Frederick Douglass "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself" 1845

Minority in Literature
1. Animal Imagery/Dehumanization
  1. "We were all ranked together...Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses sheep and swine."
  2. "There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being"
2. Power
  1. through Education
    1. "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should no nothing but to obey his master..."
      1. "Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world"
    2. "Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress. I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest
      1. accident, I had gained from my master."
      2. Auld's present the negative effect that slavery has on slaveowners too
        "The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work."
    3. Feminine = Knowledge
      1. Masculine = Knowledge of Knowledge
        Integration/recognition of other minority groups
  2. sympathy with Slave Owners
    1. Covey (Slave holder)
      1. the "breaking" of Douglass by Covey
        "Mr Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the
        disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man
        transformed into a brute"
        the word "brute" further dehumanises Douglass
        now dehumanising himself
        repetition of structure mirrors dehumanising process - use of ";"
    2. "At this moment, i saw more clearly than ever the brutalising effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder"
  3. The Individual
    1. the need to repress the majority through the actions of the individual
      1. Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government"
    2. "The motto which I adopted when I started from slavery was this - "Trust no man!"
    3. CONTRADICTION
      1. "We never undertook to do any thing, of any importance, without a mutual consultation. We never moved separately. We were one"
3. Females
  1. Only appear as images of abused bodies - never as fully developed characters
    1. "He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted
      1. cowskin ...It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery."
Form
1. Narrative
  1. voice is entirely believable
    1. no personal details are withheld from the reader
  2. personal connection through form creates sympathy - is this what Douglass wanted??
Voice
1. incredibly assured of his points and his reasoning
  1. contrasts with Dickinson's contradictory poems
  2. honest
Spiritual
1. Religion as a justification
  1. "Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found
    1. religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty
      1. took less pressure off slaveholders consciences
3. perversion of Christianity
  1. "The Christianity of Christ" against "The Christianity of this land"
    1. "to be the friend of one is to be the enemy of the other"
4. Fight with Mr Covey re-establishes Douglass's spirit
  1. "I felt as I never felt before, it was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of freedom."
Image of America
1. difference between rural and city
  1. "A city slave is almost a freeman, compared with a slave on the plantation...There is a vestige of decency, a sense of shame, that does not much to
    1. curb and check those outbreaks of atrocious cruelty, so commonly enacted upon the plantation."
  2. city offers greater possibilities of freedom and success after freedom
    1. city has greater opposition to slavery

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Frederick Douglass "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself" 1845

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