Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Context
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland as Frederick
Bailey circa 1818. Douglass
served as a slave on farms on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and in Baltimore
throughout his youth. In Baltimore, especially, Douglas enjoyed relatively more
freedom than slaves usually did in the South. In the city, Douglass first
learned how to read and began making contacts with educated free blacks.
Douglass
eventually escaped north to New York at the age of about twenty. Here he
reunited with and married his fiancée, a free black woman from Baltimore named
Anna Murray. Uneasy about Douglass’s fugitive status, the two finally settled
further north in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Frederick changed his last
name from Bailey to Douglass. Douglass worked for the next three years as a
laborer and continued his self‑education.
In the early 1840s, the abolitionist, or anti‑slavery, movement
was gaining momentum, especially in the far Northeast. When Douglass first
arrived in Massachusetts, he began reading the Liberator, the abolitionist newspaper edited by William Lloyd Garrison. In
1841, Douglass attended an abolitionist meeting in Nantucket, Massachusetts,
where he met Garrison and was encouraged to tell the crowd about his
experiences of slavery. Douglass’s spoken account was so well‑received that
Garrison offered to employ him as an abolitionist speaker for the American Anti‑Slavery
Society.
From 1841
to 1845, Douglass traveled extensively with Garrison and others through the
Northern states, speaking nearly every day on the injustice and brutality of
slavery. Douglass encountered hostile opposition and, most often, the charge
that he was lying. Many Americans did not believe that such an eloquent and
intelligent Negro had so recently been a slave.
Douglass encountered a different brand of opposition within the
ranks of the Anti‑Slavery Society itself. He was one of only a few black men
employed by the mostly white society, and the society’s leaders, including
Garrison, would often condescendingly insist that Douglass merely relate the
“facts” of his experience, and leave the philosophy, rhetoric, and persuasive
argument to others. Douglass’s 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave,
Written by Himself can be
seen as a response to both of these types of opposition. The Narrative pointedly states that Douglass is its sole author, and it contains
two prefaces from Garrison and another abolitionist, Wendell Phillips, to
attest to this fact. Douglass’s use of the true names of people and places
further silenced his detractors who questioned the truthfulness of his story
and status as a former slave. Additionally, theNarrative undertook
to be not only a personal account of Douglass’s experiences as a slave, but
also an eloquent antisla-very treatise. With theNarrative, Douglass
demonstrated his ability to be not only the teller of his story, but its
interpreter as well.
Because Douglass did use real names in his Narrative, he had to flee the United States for a time, as his Maryland
“owner” was legally entitled to track him down in Massachusetts and reclaim
him. Dou-glass spent the next two years traveling in the British Isles, where
he was warmly received. He returned to the United States only after two English
friends purchased his freedom. His reputation at home had grown during his
absence. TheNarrative was an instant bestseller in 1845 and went through five print runs
to accommodate demand. Despite opposition from Garrison, Douglass started his
own abolitionist newspaper in 1847 in Rochester, New York, under the name North
Star.
Douglass
continued to write and lecture against slavery and also devoted attention to
the women’s rights movement. He became involved in politics, to the disapproval
of other abolitionists who avoided politics for ideological reasons. When the
Civil War broke out in 1861, Douglass campaigned first to make it the aim of
the war to abolish slavery and then to allow black men to fight for the Union.
He was successful on both fronts: Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation
on December 31, 1862, and Congress authorized the enlistment of black men in
1863, though they were paid only half what white soldiers made. The Union won
the Civil War on April 9, 1865.
During the 1860s and beyond, Douglass continued to campaign, now
for the right of blacks to vote and receive equal treatment in public places.
Douglass served in government positions under several administrations in the
1870s and 1880s. He also found time to publish the third volume of his
autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, in 1881 (the second volume, My Bondage and My Freedom, was published in 1855). In1882,
Douglass’s wife, Anna, died. He remarried, to Helen Pitts, a white advocate of
the women’s movement, in 1884. Douglass died of a heart attack in 1895.
