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This location serves the purpose of providing a backdrop that closely resembles the reality of the time period thus enhancing the story's believability. But it also symbolizes the state of the country and the irony in America's moral values. America was founded on the moral ideas of the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all men, and demanded and fought for those rights for mankind. Many of these revolutionary men have hailed of Virginia, " She has been dignified by some the mother of statesmen…Her high position in this respect, has given her a high enviable distinction among her sister states,…" ( Douglass 37). History has shown that these ideals were not extended to the Negro by the late 1800's. " Let those account for it who can, but there stands the fact, that a man who loved liberty as well as did Patrick Henry,… --and who fought for it with valor as high, an arm as strong, …lives now only in the chattel records of his native State" ( Douglass 37). Douglass uses the difference between word and fact in Virginia to symbolize the irony of the whole
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However, it is based on actual events which gives the story credibility. This story is also believable because it refers to the horrors of slavery as well as depicting the consequences of escape. Douglass depicts African Americans as intelligent and moral and deserving of freedom. This story reminds or introduces the reader to the fact that African Americans are human beings: capable of learning and having a family. Quote: "I felt myself in the presence of a superior man, one who, had he been a white man, I would have followed willingly and gladly in any honorable enterprise. Our difference of color was the only ground for difference of action." (The Heroic Slave-77) This reveals to the reader the importance to the white mans, the idea of being white and of racial purity. Although this man reveals that Madison was a smart and admirable man, he can not respect him because he is
However, it is based on actual events which gives the story credibility. This story is also believable because it refers to the horrors of slavery as well as depicting the consequences of escape. Douglass depicts African Americans as intelligent and moral and deserving of freedom. This story reminds or introduces the reader to the fact that African Americans are human beings: capable of learning and having a family. Quote: "I felt myself in the presence of a superior man, one who, had he been a white man, I would have followed willingly and gladly in any honorable enterprise. Our difference of color was the only ground for difference of action." (The Heroic Slave-77) This reveals to the reader the importance to the white mans, the idea of being white and of racial purity. Although this man reveals that Madison was a smart and admirable man, he can not respect him because he is