Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

Between the years of 1830 and 1860, only ten percent of slaves in North America were above fifty years old. Very few slaves lived to fifty years old, which explains the quality of their treatment. Douglass uses many accounts of stories, which each appeal to ethos, logos, and or pathos to help present his opinion on slavery. In Frederick Douglass's autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, he presents his argument that slavery is evil and it should be abolished. Douglass presents very clearly that he believes slavery is wicked, and that the slave holders are monstrous when he says "His savage barbarity was equaled only by the consummate coolness with which he committed the grossest and most savage deeds upon the slaves under his charge" (Douglass 38). Douglass uses this quote to help him with his argument by drawing the reader's attention to the text with alliteration so that they might find sympathy for him and the other slaves, thus making his usage of pathos throughout the story effective. Douglass believes that slaveholders are unnecessarily cruel to the slaves. He indirectly proposes …show more content…
Douglass uses logos through his logical explanation that slavery scars the slaves mentally, which affects how well the slave can work in the fields considering they are too worried about getting whipped, when they could instead be working peacefully without the unnecessary punishment. He describes this feeling of paranoia when he says "I was afraid to speak to anyone for fear of speaking to the wrong person..." (Douglass 113). This emotion he describes is suiting to his argument because it helps the reader understand how illogical the whipping is because it affects the slaves mentally and lessens the quality of work, and, furthermore how unnecessary slavery itself