Unveiling Chains: Douglass Literary Arsenal Pro-Slavery Rhetoric

In the story "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave," Douglass used a combination of imagery, connotation, symbols, and figurative language to talk about and dive into the arguments and to share his message with the free 19th-century reader about be the road of beings an abolitionist.

Douglass's description is interesting; he uses imagery to tell stories about what happened during slavery, allowing the readers to see the ideal slave conditions. In chapter one, Douglass talks about the slaveholders as they whip and beat men, women, and children. The vivid descriptions and be hard to read and slightly triggering such as "He made her get up on the stool, and tied her hands to the hook. (Pg. 58)" Knowing about slavery we all know what happens next and his description of it was as terrifying for him as it was for us to read about it. Douglass fought to challenge the idea of pro-slavery by pushing the idea that slaveholders of inherent cruelty within the institution.

Douglass pushed the idea of many symbols, most of them were representations of the cruelty being done and how slaves were just the bottom of the bottom and everything was just put over them. The narrative has a quote that states "[i]t is better that a dozen slaves suffer under the lash, than that the overseer should be convicted, in the presence of the slaves, having been at fault."(Pg. 61) The oppression of slaves was a major high it was shown even when a slave is completely innocent, they are still in the wrong. Basically, a slave life was always at risk no matter what, and society valued the slave owners more than the slaves, so if the owner did something wrong the slaves with be prosecuted instead of the owner.