Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Essay -- Papers

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, depicts a vivid humans of the hardships endured by the Afri mountain American market-gardening in the period of slavery. One of the many things establishn in Fredericks narrative is how slaves, in their own personal way, resisted their masters authority. another(prenominal) is how slaves were able to create their own autonomous culture within the brutal system in which they were bound. There are many examples in the narrative where Frederick tries to show the resistance of the slaves. The resistors did not go unpunished though, they were punished to the severity of death. Fredrick tells of these instances with a startling sense of casualness, which seems rather odd when comprehending the content of them. He does this though, not give away of desensitization, but to show that these were very commonplace things that happened all over the South at the time. One example that Freder ick mentioned in the subject of resistance of the slaves against the masters is when he was under the charge of Mr. Gore. A slave by the name of Demby was getting whipped for a mistake he made. After Demby received but a fewer stripes he ran and jumped into a creek to the depth of his shoulders and refused to come out. This took great bravery considering Mr. Gore had a famous reputation for being nasty to slaves. Demby was disposed(p) to the count of three to get out of the creek or he was to be shot, knowing the consequences Demby still refused to get out. He was then shot in the face by Mr. Gore with a musket. Demby truly resisted his master at the greatest cost he could have paid, his life. Another example given by Frederick in his narrative of how slaves were able to ... ...laves to be drunk during this time in fact, they often got angry if they werent drunk. Frederick feels that the master tries to make the slaves sick of freedom during this holiday time, by show ing them only the abuse of it rather than the good. There was also a mention of a couple of classes among the black slaves. Slaves, from the viewpoint of Frederick, I feel, had a split of slave-class. The richer your master was the higher class you were, the poorer your master was the lower class you were. To be a poor mans slave was a disgrace indeed, was what Frederick mentioned of the issue. As you can see Frederick Douglass provided many glimpses into the world of slavery in his narrative. He showed many different examples of how slaves were able to resist their masters and create their own autonomous culture within the brutal system of slavery.