Until the 1960s, Douglass’s Narrative was largely ignored by
critics and historians, who focused instead on the speeches for which Douglass
was primarily known. Yet Douglass’s talent clearly extended to the written
word. His Narrative emerged in
a popular tradition of slave narratives and slavery fictions that includes
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and
Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Douglass’s work is read today as one of the finest examples of the
slave-narrative genre. Douglass co‑opted narrative styles and forms from the
spiritual conversion narrative, the sentimental novel, oratorical rhetoric, and
heroic fiction. He took advantage of the popularity of slave narratives while
expanding the possibilities of those narratives. Finally, in its somewhat
unique depiction of slavery as an assault on selfhood and in its attention to
the tensions of becoming an individual, Douglass’s Narrative can be read as a contribution to the literary tradition of
American Romantic individualism.
Plot Overview
Frederick
Douglass was born into slavery sometime in 1817 or 1818. Like many slaves, he
is unsure of his exact date of birth. Douglass is separated from his mother,
Harriet Bailey, soon after he is born. His father is most likely their white
master, Captain Anthony. Captain Anthony is the clerk of a rich man named
Colonel Lloyd. Lloyd owns hundreds of slaves, who call his large, central
plantation the “Great House Farm.” Life on any of Lloyd’s plantations, like
that on many Southern plantations, is brutal. Slaves are overworked and
exhausted, receive little food, few articles of clothing, and no beds. Those
who break rules—and even those who do not—are beaten or whipped, and sometimes
even shot by the plantation overseers, the cruelest of which are Mr. Severe and
Mr. Austin Gore.
Douglass’s
life on this plantation is not as hard as that of most of the other slaves.
Being a child, he serves in the household instead of in the fields. At the age
of seven, he is given to Captain Anthony’s son‑in‑law’s brother, Hugh Auld, who
lives in Baltimore. In Baltimore, Douglass enjoys a relatively freer life. In
general, city slave-owners are more conscious of appearing cruel or neglectful
toward their slaves in front of their non‑slaveowning neighbors.
Sophia
Auld, Hugh’s wife, has never had slaves before, and therefore she is
surprisingly kind to Douglass at first. She even begins to teach Douglass to
read, until her husband orders her to stop, saying that education makes slaves
unmanageable. Eventually, Sophia succumbs to the mentality of slaveowning and
loses her natural kindliness. Though Sophia and Hugh Auld become crueler toward
him, Douglass still likes Baltimore and is able to teach himself to read with
the help of local boys. As he learns to read and write, Douglass becomes
conscious of the evils of slavery and of the existence of the abolitionist, or
antisla-very, movement. He resolves to escape to the North eventually.
After the
deaths of Captain Anthony and his remaining heirs, Douglass is taken back to
serve Thomas Auld, Captain Anthony’s son‑in‑law. Auld is a mean man made
harsher by his false religious piety. Auld considers Douglass unmanageable, so
Auld rents him for one year to Edward Covey, a man known for “breaking” slaves.
Covey manages, in the first six months, to work and whip all the spirit out of
Douglass. Douglass becomes a brutish man, no longer interested in reading or
freedom, capable only of resting from his injuries and exhaustion. The turning
point comes when Douglass resolves to fight back against Covey. The two men
have a two‑hour fight, after which Covey never touches Douglass again.
His year
with Covey over, Douglass is next rented to William Freeland for two years.
Though Freeland is a milder, fairer man, Douglass’s will to escape is nonetheless
renewed. At Freeland’s, Douglass begins edu-cating his fellow slaves in a
Sabbath school at the homes of free blacks. Despite the threat of punishment
and violence they face, many slaves from neighboring farms come to Douglass and
work diligently to learn. At Freeland’s, Douglass also forms a plan of escape
with three fellow slaves with whom he is close. Someone betrays their plan to
Freeland, however, and Douglass and the others are taken to jail. Thomas Auld
then sends Douglass back to Baltimore with Hugh Auld, to learn the trade of
ship caulking.
In
Baltimore’s trade industry, Douglass runs up against strained race relations.
White workers have been working alongside free black workers, but the whites
have begun to fear that the increasing numbers of free blacks will take their
jobs. Though only an apprentice and still a slave, Douglass encounters violent
tactics of intimidation from his white coworkers and is forced to switch
shipyards. In his new apprenticeship, Douglass quickly learns the trade of caulking
and soon earns the highest wages possible, always turning them over to Hugh
Auld.
