Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Frederick Douglass "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself" 1845
- Minority in Literature
- Animal Imagery/Dehumanization
- "We were all ranked together...Men and women, old and young, married and
single, were ranked with horses sheep and swine."
- "There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being"
- Power
- through Education
- "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger
should no nothing but to obey his master..."
- "Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world"
- "Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the
aid of my kind mistress. I was gladdened by the
invaluable instruction which, by the merest
- accident, I had gained from my master."
- Auld's present
the negative
effect that
slavery has on
slaveowners too
- "The fatal poison of irresponsible power was
already in her hands, and soon commenced its
infernal work."
- Feminine =
Knowledge
- Masculine = Knowledge of Knowledge
- Integration/recognition of other minority groups
- sympathy with Slave Owners
- Covey (Slave holder)
- the "breaking" of Douglass by Covey
- "Mr Covey succeeded in breaking me. 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"
- the word "brute" further dehumanises Douglass
- now dehumanising himself
- repetition of structure mirrors
dehumanising process - use of ";"
- "At this moment, i saw more clearly than ever the brutalising effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder"
- The Individual
- the need to repress the majority through the actions of the individual
- Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government"
- "The motto which I adopted when I started from slavery was this - "Trust no man!"
- CONTRADICTION
- "We never undertook to do any thing, of any importance, without a mutual consultation. We never moved
separately. We were one"
- Females
- Only appear as images
of abused bodies - never
as fully developed
characters
- "He would whip her to make her scream, and
whip her to make her hush; and not until
overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing
the blood-clotted
- cowskin ...It was the blood-stained gate, the
entrance to the hell of slavery."
- Form
- Narrative
- voice is entirely believable
- no personal details are withheld from the reader
- personal connection through form creates sympathy - is this what Douglass wanted??
- Voice
- incredibly assured of his points and his reasoning
- contrasts with Dickinson's contradictory poems
- honest
- Spiritual
- Religion as a justification
- "Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity
to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after
his conversion, he found
- religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty
- took less pressure off slaveholders consciences
- perversion of Christianity
- "The Christianity of Christ" against
"The Christianity of this land"
- "to be the friend of one is to be the enemy of the other"
- Fight with Mr Covey re-establishes Douglass's spirit
- "I felt as I never felt before, it was a
glorious resurrection, from the tomb of
slavery, to the heaven of freedom."
- Image of America
- difference between rural and city
- "A city slave is almost a freeman, compared
with a slave on the plantation...There is a
vestige of decency, a sense of shame, that
does not much to
- curb and check those outbreaks of atrocious
cruelty, so commonly enacted upon the
plantation."
- city offers greater possibilities of
freedom and success after freedom
- city has greater opposition to slavery