Frederick Douglass Narrative Analysis

The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass gives insight to the meaning of slavery and a personal story during the 19th century anti-bellum America. This narrative explores the personal experiences of one slave who had the courage to write about how he was treated and his remarkable life in his pursuit for freedom. During the anti-slavery movements of 1845 a vast majority of supporters came from the north consisting of some deeply religious individuals, and abolitionists. Abolitionists called for immediate release and emancipation of slaves while the rest supported slavery in every way it existed. When Douglass wrote this book slavery was still legal, but his larger goal was to abolish slavery and speak the truth for every slave
Depriving a slave of natural rights can be described as taking away moral rights, human rights, and civil rights. This mattered to both the blacks and the whites. Taking away these rights guaranteed the whites ultimate control of the slaves and therefore succeeded in manipulating others to get their way. Douglass was born into slavery so he doesn’t know yet that it wasn’t right to be owned, nor does he have his own say in the way his life will be controlled. He doesn’t know his birthday, nor does he know who parents are especially who his father is. No sense of having a father to a young boy would normally be painful and heartbreaking, but to Douglass he doesn’t seem to even take interest in finding out. He’d met his mother a couple times but, when she died he felt as if it was “the death of a stranger” (Douglass 43). The fact that he was so desensitized he didn’t even feel any pain or sorrow for his mother’s death is completely heartless. The emphasis on “stranger” increases the intensity that Douglass did not know what it was like to have parents, and he only knew what it was like to be a slave. This outcome is exactly what the white slave owners wanted. The ideal slave to them was one with little emotional attachment to a life with meaning so that controlling them would be easier. Relating back to the hierarchy, whites making the rules gives them an easy way to manipulate the blacks and thus gain a greater sense of control. Nowadays the ways that people control each other seems much more subtle but the greater goal in mind is always to be at the top. Human kind has shown the tendency to control others just to reach the top where there is an advantage. By taking away the many rights any person has including human rights, civil, and moral makes it a lot easier to get the control they crave. Desensitizing the slaves by taking away their