Analysis of Frederick Douglass essay
Frederick Douglass is one of the prominent figures in the US history, whose contribution into the abolition of slavery and the change of the attitude of white Americans to African Americans. However, the author reveals the full extent to which the US society was unjust in relation to African Americans, who were absolutely deprived of their rights and liberties because they were slaves, who were treated as mere commodities. At the same time, the book is not the mere depiction of the life story of the slave, who has gained freedom, but it is the book that helps to understand the evolution of a person, who transforms from the mere slave into the free person, who is free not only physically but also spiritually and his evolution helps to understand how freed slaves felt after their liberation, what problems they confronted and how difficult it was to them to adapt to the new life, the life of free people.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is the life story of Frederick Douglass, where the author attempts to convey his story of the evolution from a slave into a free person. At the same time, the author reveals the full extent to which the US society was hypocritical in relation of African Americans: “The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together” (Douglass, 87). The symbolic and ironic comparison of slavery and Christianity which was very influential in the US in the time of slavery reveals how different key ideas of Christianity and traditional Christian values were from practices implemented by slave traders and owners. More important, the author shows that the US society took slavery for granted and preserve their religious beliefs which paradoxically combined with slave holding practices. No wonder, F. Douglass devaluates the Christian church comparing it to the slave prison: “the slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time” (Douglass, 87).
The narrative reveals the hypocrisy of slave traders and American culture which was based on Christianity and violated basic Christian norms systematically turning slaves into mere commodities: The dealers in the bodies of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise (Douglass, 87). Americans ignored basic needs of slaves and viewed them as mere brutes and commodities. This is probably why they preserved their sincere faith and devotion to Christian norms and beliefs which apparently contradicted to slavery practices. Nevertheless, being Christians did not prevented many white Americans from owning and trading slaves and treating them as mere commodities. On the contrary, they believed their attitude to slaves was absolutely natural and even good probably because they could never view their behavior and attitude to slaves from the slave’s standpoint. In this regard, the book written by F. Douglass helps the audience to view interracial and social relations in the US from the African American perspective, from the perspective of the salve, who has won his freedom costly and appreciates his freedom more than any other person, who has been free from the birth.
At the same time, the author uncovers unexpected aspects of his liberation and gaining freedom. The more freedom F. Douglass had the more dissatisfied he became because he grew aware of the persisting social injustice that affected life of many freedmen and slaves nationwide: I have observed this in my experience of slavery, – that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom (Douglass, 118). In such a way, freedom was not just the great achievement for F. Douglass but also it was a great challenge for him. Becoming a freedman started for Douglass from his education, when he learned that he also could be free and he grew convinced that people should be equal and free.
The author concludes that the liberation of a slave needs the total change of the consciousness of the freedmen: “to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.” (Douglass, 123). He had gone a long way until he became totally free and his consciousness had changed under the impact of his personal development and evolution which contributed to his transformation from a slave into a free man.
In this regard, education has played an important part in the formation of views and beliefs of F. Douglass: “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery.”(Douglass, 157). As a result, his education contributed to t he rise of his consciousness as an individual, as a person, who is equal among others with the only difference that he was enslaved by the repressive regime that maintained slavery in the US.
In addition, F. Douglass gives insight into the culture of slaves: “Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.” (Douglass, 172). In such a way, Douglass shows that, in spite of slavery, African Americans had preserved their own culture and attempted to realize their creativity through their songs. However, their owners neglected their culture and, more important, they often opposed to the education of slaves and the development of their culture, which they viewed as a threat to their control over slaves. Slave holders believed that education and culture would undermine their power and make slaves rebel against them to set themselves free.
At the same time, the narrator notices: “…I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.” (Douglass, 192). Therefore, the cultural life of African Americans became the ultimate manifestation of their protest against slavery. As they had no other means to resist to slavery, they developed their original culture, which mirrored their hardships, their oppressed position and inhuman conditions of living. The author insists that freedom raises the social consciousness of people, who used to be slaves and slaves, once feeling being free will never agree to be slaves again: “The silver trump of freedom roused in my soul eternal wakefulness.” (Douglass 194).
Thus, F. Douglass had managed to evolve from a slave into a free person and, more important, he had managed to communicate his hardships and his evolution to the public through his book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. The publication of the book written by F. Douglass became an important social event because it uncovered the real life of African Americans in the US ruining the romanticized view on the liberation of slaves and depicting the real life of African Americans.
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