Douglass -- The Narrative Essay -- essays research papers fc

Debunking the Southern SecretSincerely and severely hoping that this little book may do something toward throwing light on the American break ones back system, and hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds relying upon the power of truth, love, and justice, for succeeder in my efforts and solemnly pledging myself anew to the sacred cause, I subscribe myself (Douglass 76). With these words, Frederick Douglass (c. 1817-1895), an change state slave with no formal education, ends one of the greatest pieces of propaganda of the 19th ascorbic acid America that slavery is good for the slave. He writes his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave, as an abolitionist tool to shape his northern audiences view of southern slaveholders. Through personal anecdotes, Douglass draws an accurate picture of slave life. Simultaneously, he chooses these events for how they will affect the northern audiences thought of south ern slaveholders (Quarles ii). By using the written word, Douglass targets educated northern sportings because they were the scarcely group capable of changing the status quo. Illiterate northern whites and stark northern blacks could not vote, while white Southerners would not vote because they did not want change. For that reason, Douglass used his life story as an instrument to assist abolition among literate northern whites (vi).Douglass uses family relationships, starting with his have birth, to gain the ruth of his target audience. He never knew the identity of his father, but it was whispered (Douglass 2) that it was his master. Douglass mentions this to confront how the master in many cases, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father (2). This was so commonplace that it was by law established that the children of women shall in all cases travel along the condition of their return (2). This meant that these bastard children were slaves despite th eir paternal heritage because their m otherwise was a slave. The effect of this revelation was to shock and offend the morals of the conservativist northern whites. Northern society scorned people in extracurricular and interracial relationships. By portraying these Southerners as immoral and adulterous, Douglass wanted to reclaim in his audience a damaging opinion of southern slaveholders (Quarles ix). go on with the theme o... ...streated and punished their slaves, and how they used religion as an excuse to let their immoral actions. Slavery was a most painful situation and, to take in it, one must experience it, or imagine himself in resembling circumstances then, and not till then, will he fully consider the hardships of, and know how to sympathize with, the toil worn and whipped-scarred slave (64). Douglasss own words are meant as a plea for his readers to imagine themselves in his situation he and other slaves endured to better understand the hardships he and other sl aves endured (Quarles xi).Frederick Douglass used family values, basic human rights, and religion to persuade the northern white audience toward the cause of abolition. He expects his readers will share his hate for the corrupt, slaveholding, charr whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of southern slaveholders (Douglass 71). American slavery does not exist in today due partly to Douglasss effort to help barbel the cause of abolition.Works CitedQuarles, Benjamin, ed. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave. By Frederick Douglass. Cambridge Harvard Press, 1988.