Frederick Douglas' Life

A detailed Summary of Frederick Douglas' Life

Any anti slavery book published in 1845 was considered radical and daring, but for a black man and a fugitive slave, at that, to have done it was near suicide. Luckily, Frederick Douglass, the author of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, was able to flee America by way of Great Britain after the book was released so that the United States could have time to embrace it. It was a story all too common in the United States at the time, but nearly unknown except by those to whom were involved, and even then, only the slaves knew the full story. Frederick Douglass knew his escape would have been in vain if he could not make others aware of the atrocities taking place in the south at the time. So, with utter disregard for the consequences of his actions, he revealed to the world the horror that was slavery.

Douglass spends much of the novel addressing the most obvious aspect of slavery, which is the cruelty. The novel opens with Douglass talking of being sold from his mother at a young age and then several years later, after hearing of her death, being utterly unmoved as though it had been a total stranger. Although done subtlety, this part of the book hits very hard to the reader, because

Rebuttals are made to the defense of slave holders that Douglass could foresee would come after his book was read. So, he quickly falsifies any attempt a person could make at trying to make a slave owner look charitable or kind in his treatment of his "property." "The holidays are part and parcel of the gross fraud." (Pg. 82) The holidays given to slaves at the end of the year was merely a way of subsiding any feelings of discontentment the slaves might have had and the slaveholders would use the time to get the slaves drunk so they would seemingly feel happy and not be able to dwell on their sorry state.

Douglass looked at other tactics that were used to manipulate slaves, the public, and even things that slaveholders did to put themselves at ease about the injustices they were involved in. "White men have been known to encourage slaves to escape, and then, to get the reward, catch them and return them to their masters." (Pg. 55) Many tricks, just as diabolical as that, were used against slaves and those types of occurrences were what contributed to Frederick Douglass and other slaves "trusting no man" once they escaped the shackles of slavery.

Frederick Douglass also points out "that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes." (Pg. 84) he reveals the phony facade beneath the mask of religious life many of the slaveholders hid behind. The hypocrisy between mixing religion with slavery would be appalling to religious people anywhere; which, at the time, was most everyone. Another powerful point that is made regarding the manipulation of slaves is se

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1079
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels