Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Essay

Frederick Douglass tale the life history of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, was early published in 1845 when author was approximately twenty-eight years old, the autobiography was widely circulated and critically acclaimed by his contemporaries. Remarkable for its vivid descriptions, clarity of t integrity, and powerful rhetoric, Douglass narrative pointednesss the deplorable conditions suffered by slaves and dispels prevailing myths or so slaveholding (myths that sanitized its evils and that implied that slaves themselves were better off under its rule).Douglass boldly includes the exact scores and locations of the persons and events he reproves. most(prenominal) poignantly, he paints a vivid picture of the emotional and spiritual life of an individual slave, revealing his untoughened frustrations, intense inner yearnings, fears, and aspirations, making him a kind of everyman with whom sympathetic readers could easily identify.The showtime eight Books detail Douglass life on the Wye plantation and in Baltimore, his awakening of consciousness and broadening perception of a wider world. Books nine and Ten show Douglass in a state of transition, undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts, whereby a slave becomes a man.It is only in the final book, Eleven, that we learn of Douglass finale to run and his arrival in radical York, and Massachusetts. (Out of concern for Douglass welfare, and for the welfare of slaves still aspiring to escape, neither the r egresse of his journey nor his means of transport is described). variant the text within the context of the Hero Quest theme, Douglass is regarded as a man on a journey of self discoery, one who develops, along the way, a thirst for tender justice and learns to view with a critical eye reigning institutions and ideologies.Douglass entitles his narrative Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. He emphasizes the narrative or account of his life rather than the adventures, thereby elevating the narrative from a mere perk up story to an instructive, conscientious construction and reconstruction of his life. His title introduces the idea of literacy as an inherent and organic differentiate of his experiences and identity.This bridge, indicated by the comma, intensifies the noun and pivotally designates his narrative as an authorized act, one by which he constructs an identity based on a placementatic structuring of flesh by that ultimately leads to the transformation of the man. Douglass sets a paradigm for objectifying his subjective experience by rendering an eyewitness account of slavery that typifies that of most American slaves. Hence, he posits a titular argumentation to prepare his audience for its (the titles) inherent claim he, Frederick Douglass, was a man who was made a slave.Douglass Narrative can be examined in light of both its diachronic and personal contexts. Together, Douglass immediate, individ ual situation, the setting into which he was born, his family and pivotal relationships, his inward struggles and aspirations as well as the wider affable and political landscape against which his journey unfolds. In early years he was a slave on a large plantation in Talbot County, Maryland where he lived separate from his family and suffered greatly from hunger and cold.Douglass begins his narrative with riveting details and relies drumheadly on memory or capitalizes on the privation thereof to prove an argument rather than reduplicate a tale. His descriptions are structured to counter his audiences stereotypical, inaccurate views. Therefore, he begins with specific details of the geographical location of his birthplace. Born Frederick Augustus Bailey in February 1814, in Tuckahoe, Maryland (he changed his name to Frederick Douglass after his escape to the North), he was the son of Harriet Bailey, daughter of Isaac Bailey, a absolve man, and Betsy Bailey, the slave of Aaron Anthony. Speaking of his birth and parentage in his first autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), Douglass says,I have no accurate fellowship of my age never having catchn any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves go as little of their ages as horses get of theirs, and it is the wish of most subdue within my sack outledge to intimidate their slaves thus ignorant. I do non remember to have ever met a slave who could key his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting- time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of teaching concerning my own was a witnesser of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The snow-covered children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege . . . (13)This statement is followed by descriptions of customs on Marylands eastern Shore. He also includes a description of Captain Anthonys homestead and Colonel Lloyds, plantation to foreground claims that slave masters lived in opulence age their slaves lived in abject p everywherety. After providing verifiable places and incidents, Douglass substantiates his general claims, an efficient strategy that relegates the condition of the slave to circumstances that deny him the tools that would logically empower any human beingness and which are the inherent rights of the dominant culture.Hence, he uses specifics to makes his subjective experience typical and subsequently ascribes it to slaves generally as well as to himself. Douglass account, is inclusive instead of exclusive. Douglass also recognizes familial relationships as cultural determinants of identity. Therefore, he posits the lack of sack outledge regarding his parentage as a deterrent for healthy socialization.Although he knows his incurs name and remembers seeing her a few multiplication, they do not have a puzzle-child relationship, nor does he know his come. Do uglass reportsMy m other(a) was named Harriet Bailey. She was the Daughter of Isaac and Betsey Bailey, both colored, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather. My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever comprehend speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father. (Narrative 13)Initially, it might be assumed that his mothers absence and then-lack of intimacy do not affect him during the formative