Eventually, Douglass receives permission from Hugh Auld to hire
out his extra time. He saves money bit by bit and eventually makes his escape
to New York. Douglass refrains from describing the details of his escape in
order to protect the safety of future slaves who may attempt the journey. In
New York, Douglass fears recapture and changes his name from Bailey to
Douglass. Soon after, he marries Anna Murray, a free woman he met while in
Baltimore. They move north to Massachusetts, where Douglass becomes deeply
engaged with the abolitionist movement as both a writer and an orator.
Character
List
Frederick Douglass -
The author and narrator of the Narrative. Douglass,
a rhetorically skilled and spirited man, is a powerful orator for the
abolitionist movement. One of his reasons for writing the Narrative is to offer proof to critics who felt that such an articulate and
intelligent man could not have once been a slave. The Narrative describes Douglass’s experience under slavery from his early
childhood until his escape North at the age of twenty. Within that time,
Douglass progresses from unenlightened victim of the dehumanizing practices of
slavery to educated and empowered young man. He gains the resources and
convictions to escape to the North and wage a political fight against the
institution of slavery.
Captain Anthony -
Douglass’s first master and probably his father. Anthony is the clerk for
Colonel Lloyd, managing Lloyd’s surrounding plantations and the overseers of
those plantations. Anthony is a cruel man who takes pleasure in whipping his
slaves, especially Douglass’s Aunt Hester. He is called “Captain” because he
once piloted ships up the Chesapeake Bay.
Colonel Edward Lloyd -
Captain Anthony’s boss and Douglass’s first owner. Colonel Lloyd is an
extremely rich man who owns all of the slaves and lands where Douglass grows
up. Lloyd insists on extreme subservience from his slaves and often punishes
them unjustly.
Lucretia Auld -
Captain Anthony’s daughter and Thomas Auld’s wife. After Captain Anthony’s
death, Lucretia inherits half his property, including Douglass. Lucretia is as
cruel an owner as her husband.
Captain Thomas Auld -
Lucretia Auld’s husband and Hugh Auld’s brother. Thomas Auld did not grow up
owning slaves, but gained them through his marriage to Lucretia. After
attending a church meeting in Maryland, Thomas Auld becomes a “pious” man, but
he uses his newfound Christianity to be even more self-righteously brutal
toward his slaves.
Hugh Auld -
Thomas Auld’s brother and Douglass’s occasional master. Hugh lives in Baltimore
with his wife, Sophia. Thomas and Lucretia Auld allow Hugh to borrow Douglass
as a servant for Hugh’s son, Thomas. Hugh is well aware that whites maintain
power over blacks by depriving them of education, and he unwittingly enlightens
Douglass in this matter. Hugh is not as cruel as his brother Thomas, but he
becomes harsher due to a drinking habit in his later years. Hugh seems to
suffer some consciousness that slavery and the law’s treatment of blacks are
inhumane, but he does not allow this consciousness to interfere with his
exercising power over Douglass.
Sophia Auld - Hugh Auld’s
wife. Sophia was a working woman before marrying Hugh, and she had never owned
slaves. The corruption of owning a slave transforms Sophia from a sympathetic,
kind woman into a vengeful monster.
Edward Covey - A notorious
slave “breaker” and Douglass’s keeper for one year. Slave owners send their
unruly slaves to Covey, who works and punishes them (thus getting free labor to
cultivate his rented land) and returns them trained and docile. Covey’s tactics
as a slaveholder are both cruel and sneaky. He is deliberately deceptive and devious
when interacting with his slaves, creating an atmosphere of constant
surveillance and fear.
Betsy Bailey - Douglass’s
grandmother. Betsy raised Douglass on Captain Anthony’s land after Douglass’s
mother was taken away. Betsy served the Anthony family her whole life and had
many children and grandchildren who became slaves for the Anthonys. After
seeing Captain Anthony’s children from birth to death, Betsy is abandoned to a
hut in the woods instead of being allowed to go free.
