Essay on the Life of Frederick Douglass

A detailed Summary of Essay on the Life of Frederick Douglass

In Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Mr. Douglass gives many examples of cruelty towards slaves as he shows many reasons that could have been used to abolish slavery. Throughout the well-written narrative, Douglass uses examples from the severe whippings that took place constantly to a form of brainwashing by the slaveholders over the slaves describing the terrible conditions that the slaves were faced with in the south in the first half of the 1800's. The purpose of this narrative was most likely to give others not affiliated with slaves an explicit view of what actually happened to the slaves physically, mentally, and emotionally to show the explicit importance of knowledge to the liberation of slaves.

Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in 1818 in Tuchahoe, Maryland, entered slavery from birth. Unaware of his actual date of birth, like most all the other slaves at that time, Douglass was forced to face the dread of being a slave early in his life. The very fact that the slaveholders did not give their slaves an actual birth date was one of the first examples not of brainwashing but a form of brain molding that was customary for all slaveholders to take part of. S

With every one of these awful events that occurred during Frederick Douglass' life, he still managed to steer clear of the mental and emotional scarring that took place on the plantation and made a name for himself as an abolitionist. The themes that Douglass discusses throughout the narrative about the cruelty to the slaves and the blatant injustice of slavery altogether give reason enough for the abolition of slavery. The very fact that Douglass wrote this book is a feat among others since he learned to read and write by sacrificing his meals for knowledge. He should definitely be admired for that fact. Ultimately, Douglass wanted to emphasize the total importance of literacy among slaves as the key to freedom and he did so by writing his narrative that accented both the importance of knowledge and his success from a slave to a free man.

A fact from the narrative that was unexpected was that there was discrimination between slaves from different plantations concerning the wealth of their masters. This information was proof that the slaves were kept as ignorant as possible by their masters so that they would never figure out the true evilness of slavery. The slaves were so terribly in the dark that they did not feel a need to unite with every other black person in their position, so they felt that they could be able to find a lower class than they if the wealth of their master was more than the next slave's. One can only feel pity for the slaves though, since most of them were raised from birth by these wretched slaveholders and they were not taught anything other than how to perform their duties on the plantation.

Towards Fredrick Douglass' end of being an owned slave, he faced his hardest dilemma yet. He was faced with the thought that if he escaped and was to be a free man then he would be forced to leave his friends and this idea was very painful. If he had been an average slave with no education and was faced with this dilemma, then he would have probably chosen to stay with his master and his friends. However, since Douglass was educated he knew that there was nothing else he could do since it was his dream to become free. Many slaves who were contemplating escape probably faced this problem and since they didn't know what they could possibly do with their lives, they stayed with the rest of the slaves. This was an awful reality of the slaves that was made effective by the slaveholders because of the lack of education the slaves received if they received any at all.

As Frederick Douglass continues in his narrat

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Approximate Word count = 1724
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: People