Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Literary Analysis

Fredrick Douglass is very dissimilar to the writers of his generation. Douglass, born in 1817, started his journey through life in slavery and had a very unusual beginning of his reading and writing experiences. In his autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave,” he mentions that it was through the mistake of his slave owner’s wife that he began to learn the concept of reading and writing, however, he basically taught himself through many obstacles to accomplish his goal to be able to read as well as a white man. Although he did not begin his journey like the average writer, Douglass has a formal style of writing. He writes in long paragraph form and in chronological narrative style. Douglass also writes his …show more content…
City slave owners wanted to show others how well kept their ‘property’ was. They made sure their slaves were well fed and well clothed. However, Douglass describes one set of slave owners who were very cruel to their slaves, Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, whom lived on Philpot Street. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton only owned two slaves, Henrietta and Mary. Henrietta was twenty-two and Mary was around fourteen years of age. Douglass remembers that the women always wore sores and scabs from their beatings, he …show more content…
I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. (334)
He then began to face the reality that learning to read was more of a curse than of a blessing. Douglass comments, “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity” (334). Douglass would have to run errands for his master to the lumber yard and noticed the different letters on each individual piece of wood. He would make words out of the letters he had seen on the wood and run to the white boys his age and claim he knew more words than them, which in fact helped him because he knew he didn’t know more words but he was going to learn some. Douglass was very cleaver in the new ways he learned to read. When Mr. and Mrs. Auld passed away, their slaves were left to the children, their son, Andrew the drunkard and their daughter, Lucretia. Douglass had been given to Mrs. Lucretia, which he was very happy about. Soon after returning back to Baltimore with Mrs. Lucretia, Master Andrew died and Mrs. Lucretia was not far behind. Douglass then mentions how his grandmother had outlived almost all of her slave owners. However, when they were passed down to Mrs. Lucretia’s daughter, Amanda, he