Narrative of Frederick Douglas, American Slave
Numerous authors have written accounts of the horrors of slavery. Some of the most convincing of these accounts were written by actual slaves themselves, a fact which is readily underscored by an analysis of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. However, there is a principle point of distinction between Douglass' work and that of other accounts of the iniquities of slavery, which predominantly include the intense physical horrors the institution of chattel slavery produced during the formative years of the United States. Many accountings of slavery detail the lascivious and rapacious behavior of masters and unspeakable acts of physical cruelty that typified this lucrative practice. However, there were also a number of psychological and mental horrors produced by slavery, the effects of which are perhaps more lasting and profound than those of the former. An analysis of several key scenes in the aforementioned text reveals the nature of these horrors, and implies the full extent of the damage that slave masters inflicted upon slaves.
Perhaps the most devastating horror that slavery engendered was the propensity to turn peoples of African descent against one another while siding with their oppressor, the slave master, as opposed to siding with their peers, other slaves. This perversity is demonstrated quite clearly during a point in Douglass' narrative in which he is engaged in a...
"I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery," wrote Frederick Douglas as he describes the horrors in which he had to work in slavery. "We were worked in all weathers... work, work, work, the longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights too long for him" (Bayliss 57), helping to show what was expected of the slaves. Slaves had to work under horrid conditions as much as possible, and they
Slave, Not Born a Slave The Making of Slavery The sense of proprietorship of slave traders, owners, and other propagators of chattel slavery that was prevalent in the United States until the middle of the 19th century would be absurdly laughable -- were it not steeped in a legacy of perversion, of anguish, of tragedy and of perniciousness. The notion that one had the right to actually own another, the latter
Anti-Slavery Movement of "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave" Frederick Douglass' biography entitled, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Life" is a literary work that does not only discuss slavery in broader terms incorporated into a literary work during the 19th century, but the narrative is also a social study of the life of black Americans during the black American slavery period (19th
Pro- and Anti-Slavery Movement in the 19th Century American Society The history of black slavery movement in the American society during the 19th century has become a common theme of debate and discussion between Americans for and against black slavery movement. There have been numerous literary works, essays, and other written works that discuss this primary issue of black American slavery in America during the 1800s. An example of these
would attack the institutional laws that maintained black Americans as vastly unequal from their white counterparts. In his famous missive from legal captivity for protesting on behalf of equal rights, King articulated how it was that the Civil Rights movement could at once work to utilize laws to change institutional segregation and simultaneously resist Jim Crow laws still in effect. Meditating on the subject, King remarked, "One may well ask:
With this, Douglass can securely make the claim that slaves are, in fact, human. He does so with conviction, and aims to persuade his predominately white audience that they are capable of harboring reason and complex emotions, like the readers themselves. "The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege," (Douglass 47). Slavery psychologically impacted individuals -- it completely
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