Summary Of Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

Part One
Nabokov says that if a reader “begins with a readymade generalization, one begins at the wrong end and travels away from the book before one has started to understand it.” I believe this is where my biggest flaw while reading originates. Nabokov continues by saying that reading “Madame Bovary with the preconceived notion that it is a denunciation of the bourgeoisie” is the most boring and unfair thing one can do. This is basically what I did, though, when reading the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Before reading the narrative, I believed I already knew what was going to happen. I thought it would be a retelling of Douglass’s experiences with slavery, like any other, a simple narrative as the title seemingly indicates.
According to Roskelly, “The very ordinariness of rhetoric is the single most important tool for teachers to use to help students understand its dynamic and practice them” (1). In essence she is saying that one should not overcomplicate a rhetorical analysis, as it is simpler than is to be expected. When writing my essay on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, this is precisely where I messed up. Since I was not entirely sure what rhetoric was, I had a difficult time being concise. For example, in response to a quote on page 77 relating to Douglass’s pathos I said, “Such despair coming from a person as strong as Frederick Douglass truly shows the reader the effects of slavery, while simultaneously making the reader feel his utter hopelessness. By making his audience empathize with him, Douglass significantly enhances his argument against slavery.” This analysis is very vague and rambling. Instead of actually evaluating Douglass’s rhetoric, I simply restated the prompt and added many unnecessary words that were very
This is a much deeper problem, though, because purpose is 1/3 of the rhetorical triangle according to Roskelly. Douglass’s purpose is to incite governmental action, whereas I wrote my essay as if his purpose were to achieve empathy, something that wouldn’t even be possible considering his audience of wealthy white men. When I revised this body paragraph, I kept Roskelly’s advice in mind and was more specific and accurate to Douglass’s purpose. I said: “By choosing to include details such as the fact that the blow was ‘heavy and upon the head,’ that it made ‘a large wound,’ and that the ‘blood ran freely,’ Douglass paints a clear picture of his situation. This evokes a strong sense of sympathy in his readers and makes his audience angrier as they feel bad for him, because he is confronted with great violence that he gives up fighting against. This emotional appeal significantly enhances his argument, because Douglass’s audience stands with him instead of with the slaveholders.” In this revised draft I acknowledged Douglass’s use of imagery as a rhetorical device and stated exactly how his quote impacted his audience and purpose. This was a genuine improvement from my first essay to my second one, because it was a rhetorical analysis so it was nice to see some analysis of the rhetoric in the