Aunt Hester - Douglass’s
aunt. Aunt Hester is an exceptionally beautiful and noble-looking woman,
superior to most white and black women. Captain Anthony is extraordinarily
interested in Hester, and she therefore suffers countless whippings at his
hands.
Harriet Bailey -
Douglass’s mother. Harriet is separated from Douglass after his birth, but she
still attempts to maintain family relations by walking twelve miles to see him
at night. She dies when Douglass is young.
Sandy Jenkins -
A slave acquaintance of Douglass. The highly superstitious Sandy stands in the Narrative as a representative of all uneducated, superstitious slaves. Sandy
is kind to Douglass when Douglass runs away from Covey’s, but the Narrative also implies that Sandy may
have informed William Freeland about Douglass’s plans to escape.
William Freeland -
Douglass’s keeper for two years following his time with Covey. Freeland is the most
fair and straightforward of all Douglass’s masters and is not hypocritically
pious. Douglass acknowledges Freeland’s exceptional fairness with a pun on his
name—“free land.”
William Hamilton -
Father-in-law of Thomas Auld. After Lucretia Auld’s death, Thomas remarries
Hamilton’s oldest daughter. Hamilton himself sometimes takes charge of
Douglass, as when Hamilton arrests Douglass for plotting to escape from
Freeland.
William Gardner -
A Baltimore shipbuilder. Hugh Auld sends Douglass to Gardner to learn the trade
of caulking. Gardner’s shipyard is disorderly with racial tension between
free-black carpenters and white carpenters, and Gardner is under pressure to
complete several ships for a deadline.
Anna Murray -
Douglass’s wife. Anna is a free black woman from Baltimore who becomes engaged
to Douglass before he escapes to freedom. After his escape, Anna and Douglass
marry in New York and then move to New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Nathan Johnson -
A Massachusetts worker and abolitionist. Johnson is immediately kind and
helpful to the Douglasses, loaning them money, helping Douglass find work, and
suggesting Douglass’s new name. Johnson is well informed on national politics
and keeps a nice household.
William Lloyd Garrison -
Founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison meets Douglass when
Douglass is persuaded to tell his history at an abolitionist convention in
Nantucket in 1841.
Immediately impressed with Douglass’s poise and with the power of his story,
Garrison hires him for the abolitionist cause.
Analysis
of Major Characters
Frederick Douglass
In the Narrative, Douglass acts as both the narrator and
the protagonist, and he appears quite different in these two roles. The wide
gulf between Douglass’s two personas is, in fact, the point of the Narrative: Douglass
progresses from uneducated, oppressed slave to worldly and articulate political
commentator. Douglass frequently dramatizes the difference between his older,
more experienced self and his younger self through references to his relative
ignorance and naïveté. One instance of this dramatization occurs when Douglass
mocks how impressed he was as a young man to encounter the city of Annapolis—a
city that now seems small to him by the standards of Northern industrial
cities.
As the narrator, Douglass presents himself as a reasoned, rational
figure. His tone is dry and he does not exaggerate. He is capable of seeing
both sides of an issue, even the issue of slavery. Though he makes no excuses
for slave owners, he does make an effort to present a realistic—if
critical—account of how and why slavery operates. His humane vision allows him
to separate slaveowning individuals from the institution that corrupts them.
Moreover, Douglass as the narrator presents himself as capable of intricate and
deep feeling. He allows his narrative to linger over the inexpressible emotions
he and others have suffered, and he sometimes dramatizes his own tears.
Douglass as the protagonist of the Narrative is sometimes a strong character and at
other times a sidelined presence. Douglass’s strength as a character fluctuates
because Douglass the narrator sometimes presents his younger self as an
interesting, unique case and sometimes as a typical, representative American
slave. As a representative slave, Douglass’s individual characteristics matter
less than the similarity of his circumstances to those of all other slaves, as
when he describes the circumstances of his upbringing in Chapter I of the Narrative. Similarly, at times Douglass exists
merely as a witness to scenes featuring other characters. These scenes are
important to the Narrative not
because of Douglass’s role in them, but because they present a composite
portrait of the dehumanizing aspects of slavery.
