Blogs 3 and 4: Frederick Douglass Slave Narrative
Blogs 3 and 4: Frederick Douglass Slave Narrative
These thoughts are mostly very different from each other, but they all have to do with Frederick Douglass’ Slave Narrative.
To think about…it seems that the more literate and educated Douglass becomes, the more complicated his life becomes. The more he knows about reading, writing, and freedom, the harder it is for him to accept his life in slavery. When he didn’t know about freedom and a way to escape slavery, he just took his life for granted, assuming there was no way to escape slavery, he would never have even considered it because it seemed to him that that was the way his life was supposed to be. With the new knowledge of freedom and a way to escape freedom, in addition to controversial ideas about the fact that slavery was unfair and unjust, Douglass cannot just sit back and accept his life anymore, he knows, deep down, that he has the power to change it, and he cannot escape from that knowledge.
Just from the first 7 chapters, I am really getting a sense of who Frederick Douglass was, in terms of his personality. I really relate to the part when he wishes that he were a beast and he envies his fellow slaves for their innocence in not knowing about what freedom is and the possibility of attaining it. He also envies them for the fact that they do not hate their masters as he hates his, because he has read literature that opens his eyes to the fact that slavery is unfair and unjust and that displays to him the meaning of freedom and the fact that it is possible to escape from slavery. Once he has this knowledge, he can’t escape it…he can’t hide from it. He expresses the fact that he is obsessed with the idea of escaping slavery and attaining freedom with the portion:
(About Freedom)
“It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.”
Douglass even says that he considered killing himself, and had it not been for the prospect of freedom and escaping slavery, he may very well have killed himself. Sometimes, when you are in a bad or difficult situation, I think motivation and a goal to work towards can keep you going and, in Douglass’s case, even save your life. When Douglass understands the possibility of achieving freedom and he understands that slavery is really unfair and inhumane and that it is should not just be understood as the way things are supposed to be, it is definitely a turning point in the book, and I am sure, in his life. His entire perspective on life and the world changes because of the knowledge he attains from a book. It is very interesting to think about what his life would have been like if he had not read that book. In a way, he would have been saved from his contemplation of freedom, but in another way, he would not have lived the life that he lived; he may have died, like many other slaves, not even knowing that there was a better life out there, a free life in which they were not enslaved. These slaves are not guilty of lacking the confidence to take action against slavery or try to escape it, because they had no knowledge of freedom or a way to escape from slavery in the first place, and furthermore, everyone accepted it as the way things should be. These slaves were raised working and being mistreated and looked down upon by white people and they had no reason to question their lives or whether slavery was really just, because it was simply the way things were for them.
However, for the slaves who were aware of the possibility of freedom and escaping slavery, I really identify with them, and I think all people can, in that sometimes it seems a lot easier to just sit back and live your life or decide not to say or do anything about something that you know is wrong, or that you know you should do something about…but in most cases, it is better to speak out for what you think is right and take action, instead of sitting back and letting things happen to you. Sometimes this seems like the hardest thing to do. It seems like it would be so easy to just accept what is happening and not do anything about it, but in most cases, if not all, your instinct to act is often correct and taking action or speaking out is the right thing to do. To put this in the context of Frederick Douglass, he learns about freedom and the possibility of escaping slavery from a piece of literature that he reads. This literature presents the idea that slavery is wrong which makes him resent slavery and his masters. His knowledge of freedom makes him envy his fellow slaves because they are innocent of the knowledge of freedom. It is so easy for them to just sit back and live their lives without the knowledge of a better life. Douglass is different, however, because he cannot be content with the life he is living. He is now aware of freedom, the possibility of achieving a better life, and the idea that slavery is unfair and inhumane, and he knows that it is up to him to attain freedom, it just seems so much easier to sit back and not do anything. But Douglass was a clever man, he knew that he could escape from slavery and he was not going to be satisfied with himself until he achieved freedom.
In terms of what I have learned about Douglass’s personality and character through the descriptions of events that took place in the book, I have made a lot of observations about him…
He is very clever…when he tricks the white boys into writing words for him by challenging them and saying that he can write better than them. Then the white boys, that are educated in schools, write words down for him and, in this way, he is able to learn new words.
He is self-motivated…he essentially teaches himself how to read and write, with some help from other people, but mostly it comes down to his own craving for knowledge and his self motivation to do everything he can in order to learn how to read and write.
He is intelligent…Frederick Douglass is very intelligent. Not in the way of someone who went to school and got an education, but in the way of being, deep down, really smart, and quick to learn and pick up on things. He also very observant and he really analyzes the things he sees, which ties in with his intelligence. Even in the descriptions of when he was less than 10 years old, he was really making profound observations and learning new things everyday. I am taking into consideration that many of these observations may be fabricated or exaggerated in order to appeal to his audience, for example, him seeing the bloody act of a black woman being whipped may have been exaggerated in order to appeal to the female audience he was “selling” to. But really, he was able to teach himself to read and write while he was about ten or eleven and he so deeply wanted to learn these things. His knowledge about how important it is to learn to read and write is amazing.
To think about…Douglass is aware, even at a young age of the fact that he will be enslaved for his entire life and he is very bothered by this fact, I am sure that it makes him feel very helpless. I think the idea that you will be enslaved for your entire life is a scary proposition to have to live with. Not being able to make your own choices in your life…ever. That really speaks to the idea of living your own life…doing what you love to do in life and doing things that are right for you, not for the sake of satisfying others. Because Douglass and other slaves didn’t have a choice in their lives, many slaves didn’t even have the ability to think for themselves, they were so used to doing what other people said. I think that is why so many slaves who escaped slavery just wanted to go back to it…it was all they had ever known.
