Frederick Douglass Figurative Language Essay

Former slave, Frederick Douglass in his biography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass describes the altering affect slavery has on people. Douglass purpose is to show the detrimental effect slavery has on people. Douglass uses diction, figurative language and sentence structure to help support his argument. As Douglass discusses one of his masters named Mrs. Auld he specifically focuses on the change she went through as she owned slaves. Consequently, using diction helps the audience see the effect slavery had on all people, not just slaves.. As Douglass describes Mrs. Auld as having a “kind heart” and “finest feelings” he shows how kind she was when she had never owned a slave.. However, he starts using words with negative connotations such as“dehumanizing” and “fatal poison.” These words help illustrate not only how destructive slavery was to a person’s character, but how much pressure was put on slave masters to treat their slaves the way everyone else did. He contrasted these words with “sweet accord” and “angelic face” to show how different Mrs. Auld became after having slaves. These words helped him make his argument stronger by demonstrating how different a person became after having slaves. By using diction, Douglass helped show the contrast of the slaves and masters before they had
By using a combination of both simple and complex sentences he brings everything together, he uses simple sentences such as “this kind heart had but a short time to remain such” and complex sentences such as “the crouching servility, usually so acceptable a quality in a slave, did not answer when manifested toward her. These sentences help show how simple, yet difficult it was to change from having a slave. Moreover they help convey the emotion that he felt during his time as a slave. By using sentence structure Douglass helps bring all aspects of his argument