Generally, Douglass the protagonist
becomes a stronger presence as theNarrative proceeds. The protagonist Douglass
exists in the Narrative as
a character in process and flux, formed and reformed by such pivotal scenes as
Captain Anthony’s whipping of Aunt Hester, Hugh Auld’s insistence that Douglass
not be taught to read, and Douglass’s fight with Covey. Aunt Hester’s whipping
introduces Douglass to the physical and psychic cruelty of slavery. He becomes
committed to literacy after Hugh Auld’s order that Sophia Auld cease teaching
him. Douglass then is reintegrated into slavery and loses his desire to learn
at Thomas Auld’s and at Covey’s. Finally, Douglass reestablishes a sense of
self and justice through his fight with Covey. Douglass thus emerges as a
figure formed negatively by slavery and cruelty, and positively by literacy
education and a controlled but aggressive insistence on rights.
Through this process, certain traits remain constant in young
Douglass’s character. Though often isolated and alienated, Douglass remains
largely optimistic about his fate and maintains a strong spiritual sense. He is
exceptionally resourceful, as demonstrated by his untraditional self‑education.
Finally, Douglass has a strong desire to help others, expressed in part through
his commitment to improving the lives of his fellow slaves, as we see in the
Sabbath school he runs while under the ownership of William Freeland.
Sophia Auld
Sophia Auld is one of the few
characters, apart from Douglass himself, who changes throughout the course of
the Narrative.
Specifically, Sophia is transformed from a kind, caring woman who owns no
slaves to an excessively cruel slave owner. On the one hand, she appears more
realistic and humane than other characters because we see her character in
process. On the other hand, Sophia comes to resemble less a character than an
illustration of Douglass’s argument about slavery. Douglass uses the instance
of Sophia’s transformation from kind to cruel as a message about the negative
effects of slavery on slaveholders. Sophia also seems less realistic as a
character because Douglass’s descriptions of her are rhetorically dramatic
rather than realistic. Douglass’s initial description of Sophia idealizes her
kind features, and his description of her character post-transformation equally
dramatizes her demonic qualities.
Sophia’s gender affects her
characterization in the Narrative. To
nineteenth-century readers, it would have seemed natural for Sophia, as a
female, to be sympathetic and loving. Consequently, it would have appeared all
the more unnatural and undesirable for her to be transformed into an evil slave
owner. Because many -nineteenth-century readers thought of maternal figures as
the symbol of their society’s moral righteousness, corruption of a maternal
figure—or disruption of her family structure—would point directly to moral
problems in the society at large. In this regard, Sophia appears in theNarrative as
a symbolic character as well as a realistic character. Her symbolism of a
culture’s corruption is an important emotional component of Douglass’s larger
argument against slavery.
Edward Covey
Edward Covey represents Douglass’s
nemesis in the Narrative. Covey is a typical villain figure in that
his cruelty is calculated. He is not a victim of the slavery mentality but a
naturally evil man who finds an outlet for his cruelty in slaveholding. Covey
is skilled and methodical in his physical punishment of his slaves, but he is
even more skilled at psychological cruelty. While other slaveholders in the Narrative can be deceitful with their slaves,
Covey uses deception as his primary method of dealing with them. He makes the
slaves feel that they are under constant surveillance by lying to them and
creeping around the fields in an effort to catch them being lazy.
One way in which Douglass portrays Covey as a villain is by
depicting him as anti-Christian. The slaves call Covey “the snake,” in part
because he sneaks through the grass, but also because this nickname is a
reference to Satan’s appearance in the form of a snake in the biblical book of
Genesis. Douglass also presents Covey as a false Christian. Covey tries to
deceive himself and God into believing that he is a true Christian, but his
evil actions reveal him to be a sinner. As Douglass associates himself with
Christian faith, he heightens the sense of conflict between himself and Covey
by showing Covey to be an enemy of Christianity itself.
