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Analyzing A Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass gives a first person perspective on the life of a slave laborer in both the rural south and the city. Frederick Douglass, having educated himself against terrible odds, was able to read and think endlessly about the evils of slavery and the reasons for its abolishment. Throughout the narrative, Douglass recounts his life as a slave, and many conclusions can be drawn based on the writings. The various hardships of slavery are seen through Douglass’ eyes, and are very powerful because of that. The primary reason for his disgust with slavery was its effect of dehumanizing the slaves, as well as their masters.
Throughout his autobiography Frederick Douglass talks of the many ways a slave and master would be corrupted by the labor system that was so deeply entrenched in the south as a result of the cotton gin, the resulting demand in cotton, and other such labor-intensive crops. The master justified his actions through a self-serving religion and a conscious belief that slaves were meant to be in their place. However, Frederick Douglass noticed that in order to maintain the slaves’ belief in this system the master had to resort to trickery and the dissolution of a slave’s body and mind. According to Douglass, the treatment of a slave was worse than that of an animal. Not only was he valued as an animal, fed like an animal, and beaten like an animal, but also a slave was reduced to an animal when he was as much a man as his keeper. Douglass uses an example of a woman who had been found with a young man, Ned. The woman was stripped naked, tied up, and basically beaten to a pulp, bleeding all over (Douglass, ch1). This beating actually serves multiple purposes for the slave owner. First, this beating would teach a lesson to the woman whom he beat, by not only abusing her physically, but shaming her by making her strip down naked. But the more important part is the secondary effect the beating would have on the...