Narrative Of Fredrick Douglas Essay Research Paper

Narrative Of Fredrick Douglas Essay, Research Paper

The brutality that slaves endured form their masters and from the institution of

slavery caused slaves to be denied their god given rights. In the Narrative of the Life of

Frederick Douglass, Douglass has the ability to show the psychological battle between

the white slave holders and their black slaves, which is shown by Douglass own

intellectual struggles against his white slave holders. I will focus on how education

allowed Douglass to understand how slavery was wrong, and how the Americans saw the

blacks as not equal, and only suitable for slave work. I will also contrast how Douglass

view was very similar to that of the women in America, and the role that Christianity

played in his life as a slave and then as a free man.

The novel clearly displays the children s animalistic behavior when they were not

regularly allowanced. Douglass says, Our food was coarse corn meal boiled, which was

called mush. It was put into a large wooden tray or trough, and set down upon the ground.

The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come

and devour the mush; some with oyster-shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with

naked hands, and none with spoons. He that ate fastest got most; he that was strongest

secured the best place; and few left the trough satisfied” (Douglass 41-42). This clearly

describes how children where treated like animals and their inability to act in the manner

of a normal educated child. Slave children were denied many luxuries that other children

took for granted. The knowledge of their birthdays was one of these luxuries. Douglass

states, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record

containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses

know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their

slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his

birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time,

springtime, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of

unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I

could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege” (Douglass 19). This

passage clearly indicates differences between white children and slave children. These

differences build the foundation for demeaning the child into a slave and removing his

manhood from his soul. This is the start of the process that extracts a brute from a child.

Throughout the narrative Douglass uses the word brute , to form the image that

slaves were nothing more than beasts. This is only one of the numerous examples in

which Douglass creates the image of a dehumanized slave though the use of his

vocabulary. Douglass states, 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! (Douglass 73). Douglass makes it clear to the reader that

slavery degrades a man, and makes him loose his manhood. According to Douglass,

slavery transformed humans into beasts. Douglass was no longer a man; he was in every

essence an animal transformed by the brutality of slavery into a mindless worker.

Slavery was just an institution created animals from men; it bleeds the humanity

from humans and formed beasts in it s wake that need nothing but a comparatively small

amount of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his race. By

the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms of the slave code, he was only

a piece of property, a beast of burden, and a chattel person. Divine supports this thought

by stating, slaves were also valuable property and the main tools of production

(Divine 235). With this, we are able to see how the slaves were not looked at as people

but as commodities, thus demeaning them into objects and not humans. Frederick

Douglass salvages his human nature though education and self-determination. When

Douglass first got a taste of knowledge, he then understood the power in which it held.

Douglass states, I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty-to

wit, the white man s power to enslave the black man (Douglass, 47). This was Douglass

first step towards freedom, which was learning what he had to do to get there, that was to

learn and gain the white man s knowledge. Douglass says, From that moment, I

understood the pathway from slavery to freedom (Douglass, 47). This revelation came

upon him after hearing his master, Mr. Auld reprehend Mrs. Auld for teaching Douglass

spelling. Mr. Auld states, If you give a nigger and inch, he will take an ell (Douglass,