As
Douglass’s nemesis, Covey is the chief figure against whom Douglass defines
himself. Douglass’s fight with Covey is the climax of the Narrative—it marks
Douglass’s turning point from demoralized slave to confident, freedom-seeking
man. Douglass achieves this transformation by matching and containing Covey’s
own violence and by showing himself to be Covey’s opposite. Douglass thus
emerges as brave man, while Covey is exposed as a coward. Douglass is shown to
be capable of restraint, while Covey is revealed to be an excessive braggart.
Finally, Douglass emerges as a leader of men, while Covey is shown to be an
ineffectual master who cannot even enlist the aid of another slave, Bill, to
help him.
Themes,
Motifs & Symbols
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a
literary work.
Ignorance
as a Tool of Slavery
Douglass’s Narrative shows how
white slaveholders perpetuate slavery by keeping their slaves ignorant. At the
time Douglass was writing, many people believed that slavery was a natural
state of being. They believed that blacks were inherently incapable of
participating in civil society and thus should be kept as workers for whites.
The Narrative explains
the strategies and procedures by which whites gain and keep power over blacks
from their birth onward. Slave owners keep slaves ignorant of basic facts about
themselves, such as their birth date or their paternity. This enforced
ignorance robs children of their natural sense of individual identity. As slave
children grow older, slave owners prevent them from learning how to read and
write, as literacy would give them a sense of self‑sufficiency and capability.
Slaveholders understand that literacy would lead slaves to question the right
of whites to keep slaves. Finally, by keeping slaves illiterate, Southern
slaveholders maintain control over what the rest of America knows about
slavery. If slaves cannot write, their side of the slavery story cannot be
told. Wendell Phillips makes this point in his prefatory letter to the Narrative.
Knowledge
as the Path to Freedom
Just as
slave owners keep men and women as slaves by depriving them of knowledge and
education, slaves must seek knowledge and education in order to pursue freedom.
It is from Hugh Auld that Douglass learns this notion that knowledge must be
the way to freedom, as Auld forbids his wife to teach Douglass how to read and
write because education ruins slaves. Douglass sees that Auld has unwittingly
revealed the strategy by which whites manage to keep blacks as slaves and by
which blacks might free themselves. Doug-lass presents his own self-education
as the primary means by which he is able to free himself, and as his greatest
tool to work for the freedom of all slaves.
Though
Douglass himself gains his freedom in part by virtue of his self-education, he
does not oversimplify this connection. Douglass has no illusions that knowledge
automatically renders slaves free. Knowledge helps slaves to articulate the
injustice of slavery to themselves and others, and helps them to recognize
themselves as men rather than slaves. Rather than provide immediate freedom,
this awakened consciousness brings suffering, as Hugh Auld predicts. Once
slaves are able to articulate the injustice of slavery, they come to loathe
their masters, but still cannot physically escape without meeting great danger.
Slavery’s
Damaging Effect on Slaveholders
In the Narrative, Douglass
shows slaveholding to be damaging not only to the slaves themselves, but to
slave owners as well. The corrupt and irresponsible power that slave owners
enjoy over their slaves has a detrimental effect on the slave owners’ own moral
health. With this theme, Douglass completes his overarching depiction of
slavery as unnatural for all involved.
Douglass
describes typical behavior patterns of slaveholders to depict the damaging
effects of slavery. He recounts how many slave-owning men have been tempted to
adultery and rape, fathering children with their female slaves. Such adultery
threatens the unity of the slave owner’s family, as the father is forced to
either sell or perpetually punish his own child, while the slave owner’s wife
becomes resentful and cruel. In other instances, slave owners such as Thomas
Auld develop a perverted religious sense to remain blind to the sins they
commit in their own home. Douglass’s main illustration of the corruption of
slave owners is Sophia Auld. The irresponsible power of slaveholding transforms
Sophia from an idealistic woman to a demon. By showing the detrimental effects
of slaveholding on Thomas Auld, Sophia Auld, and others, Douglass implies that
slavery should be outlawed for the greater good of all society.
Slaveholding
as a Perversion of Christianity
Over the course of the Narrative, Douglass
develops a distinction between true Christianity and false Christianity.
Douglass clarifies the point in his appendix, calling the former “the
Christianity of Christ” and the latter “the Christianity of this land.”
