Narrative Of Fredrick Douglas Essay, Research Paper
The brutality that slaves endured form their masters and from the institution of
slavery caused slaves to be denied their god given rights. In the Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass, Douglass has the ability to show the psychological battle between
the white slave holders and their black slaves, which is shown by Douglass own
intellectual struggles against his white slave holders. I will focus on how education
allowed Douglass to understand how slavery was wrong, and how the Americans saw the
blacks as not equal, and only suitable for slave work. I will also contrast how Douglass
view was very similar to that of the women in America, and the role that Christianity
played in his life as a slave and then as a free man.
The novel clearly displays the children s animalistic behavior when they were not
regularly allowanced. Douglass says, Our food was coarse corn meal boiled, which was
called mush. It was put into a large wooden tray or trough, and set down upon the ground.
The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come
and devour the mush; some with oyster-shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with
naked hands, and none with spoons. He that ate fastest got most; he that was strongest
secured the best place; and few left the trough satisfied” (Douglass 41-42). This clearly
describes how children where treated like animals and their inability to act in the manner
of a normal educated child. Slave children were denied many luxuries that other children
took for granted. The knowledge of their birthdays was one of these luxuries. Douglass
states, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record
containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses
know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their
slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his
birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time,
springtime, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of
unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I
could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege” (Douglass 19). This
passage clearly indicates differences between white children and slave children. These
differences build the foundation for demeaning the child into a slave and removing his
manhood from his soul. This is the start of the process that extracts a brute from a child.
Throughout the narrative Douglass uses the word brute , to form the image that
slaves were nothing more than beasts. This is only one of the numerous examples in
which Douglass creates the image of a dehumanized slave though the use of his
vocabulary. Douglass states, 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! (Douglass 73). Douglass makes it clear to the reader that
slavery degrades a man, and makes him loose his manhood. According to Douglass,
slavery transformed humans into beasts. Douglass was no longer a man; he was in every
essence an animal transformed by the brutality of slavery into a mindless worker.
Slavery was just an institution created animals from men; it bleeds the humanity
from humans and formed beasts in it s wake that need nothing but a comparatively small
amount of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his race. By
the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms of the slave code, he was only
a piece of property, a beast of burden, and a chattel person. Divine supports this thought
by stating, slaves were also valuable property and the main tools of production
(Divine 235). With this, we are able to see how the slaves were not looked at as people
but as commodities, thus demeaning them into objects and not humans. Frederick
Douglass salvages his human nature though education and self-determination. When
Douglass first got a taste of knowledge, he then understood the power in which it held.
Douglass states, I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty-to
wit, the white man s power to enslave the black man (Douglass, 47). This was Douglass
first step towards freedom, which was learning what he had to do to get there, that was to
learn and gain the white man s knowledge. Douglass says, From that moment, I
understood the pathway from slavery to freedom (Douglass, 47). This revelation came
upon him after hearing his master, Mr. Auld reprehend Mrs. Auld for teaching Douglass
spelling. Mr. Auld states, If you give a nigger and inch, he will take an ell (Douglass,
47). Education and literacy would allow a slave to see that there was another way of
living and were not inferior to the white man. Divine supports the idea that the white men
felt they were superior to the blacks by saying, Blacks, it was alleged, were innately
inferior to the whites and suited only for slavery (Divine 237). Douglass became aware
that the efforts of the whites were to prevent a power struggle from ever occurring by
preventing the slave from thinking that equality could ever take place. Douglass set his
heart on becoming educated, allowing him to challenge the power of the white man.
