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Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis Essay

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Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis Essay
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave written by, none other than himself, Frederick Douglass presents to the reader several instances in which the fellow slaves that he knew, a vast majority of them family and friends, were whipped nearly to death and were inflicted upon the most horrible crimes known to man. Through these stories from his past, the reader is shown how cruel and emotionally scarring to the individual slavery was and why it should never have happened. By the end of his narration, Douglass manages to express to the reader through his appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos, the need for slavery, as inhumane and unjust as it was, to come to an end. Douglass appeals to ethos through personification to convince readers that slavery was far more painful than anyone could ever imagine, encouraging
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Douglass expresses this fear when he states that he “…was afraid to speak to any one for fear of speaking to the wrong one”, comparing “money-loving kidnappers” to “ferocious beasts of the forests” through an analogy that leads the reader to the conclusion that even though a slave can escape slavery that the threat of it is still always ever present (Douglass 113). This analogy and his appeal to logos help the reader to realize that Douglass is a logical man who thinks of the possibilities of slavery and is cautious to prevent them, in turn, showing the reader that even though a slave can break free from the ties of slavery that it never really leaves the slave truly free. Therefore, Douglass convinces the reader that the fight for the abolishment of slavery would be a long one, but one that should be

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