Fredrick Ash Cake Analysis

Fredrick is clearly a man who witnessed the horrors of slavery first-hand. He narrates the conditions in which they were force to live and eat while worked hard daily to make their masters richer. Fredrick talks of the disgusting “ash cake”(322) which was baking using hot coals and ash hence the name that slaves had to eat daily. The “ash cake” was a truly horrible meal, but because of how hard the slaves were worked, they were just glad they had something to eat and weren’t concerned with how it tasted.
Fredrick tries to show the contrast between the slaves who worked in the field and those who served in the house. He said, while those who worked in the field were barely provided for, the inmates of the mansion are literally arrayed “in purple and fine linen”(323). The servants living in the mansion were sort of a “ black aristocracy”(324) carefully selected for their faithfulness and with special regard for their “personal appearance, their graceful agility and captivating address”(324). Their duties included fanning guests and predicting wants. For this, they were better cared for than the slave who toiled fields daily receiving proper food, clothing and to an extent education. …show more content…
Lloyd in the sense that when people saw how well kept, the slaves appeared, they would place the colonel in even higher esteem. He appeared to his visitors as a “model of generous hospitality”(325). The guests never even suspected the deception put up by the colonel for a minute. Fredrick says, that though the slaves of the fields worked third and were barely cared for, they slept better than the voluptuaries living in the house. This was because as a result of their lack of exercise, they were plagued with many conditions such as “aches, fierce temper … lumbago and