Douglass says, given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking
the ell (Douglass 51). Thus the desire for freedom was exited by his understanding of the
whole and its functions. When Douglass was a plantation slave, he knew little of these
facts and thus had no desire to escape, but as Douglass was gaining intellect he was
breaking the chains of his enslavement. Along the way to gaining intellect, Douglass
faced many obstacles, many of which were brought about by slaveholders, which brought
him to his deepest despair in life. Mr. Covey is an excellent example of a slaveholder who
would do everything in his power to prevent his slaves from thinking of freedom. His
method was to work his slaves so hard that their spirit and aspirations were detached from
them, seeming more like dreams than reality. The description of Douglass emotional
state shows the tortured mind of the slave in a life of despair, Sunday was my only
leisure time. I spent this in sort of a beast like stupor I sank down again, mourning
over my wretched condition. I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of
Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this
plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality (Douglass 73). The efforts of
the whites to keep their slaves suppressed were so strong that even Douglass knowledge
could barely keep him fighting. At times he even regretted knowing the things, which he
had learned, for it made him all the more miserable for being a slave and knowing that
there were others who did not share in his agony. Douglass says, I would at times feel
that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing (Douglass 53). Douglass
speaks of this because the knowledge of freedom makes it more difficult to endure the
suffering of slavery. He knows what it is like to experience something of a good
treatment, and he is educated enough to realize that it is something entirely different to be
free. Christianity also played a role in the way Douglass struggled with his existence and
how he viewed the southern slaveholders that were so called Christians. Douglass would
cry out, O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! Let me be Free! Is
there any God? (Douglass 74). Douglass started to see a pattern with his masters, in
which the more religious, the more brutal their actions became. Douglass says, I believe
him (Mr. Covey) to have been a much worse man after his conversion than before
(Douglass 65). Sarah M. Grimke further backs up this notion in the antebellum chapter of
Gorn Document 3 by saying, In Christian America the slave has no refuge from
unbridled cruelty and lust (Gorn 212). How could a man call himself a Christian and still
act out so much hate on an individual was a question that would come up often in the
discussions of Christianity when viewed with slavery. Sarah M. Grimke writes in Gorn
Document 3, gratify the brutal lust of those who bear the name of Christians (Gorn
212). This shows that the slaves were not the only individuals that saw the wrongful
placement of the word Christian on the shoulders of the southern men. Once in the north,
Douglass saw that the south s religion was not that of the truth, and is nothing more than
a false testimony that was used to make the southerners look as though they were in the
right. A good example of this is how Mr. Covey would recite scripture while beating a
slave, Douglass says, he would quote this passage of scripture He that knoweth his
masters will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many strips (Douglass 66). Douglass
backs this up further when writing a letter to Mr. Auld in Gorn Document 5, which says,
They (North) have little respect for your honesty, and less for you religion (Gorn 241).
Douglass further supports this by saying, that the religion of the south is a mere covering
for the most horrid crimes, a justifier of the most appalling barbarity (Douglass 84). The
religion in which Douglass grew up knowing and hearing from the southern men was not
that of the true religion of God, but that of hate. Douglass small steps toward freedom
included more than just physical battles against the whites. He shows that to become free,
involves more than simply running north, but the road to freedom, is instead, shown to be
a power struggle and a long draining intellectual process of learning and maturing. One
can see that Douglass determination to be free was a result of gaining knowledge. In a
world where the haves sit on knowledge, language was power, and language was
Douglass first key to freedom, then his armor, and finally his sword. He turned on his
oppressors and raised it against them, and his words became a healing balm and a fixer of
wrongs of slavery. Douglass sums this up great when writing a letter to Mr. Auld in Gorn
Document 5 by saying, I intend to make use of you as a weapon with which to assail the
system of slavery-as a means of concentrating public attention on the system, and
deepening their horror of trafficking in the souls and bodies of me make use of you as a
means of exposing the character of the American church and clergy-and as a means of
bringing this guilty nation with yourself to repentance (Gorn 242). We also see how the
women in antebellum America shared the views of the black slaves, in seeing that it was
inhumane to treat another human in such a brutal way. These women and the run away
slaves such as Douglass helped to start the anti-slave movement in North America, and
started to challenge the southern religion. Throughout the book, we saw Douglass go
through several life changes, from slavery to freedom, from the south to the North, from a
young man of many names to the adult named Frederick Douglass, thus in the end, this
gifted man helped America come to terms with slavery as it really was.