years of his life while he lived with his grandparents, who provided emotional and physical support. In fact, he summarily says, I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in my life and each of these times was very short in duration, and at night (13-14). In this case, Douglass silences only distance him from the text and his mother, thereby objectifying both and intensifying the gravity of the particular performance act in the mother/son relationshi p, a normative construct within the culture provided an anomaly within the slave culture.Although she traveled over twelve miles a night from Mr. Stewards farm, the place of her employment, risking physical punishment just to perish a few moments with her son, young Douglass was not aware, or chose not to acknowledge, the gravity of her sacrifice, at least not in this narrative. When she died after a short illness, Douglass unemotional response is anticipated Never having enjoyed, to any capacious extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful bring off, I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger (14), for it is consistent with his argument, which negates the concept of a slave family and its lineage.The mystery that surrounded his parentage haunted him throughout his life and figured prominently in his identity quest. Not knowing his fathers identity or his birthday proved to be a major source o f anxiety, for he continuously stressed the importance of knowing ones birth date and tried to provide an estimation of his age, another determinant of his identity.Douglass says, The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from comprehend my master say, some time during 1835, I was more or less seventeen years old (13). In Narrative, Douglass estimates that he is 27 or 28 years old in 1845, and he extends this description and uses this tenuous information as a basis for attacking slaverys destruction of the family and its perpetuation of ignoranceI know nothing the means of knowing were withheld from me. My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant to begin with I k new(a) her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it , and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to foil the development of the childs affection toward its mother, and to destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result. (13-14)This protracted quotation shows how Douglass uses the assessment of his age, although inaccurate, and the description of his separation from his mother as powerful ammunition for his abolitionist rhetoric. continuing his attack, Douglass notes the absence of familial ties among slaves and indirectly critiques slavery as a system that bolsters a racial hierarchy that obliterates the legal, unalienable rights of the slaves, placing them outside of human dis melt and reducing them to property only in a system of glaring odiousness, that slaveholders have ordained, and by law established (14).Therefore, most women did not have conserves, and children did not know their fathers, although it was common knowledge that in many cases the masters were the fathers. Douglass suspects that he is among this unfortunate group. He concludes that slave masters were the only benefactors This is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their fearful desires profitable as well as pleasurable for by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father (14).Douglass takes a specific, subjective experience and generalizes about slavery. He argues that the family as an institution was nonexistent for the slave, for it was slaverys aim to destroy the sacredness of the family, one of Americas principal institutions. This argument supports the claim that slavery not only dehumanized slaves, but it also relegated them to the position of other and disconnected them from the mores and conventions of the pat riarchy.At age seven he is providentially sent to Baltimore to live with his owners son-in-law Hugh Auld. Aulds kindly wife, Sophia, commences to teach Douglass to read but is halted by her husband who lectures her fiercely about the dangers of educating slaves, pronouncing that literacy would render them unmanageable, discontented and unhappy. Aulds virulent reaction illuminates for Douglass the power of literacy and its key manipulation in the social domination of one population over another.Upon this realization, Douglass, by his own wit and ingenuity, teaches himself to read, risking foul punishment by devouring in secret every text that comes his way. The Columbian Orator, an anthology of essays on social justice and democracy, especially affects him. Among the essays are Sheridans treatise on Catholic emancipation and a fictionalized dialogue in which a slave and his slaveholder debate the merits of slavery, the slave arguing so persuasively that his master sets him free. Th e Columbian Orator illuminates for Douglass fundamental tenets of human rights and propels him to a new under stand up of the philosophical claims against slavery and the enormity of its evils.However, with this expand consciousness comes new inward distress. Douglass recalls, I could at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy(84). He admits that whimsy trapped and frustrated by his inability to actI often found myself regretting my own existence, and deprivation myself dead(85). Still, he is propelled forward by a burgeoning sense of social justice and by a thirst to learn more about slavery and the mysterious term abolitionism. As his awareness grows, he resolves to some day run away. Realizing that he may need to forge his own pass, he sets out to learn to write-cajoling and bribing white boys to teach him, tracing letters on the prows of ships, marking fences with pieces of coa l.When Douglass is fifteen, he returns to his owners plantation. There, Douglass inexperience in the fields is viewed as laziness, and he is sent for disciplinary purposes to the home of Mr. group, a renter farmer renown for his cruel treatment of slaves. Under group, Douglass endures repeated physical abuse and incessant, grueling labor. The ordeal nearly destroys Douglass, leading him close to despair, causing him to question Gods very existence. He writes I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed . . . (105).He recalls standing