Escape me, Slavery!
In this passage Fredrick Duouglass recounts his emotions on escaping slavery and arriving in New York in 1838, by his extraordinary use of rhetorical devices. This passage gives the reader a brief history of the life of a slave living in the days when slavery was not outlawed, but instead, looked upon as a sign of wealth. In many passages the author tends to give a 1 sentence synopsis of the proceeding work of prose, in this case Douglass doesn't demur from this by stating "the wretchedness of slavery, and the blessedness of freedom, were perpetually before me." In this one sentence the reader can infer the gist of the passage, being about the characters bad experiences with slavery, and his exuberant joy of becoming free. Douglass is writing in the first person, as though he really was the slave in the 1800's, which adds to the passage's drama. Out of the many elements of style used in this passage, one of the more evident and plentiful that can be found is parallelism. Throughout the passage Douglass uses parallelism to stress his sentences, in one instance the author recollects when he moved to New York,
A very important part of a prose passage is the author's use of figurative language. One of the most commonly used elements of figurative language is metaphor/simile. Douglass uses his metaphors to compare how harsh of a life he led as a slave and how he felt when "escaped a den of hungry lions." Another use of metaphor in this passage can bee seen here "I felt as one may imagine the unarmed mariner to feel when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate" here Douglass again uses metaphor/simile to compare the life of a slave to that of a free man, and how it made him feel when he was free. and does not care to give the reader an explanation of his journey to become free; "How I did so-what means I adopted,-what direction I traveled, and by what mode of conveyance,-I must leave unexplained..." Another instance of parallelism, contains a structure that combines several different parallel clauses, "without home or friends-without money or credit-wanting shelter, and no one to give it-wanting bread, and no money to buy it-and at the same time let him feel that his pursued by merciless men-hunters, and in total da
Some common words found in the essay are:
Fredrick Duouglass, Emily Dickinson, throughout passage, Escape Slavery, life slave, slave 1800's, free constant, free constant fear, wretchedness slavery, blessedness freedom, constant fear, close none, figurative language, douglass parallelism,
Approximate Word count = 770
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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