Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

In Douglass’s Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave and Ali’s Infidel both authors adopt comparable rhetorical strategies due to their similar experiences with oppression. In the Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Douglass recounts his life as a slave and journey to freedom. Douglass’s upbringing as a second-class citizen in antebellum Maryland mirrors Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s experience as a woman in the traditional Muslim world. As both authors transition from their former oppressive environments to freedom, they both depict their experience using similar strategies. Douglass’s and Ali’s first view of New Bedford and Germany initiate the deinternalization of their oppressions enabling them to view
This sudden shift in cultural values causes both authors to reflect on their own values and assumptions while simultaneously surveying their environment. Douglass’s bewilderment is evident when he states, “I had very strangely supposed, while in slavery, that few of the comforts, and scarcely any of the luxuries, of life were enjoyed at the north, compared with what were enjoyed by the slaveholders of the south.” Douglass is perplexed when he discovers wealth and prosperity in the north despite the absence of slaveholding. During Douglass’s time in Maryland, he acquired the opinion that slavery was the sole source of wealth and that in its absence only poverty should be expected. Both Douglass’s and Ali’s childhood has conditioned them to form certain beliefs which is why when Ayaan enters Germany she is also taken aback specifically by the condition of women there. Ali states, “The women were bare – they seemed naked – their legs, their whole arms, their faces and hair and shoulders we all completely uncovered.” Since birth, Ali has been conditioned to believe that she must cover her body or it would cause “fitna” and lead to chaos amongst men. Her discovery of a civil society where women can dress as they please disproves all the lectures she has received her entire life. The dehumanization of women in Ali’s childhood environment forced her to only
When Douglass arrives in New Bedford he experiences a shift in his relationship with white men. Previously Douglass participated in a slave-master relationship however when he arrives in New Bedford he is immediately placed on a more equal footing with white men. Douglass states, “I saw no whipping of men; but all seemed to go smoothly on. Every man appeared to understand his work, and went at it with a sober, yet cheerful earnestness, which betokened the deep interest which he felt in what he was doing, as well as a sense of his own dignity as a man.” While in Maryland Douglass expressed his resentment of the fact that as long as he remained a slave he would be treated as a child. However, here in New Bedford Douglass recognizes his ability to assert himself as a man. He witnesses men of all races working together without the violence and vulgarity that he experienced in Maryland. Similarly, while in the Muslim world Ali’s relationship with men was similar to a slave-master exchange. As a woman, Ali was expected to be submissive, dutiful, and be “barri”. However, in Germany theses expectations were nonexistent. Ali states, “Men and women were sitting together, not at bars but with easy familiarity, as if they were equal. … No lecherous men called me to bed with them. … I could follow my curiosity.” In Germany, Ali