Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Steven Kopish
Ms. Woelke
AP English Language
09 September 2017
The message that Douglass conveys is very important and easily observed one, no matter
their size, gender, or even age, slaves always have miserable lives. Douglass conveys this theme
in a way that speaks to the reader in a wonderful way through the use of many literary and
rhetorical devices such as anecdotes, similes, and a wider variety of other devices. To give some
background on Douglass’s life, Douglass was a slave that was born into slavery somewhere in
the early 1800s. Throughout his life he had been moved from his family and to many masters and
families. He had learned few things of importance from his households, but the one valuable
piece he did learn that could never be forgotten, was the importance of equal treatment.
Frederick Douglass had witnessed the sheer tragedy of harsh treatment which is visible in his
emotional writing through the use of literary and rhetorical elements all throughout the passage.
His use of elements is spread throughout the passage. In the beginning of the passage
Douglass uses a strong anecdote to build the reader’s view on his confidence and credibility.
“If any one thing in my experience, more than another, served to deepen my conviction of the
infernal character of slavery, and to fill me with unutterable loathing of slaveholders, it was their
base ingratitude to my poor old grandmother.” (Douglass). This anecdote is a very powerful
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element for Douglass to include because it explains all of his gruesome experiences in a life of
slavery but in the end, none of them compare to the time of his grandmother’s depressing,
hopeless, end. The message that Douglass is trying to push upon the reader is that no slave
receives mercy during their morbid trip through slavery, displaying it using a personal anecdote.
Douglass touches upon his grandmother’s past by using a simile as well. In chapter 8 Douglass
states, “She was nevertheless left a slave--a slave for life--a slave in the hands of strangers; and
in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren, divided, like
so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word, as to their or
her own destiny.” This simile really advances the mood of the passage because it is portraying
Douglass’s amazing grandmother and all of the things that she has done to better the plantation,
even watching her generation pass by like a speeding car filled with many hurtful memories.
This all comes back to the universal idea that Douglass is trying to push across, a slave’s live is