Jessica Baldassini
AP Lang
Frederick Douglass rewrite

An extraordinary prisoner of slavery, who successfully escaped in 1838 to New York, Frederick Douglass, in his narrative, exposes the overwhelming mental strength that it took to prevail over slavery. Douglass’s purpose is to convey his states of mind to those who still supported slavery and other slaves in order to get it abolished. He adopts a passionate tone to achieve a sense of guilt upon his audience to get them to recognize the humanity of the slaves and act accordingly. Douglass uses figures of speech to highlight vivid details of his emotions that the audience can draw a parallel with. Douglass describes after he escaped slavery, “I suppose I felt as one may imagine the unarmed mariner to feel when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate.” This quote specifically allows the audience to feel the extreme relief that Douglass felt once he finally made it out of the heavy chains kept by his slave owner. The reference to an “unarmed mariner” magnifies Douglass’s helplessness and creates sympathy felt by the audience. By illustrating the vivid details of his state of mind through his figurative language, Douglass is able to grasp his audience’s emotions to spark urgency in them to abolish slavery. They are forced to feel a responsibility for the mistreatment of African American slaves. Another example of this vivid detail is when he states, “… greediness to swallow up the trembling