along the shores of the Chesapeake. Seeing the ships sailing north, he felt the tremendous weight of his enslavement and prayed to God for saving The glad ship is gone . . I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. God, compose me God, deliver me Let me be free Is there any God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. croak caught, or ge t clear, Ill try it(107). This secret resolution sustains him amid the dark months with Covey, offering him a intimation of hope.It is under Coveys charge that Douglass experiences a pivotal, life-changing event. After suffering several fierce beatings, Douglass flees to his master but is forced to return to Covey, whereupon he is attacked with a horsewhip. Douglass recounts that at this momentfrom whence came the spirit I dont knowI resolved to fight and suiting my action to the resolution, I seized Covey hard by the throat and as I did so, I rose(l12).For hours, the two men fight. In the end, Douglass gets the better of his overseer, drawing much blood and winning an unspoken reprieve from further attacks. Douglass assents that this battle with Mr. Covey was the turning point in my career as a slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence and inspired me again with a determination t o be free (113).The physical confrontations with Covey proved to be the turning point in Douglass life. After several rude whipping, Douglass was overcome by a new sense of power and self-preservation, and assumed authority over his life. As an agent who maintained a defensive posture, which symbolized his confrontation with the dominant power, he not only changed himself, but he also redefined the source of power. Douglass resisted all Coveys attempts to beat him, proclaiming was resolved to fight, and, what was better still, I was actually hard at it it is was the turning point in my life as a slave. It rekindled in my breast the smoldering embers of liberty it brought up my Baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my own manhood (54).Maintaining a defensive posture, Douglass was elevated to a new plateau, and his transformation from slave to man was made complete I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact (54). The triumph in this altercation sets a precedent in the narrative tradition that parallels similar themes in early American writings. Emotionally free to exercise his intellect and dream of his eventual emancipation, Douglass regained his self-confidence and became a viable attractor in the black community where he was physically and spatially enslaved until a traitor foiled his escape plans.After his year with Covey Douglass is sent to a more humane master, where he is able, clandestinely, to teach over forty slaves to read and write. There, with a growing sense of agency, Douglass inspires several of his fellow slaves to join him in one noble effort to be free(122), but on the morning of their intended departure, the conspirators are discovered, beaten, and jailed. simply in prison, Douglass anticipates that he will be sold to a plantation in the deep south, but miraculously he is sent back to Baltimore and hired out to a shipbuilder. Douglass fares better under th is new arrangement he learns caulking and is granted the autonomy to make his own contracts. Yet even so, he suffers barbs of racial discrimination and oppression he is nearly beaten to death by white shipyard workers he smarts at the place that every cent of his earnings must go to his master. Once again he plots to escape, this time decision making to go it alone, though it requires leaving behind his beloved fellow slaves.As Douglass narrative draws to a close, we see him arriving safely first in New York, and then in New Bedford, Massachusetts where Douglass sets up a home for himself and his bride. It is here that Douglass first reads The Liberator (The paper became my meat and my drink.My soul was set all on fire). He befriends William Lloyd Garrison and joins the American Anti-slavery society as a speaker on their lecture tour. hither the narrative triumphantly ends (though, as the students knew from their research, for Douglass it is only the beginning of a long life of a ctivism). In the course of the narrative, we have seen, in Douglass, an evolution of consciousness the hero grows increasingly aware of and implicated in larger social and political forces. His aspirations widen, his powers of agency increase as he enters directly into the course and flow of historical events.Douglass explores another crucial aspect of the culture and unveils the ignorance that permeated the slaves life he exposes the reality that undergirded slavery the white mans power to enslave the black man lay in the white mans ability to keep the black man ignorant (32). Recognizing the pathway to freedom, he became refractory in seeking an educationWhat he most dreaded, that I most desired, what he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently want and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn. ( 32)Douglass recognition of the parity of literacy and freedom is an epiphany and becomes a distinguishing mark in the development of the slave narrative.Sophia Auld adhered to her husbands mandate and subsequently embraced his philosophy, but not without sacrificing her humanness. Douglass characterization of Mrs. Auld points toward other noteworthy social issues. Her actions suggest that she, like the slave is victimized by a male dominated practice that denied slaves and women educational opportunities as well as other basic freedoms.Therefore, women like Sophia who blindly obeyed their husbands were transformed by the practices of a patriarchal system. Following her husbands precepts, her tender heart became stone, and the lamb-like disposition gave way to one of tiger-like hysteria as she was divested of her previously esteemed Christian qualities (34). Slavery usurped even the powerful virtues of Christianity, further confusing a skeptical child and providing commentary on rel igion, another cultural practice. For Douglass, however, the key to freedom was not to be found in religion or social relationships, but within literacy, an empowering, transforming agency.Works CitedDouglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Ed. Houston A. Baker, Jr. New York Penguin, 1986.