Fredrick DOuglas Essay

Submitted By AshontyE1
Words: 1417
Pages: 6

Fredrick Douglas Narrative In today’s society people often ignore the act of slavery that existed a few centuries ago. Slavery was one of the main reasons why many families were broken apart and many individuals treated unequally as a citizen in the United States. As a slave an individual was treated as an animal with no knowledge of his surroundings or even themselves. Most slaves did not have the opportunity to explore and learn criteria in life such as a bold, brave man name Fredrick Douglas. Douglas was a bright young man who seeks different ways to be filled with knowledge every opportunity that he was not given to him. Within reading the Narrative of Fredrick Douglas the reader will than explore key points of slavery, the influence audience of who he reaches out to, how the audience shaped his appeal, and his common ground that introduces his effect on abolition of slavery. The first target in getting readers to understand where Douglas collected information of slavery was to vividly illustrate the main key points of a slave’s life. It was a known fact that slaves were considered a piece of property that was owned by a slaveholder. As Douglas continued his life as a slave he realized that many slaves had the slightest information as a person with knowledge. Many slaves did not know the basics of education such as knowing the alphabets or numerical numbers. Since many slaves were taken under a critical situation from their family, many slaves never knew their own names, ages or birthdays. The slave holders were so cruel and mean, that they would command the slaves to do certain task and calling them out of their names. If the slave holders thought that the task was not done in their timely manner or done in the in their liking they would whip the slaves often slashing off pieces of their skin. Slaves were emotionally drained from always being physically and mentally that they would often sing songs to represent one of their ways of being sad and emotionally hurt. The logic of why a human could stand to treat other humans in a cruel way such as animals is still being figured out in today’s time. Slave holders would literally treat the slaves as animals such as throwing out scrapings of left over’s such as they would do to pigs. There were no beds given the slaves, unless one coarse blanket is considered- nor man or warn had these” (521). Slaves missed out on many opportunities in life because they were short changed and misfortunate because of their skin color. The house slaves have the better advantage more than the other slaves because they were placed Boston where slaves were mildly accepted. Douglas had a better opportunity because of his lighter completion and white features allowed him to venture into the world piece by piece teaching him by hearing people talk. Even as slaves they should have been treated as equals. While reading this novel the reader will see the hardship of the slaves and all of the trials that they had to experience. As, Douglas continues to write his narrative of a slaves life he targets a main group of audience that he could reach out to causing them to see how him and slaves felt. Douglas targeted his point of view of slavery towards the people up North. Douglas knew that people that were in a higher position in life would see the unequal treatment that the slaves were receiving and would want to step in and try to solve the problem for a better outcome. The people up North had many rules and regulations that they did and did not allow. So Douglas made sure that his illustration of mistreatment was expressed throughout his whole novel so his message was clearly explained. In the North slaves had some freedom that was almost as equal as a free man in other places in the world. “Only think of it; one hundred miles straight North, and I’m free!” (546). Douglas knew that he would have the chance to experience more life opportunities than he would down south. It was important for him to