “Life and times”. These images can be deducted based on his personification of Haiti, the imagery that he invokes, and the diction he uses throughout certain passages.
While mentioning Haiti in “Life and Times”, Frederick Douglass uses a feminine pronoun at various times of the document; By doing this, he personifies Haiti as Female. For example, he refers to Haiti’s government by saying her government. …show more content…
In regards to the press, for example, he said: “It was also said that I would not be well received by Haïti because I had at one time advocated the annexation of Santo Domingo to the United States, a measure to which Haïti was strongly opposed. Every occasion was embraced by the New York press to show that my experience in Haïti confirmed their views and predictions.". He tells us that to him, the United States never had faith in him and undermine him from the start when it came to his position in Haiti. Through his words Frederick Douglass tells us that he is not blaming Haiti or the people of Haiti for his failures and also paints this picture of his fellow Americans as the most hostile to him, the ones that used every possible occasion to bring him down. Furthermore, he stated: “Strangely enough much of this unfriendly influence came from officers of the American Navy”. It demonstrates that maybe Douglass thought much of his hardships came from the Americans and not Haiti as the US portrayed at the time. Therefore, he did not only try to diminish the bad picture that was made of his stay in Haiti but characterize Haiti in a more favorable way by shifting a lot of those bad images, hardships in the direction of the Americans. By doing …show more content…
Although his diction varies through his mention of Haiti in “Life and times”, it did not when he spoke of himself. In my opinion, he did not invoke a conflicting view of himself when it came to his goal of talking in his defense or the image that he was constructing of himself . However, because of the contradictory dictions in his speech when it comes to Haiti, readers could be left wondering what his real thoughts were. Whether his use of feminine pronouns and various conflicting words were purely political since he was trying to polish his image in the U.S or he truly saw Haiti as a weak country that has yet some remarkable features, that can all be debated