Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass, an American Slave is an extraordinary and touching piece of
writing. The wording, imagery, and
poetic rhythm captivate me. I want to
focus primarily on the first chapter.
This particular section of the narrative is thoroughly engaging. Here, Douglass explains how a man becomes a
slave. From not knowing one’s identity,
to being beaten, lashed, and stripped of merely everything is what we, as
readers, are immediately thrown into. To
put oneself back in such a time is heart wrenching, but learning the history
and triumph is a humbling experience.
“The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where
the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. 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” (51).
The way Douglass describes his first witness is moving. Without even going into great detail just
yet, I can still place myself at the scene.
The fact that he describes someone being beaten, rather than himself,
engages the reader in visualizing through Douglass’ eyes. I reread this quote many times, for there is
a rhythm that I find poetic. The beat is
like that of the whip, which has a great impact on the connection with the
text. When explaining his first witness,
Douglass explains, “It struck me with awful force”, (51) which correlates to
the lash of the whip. This is the first
of many beatings that Douglass observes in his lifetime, but it is this
particular scene that leads the path for what is to come.
Growing up deprived of an identity, such as a name or family
history, seems to be unsettling for Douglass.
He states, “A want of information concerning my own was a source of
unhappiness to me even during childhood” (47).
Not having the privilege of being an individual would be horrifying, for
there is no way to differentiate oneself from another.
Throughout the narrative, Douglass remains devoted to
separate the slave from the man. He
succeeds by gaining the power of knowledge and recognizing that freedom is
attainable. Douglass, like the other
slaves, was stripped of simply everything, yet educating himself led him to freedom.
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