Frederick Douglass is the true hero

 In the Narrative Frederick Douglas instantly brings up the fact that he doesn't know his age or later on his mother. He states, “By far the largest 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”(Douglass 57). There's a use of a simile when he compares the fact that slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs by comparing two different animals and their knowledge of their age. This is also strategic by Douglass because he describes that he doesn't know his age due to the masters doing and not just because he's forgotten. This shows how far the slave owner would go to take away as much as they could from their slaves. 

    He then later reverses the roles and states, “he must not only whip them himself, but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, of but a few shades darker complexion than himself , and ply the glory lash to his naked back”(Douglass 57). In this he uses word order to show the reader what he went through in his past but describing it if the roles were reversed. This is a way to show the reader in a detailed way what happened to him and the pain he went through.  He then states “the children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers, and this is done too obviously to administer their own lusts” (Douglass 57). Slaveowners believed it was their right to own a slave due to the bible but this clearly states that it is not, throwing a wrench in the argument of slavery. He uses description throughout the whole narrative describing his life as detailed as possible to make the reader at the time become an abolitionist. 

The dagger in this narrative is when he used the description for Aunt Hester disobeying her master. He states, “After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope , and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose. He made her get upon the stool, and tied her hands on the hook… he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm red blood came dripping to the floor”(Douglass 58). He uses symbolism by referencing the rope being tied around her hands could be a symbol for the Jim Crow laws holding African Americans back. That they are tied up and can only go so far. He then describes the whip as “heavy cowskin” showing the reader that it wasn't an ordinary whip but a heavy one to inflict more pain. Frederick Douglass used figurative language and literary devices to prove to people that slavery wasn't right and by writing this narrative he was able to contribute to the end of slavery.