Douglass shows that slaveholders’ Christianity is not evidence of their innate
goodness, but merely a hypocritical show that serves to bolster their
self-righteous brutality. To strike this distinction, Douglass points to the basic
contradiction between the charitable, peaceful tenets of Christianity and the
violent, immoral actions of slaveholders.
The character of Thomas Auld stands as an illustration of this
theme. Like Sophia Auld, Thomas undergoes a transformation in the Narrative from cruel slave owner to even crueler slave owner. Douglass
demonstrates that Auld’s brutality increases after he becomes a “pious” man, as
Auld’s show of piety increases his confi-dence in his “God-given” right to hold
and mistreat slaves. Through the instance of Auld, Douglass also demonstrates
that the Southern church itself is corrupt. Auld’s church benefits from Auld’s
money, earned by means of slaves. Thus Auld’s church, like many Southern
churches, is complicit in the inhuman cruelty of slavery.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices
that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
The
Victimization of Female Slaves
Women often appear in Douglass’s Narrative not as
full characters, but as vivid images—specifically, images of abused bodies.
Douglass’s Aunt Hester, Henrietta and Mary, and Henny, for example, appear only
in scenes that demonstrate their masters’ abuse of them. Douglass’s depcitions
of the women’s mangled and emaciated bodies are meant to incite pain and
outrage in the reader and point to the unnaturalness of the institution of
slavery.
The
Treatment of Slaves as Property
Throughout the Narrative, Douglass
is concerned with showing the discrepancy between the fact that slaves are
human beings and the fact that slave owners treat them as property. Douglass
shows how slaves frequently are passed between owners, regardless of where the
slaves’ families are. Slave owners value slaves only to the extent that they
can perform productive labor; they often treat slaves like livestock, mere
animals, without reason. Douglass pre-sents this treatment of humans as objects
or animals as cruel and absurd.
Freedom in
the City
Douglass’s Narrative switches
settings several times between the rural Eastern Shore of Maryland and the city
of Baltimore. Baltimore is a site of relative freedom for Douglass and other
slaves. This freedom results from the standards of decency set by the non‑slaveholding
segment of the urban population—standards that generally prevent slaveholders
from demonstrating extreme cruelty toward their slaves. The city also stands as
a place of increased possibility and a more open society. It is in Baltimore
that Douglass meets for the first time whites who oppose slavery and who regard
Douglass as a human being. By contrast, the countryside is a place of
heightened surveillance of slaves by slaveholders. In the countryside, slaves
enjoy the least amount of freedom and mobility.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to
represent abstract ideas or concepts.
White-Sailed
Ships
Douglass
encounters white-sailed ships moving up the Chesapeake Bay during the spiritual
and physical low point of his first months with Covey. The ships appear almost
as a vision to Douglass, and he recognizes them as a sign or message about his
demoralized state. The ships, traveling northward from port to port, seem to
represent freedom from slavery to Douglass. Their white sails, which Douglass
associates with angels, also suggest spiritualism—or the freedom that comes
with spiritualism.
Sandy’s
Root
Sandy
Jenkins offers Douglass a root from the forest with supposedly magical
qualities that help protect slaves from whippings. Douglass does not seem to
believe in the magical powers of the root, but he uses it to appease Sandy. In
fact, Douglass states in a footnote that Sandy’s belief in the root is
“superstitious” and typical of the more ignorant slave population. In this
regard, the root stands as a symbol of a traditional African approach to
religion and belief.
The
Columbian Orator
Douglass first encounters The Columbian Orator, a collection of political
essays, poems, and dialogues, around the age of twelve, just after he has
learned to read. As Douglass becomes educated in the rudimentary skills of
literacy, he also becomes educated about the injustice of slavery. Of all the
pieces in The Columbian Orator, Douglass
focuses on the master‑slave dialogue and the speech on behalf of Catholic
emancipation. These pieces help Douglass to articulate why slavery is wrong,
both philosophically and politically. The Columbian Orator, then,
becomes a symbol not only of human rights, but also of the power of eloquence
and articulation. To some extent, Douglass sees his own life’s work as an
attempt to replicate The Columbian Orator.
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