Frederick Douglass' Life

Frederick Douglass "Narrative of Life"

Frederick Douglass' Narrative of Life is a powerful book detailing the events that happened to him during his life. The story is all too familiar though, as a boy he is moved around a lot between slaveholders but learns to read a little from Mrs. Auld which opens his mind to be able to comprehend slavery. From then on, Douglass is subjected to torments under slavery: the hypocrisy between religion and reality, starvation, and whippings. Then Douglass was sent to Mr. Covey's to be broken. After seeming to be broken he fell ill and attempted to go to his master for protection, but finding no protection he was left with the choice, "...to go home and be whipped to death, or stay in the woods and starve to death (2102)." After his return Mr. Covey attacks.

Success came from the brawl and was the changing point for Douglass; his spirit no longer felt crushed and he once again felt empowered. Soon after he goes to a new master, Mr. Freeland who makes the biggest impact on Douglass through him being free of religion. It was here that Douglass founded a Sabbath school, and was beaten for it by others and commented on how Mr. Freeland was, "... the best master I ever had, till I became my own master (2108)." After his time there he tries to escape, gets caught, imprisoned and sold to Master Hugh. With Hugh, Douglass gets work and makes plans to escape and succeeds in 1838. Mr. Ruggles gives Douglass a location where he can go and be safe: New Bedford. It is here Douglass begins his free life and gets started in activism for the abolitionists.

The biggest impact Douglass makes in his Life is through his tone. He speaks in a forceful tone, strong and commanding, detailing the injustices he both saw and befell. In a brief comparison, his wok is the opposite if Stowe's: Douglass uses cutting words and actions and anger, where Stowe appeals to emotions using softer tones and comedy. There was nothing funny in Douglass' biography mostly because it wasn't fiction but what really happened. The point of writing this way was to incite anger in others and to promote outrage over slavery.

Below is a coloring book picture of Douglass, look at how he is standing how aggressively he holds the paper. One final note, well more of a quote of the text below him, "Douglass left the U.S. after the failure of the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry."
It is quite funny to see the situation dumbed down to the point that is losses all meaning and context (much like what chapter 7 in Lies warned us about). By contrast below is the link to a quote by Douglass about the 4th of July, only the link to the image since it is a bit more graphic in it's display of the evils of slavery and whipping.

<Link to quote and picture>