American Literature

The story of Frederick Douglasss early life is equal parts a condemnation of slavery and a testament to the survival of the human spirit against adversity. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the author takes the reader through years of life as a slave in Maryland and through to his flight to freedom. There is no sugarcoating of circumstance in the story of Douglasss life, it is a searing indictment on not simply the effects of slavery but the nature of the institution itself. Born into slavery, he was dehumanized and degraded from infant-hood. Treated more like human cattle than individuals with hearts and minds, Douglass shows how the systematic and institutionalized racism and economic reliance on the system of slavery reduced an entire race of people to property.

    From birth, Douglass was taught that he was less than the whites who owned and controlled the world in which he lived. His childhood was plagued with cold hunger, and confusion. He did not even know his own age,  A want of information concerning my own 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  (Douglass). Though he was able to roughly calculate his age through overheard conversation, this was just one example of the inconsequential role that slaves played in the plantation environment. He was simply one of many, had he died or become no longer useful he could easily be replaced. Within the individual context by which we come to identify ourselves, particularly family relations Douglass also had little experience. Suspecting that his father was in fact his master, Douglass was kept from close family ties. The nature of the female slaves relationship to her children, whereby they are separated and are purposely kept from developing close bonds also denies a basic need for a child. When his mother died when he was seven, Douglass had only seen her but a handful of times and each time was at night and in the morning she would be gone.

    While Douglasss story concentrates on his own experiences, he  also uses the experiences of others to show how pervasive and malevolent a force slavery was on the lives of those who lived it. In particular, Douglasss stories on the treatment of women such as his Aunt Hester and the disabled Henny highlight the violence and corruption of power inherent to the masterslave relationship. Hester, having the uninvited and sexual attentions of Colonel Lloyd is not simply brutally abused by Lloyd for her interests in another man but is strung up like a piece of meat, undermining her very humanity. Henny fairs no better, if not worse, because her masters intent is death. His cruelty however prevents him from simply killing Henny. Unable to be profitable, to fulfill the expectations of such a cruel man, she became a  constant offense to him  (Douglass). When he tired of tying her up and beating her until  the warm red blood  dripped from her helpless body, he first gave her away and then simply turned her out to fend for herself. That the master professed a Christian set of values and morals showed the doubled hypocrisy of a man who can first benefit wholeheartedly from a system of democracy and freedom while owning and using slaves like farm tools instead of people, and then who can use his religion to justify such actions.

    Even some of the people Douglass encountered who at first seemed humane and understanding of the very obvious human condition of blacks in America became tainted by the evils of slavery. Sophia Auld proved at first to be a kind-hearted woman and unexpected joy in Douglasss life. Seeing him as a young boy, and not simply a tool to be used and discarded, her experience as a slave owner eroded the gentle core of her personality. At first teaching Douglass to read, her personality changed with the growing awareness of her own power,  Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me.   Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness  (Douglass). So erroneous is slavery to the fabric of moral and humane values that the sweet and educated core of Sophia Auld is eroded as she allowed herself to become part of the institution.

    In showing the many dimensions of damage wrought by slavery, Douglass is perhaps providing the ultimate indictment of slavery. His own experiences, growing up and moving from oppressive experience to experience but carrying his own goal of freedom with him every step of the way is inspiring but it is obvious from the brutality of the picture painted by his words that this was not his only intention. Instead, he attempts to show in the bloody and demoralizing images of his life and the lives of those around him the evil of slavery. The perpetrators of this evil figure largely into his narrative as Douglass seeks to show how deeply it had affected the society of his birth. Not simply men such as Colonel Lloyd or overseers like Mr. Severe but once decent women like Sophia Auld are tainted by their associations with slavery. Slavery did not merely dehumanize blacks such as Douglass but created a parody of humanity and corroded society.