What Is Cruel In The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

Improved Essays
Men have always found affective ways to control those they view less superior to them. These ways were and are still a prevalent problem in the United States. Two early American novelist brought these problems to light. Sinclair and Douglass attacked the methods that the owning class used to control their workers and slaves by showing how the oppressors discouraged education, prevented work stoppages with the fear of death, and allowed a small amount of freedom to create a sense of dependence on the bosses.
Education is a powerful tool, and the slave owners and factory owners knew that if their slaves and workers had an escape that there would be an uprising. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass learned to read with
…show more content…
Douglass saw the first glimpse of this cruelty when his aunt was beaten severely. The slave owners made sure that their other slaves were present, including the children, because they wanted to instill in them that if they broke the rules that they too would be beaten. Douglass describes his account of his aunts beating as, “It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle” (Douglass 4). Another instance of this threatening was when Demby would not obey his master and join the rest of the group. Demby’s master made him an example to show the other slaves what would happen if they didn’t obey him. “A thrill of horror flashed through every soul upon the plantation excepting Mr. Gore” (Douglass 14). Demby’s death was very powerful. For Jurgis, the threat of death did not come directly from his bosses. For Jurgis and the other Packingtown employees, the constant fear of being fired and left to beg on the streets was enough to make them work hard. Once a worker lost their job in Packingtown, it was hard to find another job due to the high influx of workers, and it was a brawl every morning. “The new hands were here by the thousands. All day long the gates of the packing houses were besieged by starving and penniless men…fighting with each other for a chance for life” (Sinclair 66). This combined with …show more content…
For Douglass and his fellow slaves, winter meant Christmas. Douglass describes the slaveholders encourage their slaves to drink until they got drunk. They did this so the slaves would think that being free was really not all that it was cut out to be. Douglass describes it as, “ The mode here adopted to disgusted the slave with freedom, by allowing him to see only the abuse of it, is carried out in other things”(Douglass 45). In Packingtown, the factory owners worked their employees six days a week and offered them almost no time off. During their time off they would head to the bars to get a free hot meal with a purchase of a drink of alcohol. For Jurgis this was his taste of freedom from the horrors of Packingtown. Drinking became a way of life, “So there came a time when nearly all the conscious life of Jurgis consisted of a struggle with the craving for liquor” (Sinclair 115) Drinking cost money, and the Packingtown employees had to have money. “and those few were working only for a chance to escape “ (Sinclair 115). The use of money on drinks cost a Packingtown family more than just money. “Afterward, when he saw the despair of his family, and reckoned up the money he had spent, the tears came into his eyes, and he began the long battle with the specter” (Sinclair 114). They had to depend on the Packingtown owners to survive, but at the same time, their lives were being torn

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    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.…

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In chapter six From Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass , Douglass focuses on how slavery has affected not just the slaves, but also the slave-owners themselves. In addition, he explains how slavery changes people behaviors. Also, he talks about women. He analyze White women in general and then talks about Sophia specifically. He think that all people are victims in slavery, but they are different in the degree of suffering.…

    • 1212 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Their owners and employers have consistently treated slaves and immigrant workers brutally and inhumanely. Even though the mistreatment differs between these tow groups, both slaves and immigrant workers were taken advantage of because of their inability to control their lives. Slaves had no control over their lives since they were actually owned by the plantation owners, while immigrant workers felt that they, too, were enslaved because of their hopeless situations. Social injustice and brutality by the plantation owners and Chicago meat processing industry owners displayed the opportunity to manage and control their slaves and immigrant employees. Narrative by Frederick Douglass and Upton Sinclair’s…

    • 1196 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Frederick Douglass's 1845 autobiography titled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave, Douglass stresses the miseries of the institution of slavery (as he recalled during the first six months of his stay with Mr Convey—his master). In his autobiography, Douglass addresses the toll that the institution of slavery had place on his “body, soul, and spirit” in which he explains to the ignorant Northern region of the United States, that the institution slavery is “hell” and degenerating. In his crusade in an attempt to end the institution of slavery, Douglass hopes to educate not only the North, but the entire world to realize slavery as a sinister practice. Through his use of barbaric diction, inhumane imagery, and dreary…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    He only had one of two options. He would either be sold off or suffer day in and day out . Even though Douglass never got whipped when he was on Captain Anthony's plantation he witnessed very violent experiences of his aunt Hester getting whipped naked until her blood would drop on the floor. This expierence was his very first time witnessing a beating and it traumatized him. He hated being on the plantation and couldn't understand…

