Frederick Douglass Reflection Essay - 2012 Words

The narrative of Frederick Douglass is an essential piece in learning of the hardships slaves endured in the pre-civil war era in the United States. Frederick Douglass’s use of diction puts oneself in the place of the slaves and ultimately leads to an intense feeling of disappointment in mankind. One is deeply saddened in learning about how incompetent some slaves were of their position in life. Slaves feared the white population because they didn’t know that there were any whites out in the world who cared about them, and abolishment of the harsh practice of slavery. The only whites an American slave knew were the whites who were cold hearted, barbaric, and hypocritically religious. Douglass’s recollection of the repulsive acts of slave†¦show more content†¦In using these words, Douglass forces the reader to visualize Henny, the lame woman and her deep agony as she hangs from the ropes, just like our savior Jesus Christ hung from the cross, spilling war m red blood, before being removed from existence. These thoughts and images conjured by Douglass’s diction lead the modern reader to see how wrong the owners of slaves were in their position of quoting misunderstood scripture. This realization regarding religious hypocrisy is again evident shortly after Master Thomas becomes a very devout Methodist, and frequently invites the preachers to meals with him. Here, the reader learns just how disgusting this aspect of slavery was: â€Å"His house was the preachers’ home. They used to take great pleasure in coming there to put up; for while he starved us, he stuffed them† (Douglass 50). In this passage, Douglasss diction is well executed in a way that hits hard for the reader. He uses the words, starved and stuffed, to really convey the message that the preachers were leaving the house full, while Douglass and the fellow slaves, were given not a scap. Douglass, chooses these words specifically, so that a clear image i s drawn in the readers mind. Douglass’s diction in this passage strongly enforces the reader’s new knowledge regarding religious hypocrisy in slavery by showingShow MoreRelatedHow I Learned to Read and Write by Frederick Douglass and Mother Tongue by Amy Tan1178 Words   |  5 Pages How I Learned to Read and Write by Frederick Douglass and Mother Tongue by Amy Tan are essays that share a common theme. The theme is opposition and how it is necessary to build strength. In the essay How I Learned to Read and Write, Frederick Douglass explains that he was born into slavery and faced his own ignorance with a resolve to overcome this challenge. 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A plethora of similarities exist between these works, both of which include the education of an African American protagonist, the aid of Irish benefactorsRead MoreDeep In The Forest Of Frederick Douglass’S Autobiography,1034 Words   |  5 Pagesforest of Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the caged bird sings on. The singing slaves in Douglass’s narrative are the caged birds of Maya Angelou’s famous poem, filling the air around them with desire: desire for a freedom so far out of reach—for â€Å"things unknown but longed for still.† In his narrative, Douglass expresses incredulity at the fact that onlookers could hear anything but the deepest sadness in these slave songs. 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