Author's Purpose
To Persuade, Inform and to Entertain.
Autobiography
a person's written account of his or her own life.
Slave narrative
a literary form in which slaves wrote true accounts about their experiences.
Bias
a preference that has a one-sided perspective or prejudice.
Tone
the distinctive style or way that someone says or writes about something; in a written work, communicating the author's feelings and opinions.
Frederick Douglass
-Frederick Augustus Bailey was born a slave in the early 1800's on a plantation on Maryland's Eastern Shore. When he was eight years old, Frederick became a slave at the Baltimore home of the Auld family. Here, he was one of the few slaves who learned to read and write.
-When he was twenty, he successfully borrowed the papers of a freed slave and traveled by steamship and train to New York City to escape Baltimore.-In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself.-He wanted to show people that African Americans had the capacity to learn how to read and write.
The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
-Part 1: https://cciu24.owschools.
com/media/o_en3cc_2016/3/narrative_of_the_life_of_frederick_douglass_part1.pdf-Part 2: https://cciu24.owschools.com/media/o_en3cc_2016/3/narrative_of_the_life_of_frederick_douglass_part2.pdf
Douglass' purpose:
His main purpose in writing the autobiography was to persuade readers to take action against slavery.
I WAS born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland.
Douglass is trying to relate to the reader.
I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger 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.
-By likening the knowledge of slaves to that of horses, Douglass emphasizes the base, animal nature slaves are conceived to have. He also emphasizes that it's the desire of masters to keep slaves ignorant.-Douglass implicitly shows that it's slave owners, not nature, who have chosen to keep their slaves ignorant and make them seem inferior.
A want of information concerning my own [birthday] was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood.
The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit.
-Douglass considers age to be a privilege, it shows how much slaves were denied.
-Douglass quietly reinforces the humanity of child and the inhumanity of the master. It further emphasizes that it was the slave owner's intent to keep even basic knowledge out of the hands of their slaves.
Frederick Douglass' Point of View:
-Douglass was confident that blacks would succeed if given the chance. He focused on equal rights for newly freed slaves.
To which event from his life did Frederick Douglass refer as "the entrance to the hell of slavery"?
It refers to his life on the plantation and the cruel realities being on one.
Slaveholders generally believed that slavery was incompatible with education.
As a result, many slaves never learned to read or write.
The North Star
An antislavery newspaper, created by Frederick Douglass.
Difference between Douglass and other writers:
-Douglass had experienced slavery first-hand. It was powerful for Northerners who had little or no experience with slaves or the institution of slavery to hear his account.
Even antislavery advocates were surprised that a black man, actually a former slave, could be so articulate.
Garrison's Opinions:
-Garrison advocated for keeping the abolitionist movement separate from churches that were also heavily involved in antislavery activism.-Garrison also argued that the Constitution was an antislavery document and favored the dissolution of the union.
Douglass' Opinions:
-Douglass believed that the Constitution would be a valuable tool in making slavery illegal.-Douglass also worried that the dissolution of the union would leave the majority of slaves at the mercy of the southern state governments.