    • 1390 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Frederick Douglass had strong views on Christianity. Frederick spoke about many slaveholders who were religious and used it to be barbaric. Captain Thomas Auld, one of Douglass’s masters, attended a church in Maryland and became a “pious” man, who used his new religion, Christianity, to be even more vicious and brutal towards his slaves. He believed that if a slave master was a man of Christianity he was automatically more full of hate towards slaves than a non-religious slaveholder. “...I, therefore hate the corrupt slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of the land… I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of frauds, and the grossest of all libels.”…

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Whether it was the utilization of a traditional copy-book or Webster’s Spelling Book, Douglass would spend any free time he had committed to his own education. He even began using the child of his master – “I used to spend the time in writing in the spaces left in Master Thomas’s copy-book, copying what he had written. I continued to do this until I could write a hand very similar to that of Master Thomas” (38). The rise of literacy for enslaved people revolutionized the way those who were enslaved looked at their own agency in their existence both on and off the plantation. For Douglas, literacy served as not only a mode for liberation outside of the plantation but also survival within.…

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This passage addresses this theme by first offering a vivid depiction of the beating and then explaining how it made Douglass feel and the long-term effect that it had on Frederick Douglass. Douglass writes that that watching the slave master beat his aunt struck him with an awful force and that he was not able to write down the full extent of what happened. Some might argue that Douglass’ situation might be unique and that all slavery was not as violent as what Douglass witnessed. Or someone could argue that Douglass exaggerated his description of slavery to engage the reader of his book more. Another point could be that slave owners did not beat their slaves to instill fear but just to punish one slave.…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Literacy is the defining term that differentiated slaves from their masters. Slaves were kept from any connection or exposure to literacy, more or less reading and writing. In addition, by keeping them in constant mental neglect, the masters ensued their predominate power and wealth across the south in a time of prejudice and racial ideologies. As a result of becoming self-aware and knowledgeable of slavery’s demeanor and its injustices, Douglass contradicts the status quo in the South. This knowledge consists of the evident cruelties in slavery and how the masters hid themselves behind the justifications of their actions through religion and law.…

    • 1144 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Frederick Douglass autobiography called “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” he talks about how he learned to read and writing, what it means to him. And how the slaves master didn’t want the slave knowing how to read and write because that would give them power and if the slave got power they would be equal has white Americans. He also talks about freedom how he makes himself free by learning how to read and write but he’s not fully free yet because African American are still slaves and at the day of the day he is still an African American. Douglass use all three of modes make his argument ethos, logos, and pathos that’s what make his argument strong.…

    • 1343 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    How does learning how to read and write as a slave create hope in acquiring freedom? The “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass” is an autobiography of Fredrick Douglass’s life as a slave. In this biography, Douglass recounts in vivid detail the many horrors of being a slave, “Under his heavy blows, blood flowed freely, and wales were left on my back as large as my little finger” (XV 260). Douglass also describes his pathway to freedom, and how becoming literate changed his perspective on life. Fredrick Douglass’s experience can be compared to many other authors; such as Lao-Tzu, Howard Gardner, Machiavelli, Plato, and Isak Dinesen.…

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fredrick Douglass is an activist for the anti-slavery movement and has publically spoken at multiple different abolitionist rallies in the 1800s, shining light on the horrors of slavery. He eventually wrote an autobiography based on his experiences as a slave, describing the everyday sufferings that his people have gone through for being coloured in the United States. In chapter four of his autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself”, he goes into the types of violence and oppressive that he saw and experienced, whether it was through physical beatings or the failure of a just legal system. While describing these different forms of brutality, he also uses these examples to show the contrasts…

    • 1176 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Education is one of the most important themes in Frederick Douglass’ 1845 autobiographical memoir Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. However, despite the emphasis placed on education, it is presented as a double-edged sword. On one hand, Frederick Douglass feels that the only way to secure freedom for himself and his fellow slaves is to through learning how to read and write and receiving an education. On the other hand, education is presented as damaging to the mind as Frederick Douglass becomes increasingly aware of the full extent of his servitude. Throughout the memoir, Douglass presents education as a negative force on the psychology of the slaves as well as incompatible with the system of slavery.…

    • 1028 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    All of the slaves lacked proper bedding and blankets. After a long day of work, the slaves would “…drop down side by side, on one common bed—the cold, damp floor...” (6). This descriptive language not only shows how united the slave community was, but also how they were expected to work all day, get only a few hours of sleep in uncomfortable sleeping conditions, and be expected to work the next day. As a result of the miserable blankets and lack of shoes, Douglass wrote his feet would become “…so cracked with the frost, that the pen with which [he was] writing might be laid in the gashes” (16).…

    • 1097 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays