FREE ESSAY ON FREDERICK DOUGLASS NARATIVE

FREDERICK DOUGLASS NARATIVE

Frederick Douglass's Narrative
In Frederick Douglass's Narrative, Douglas himself narrates the novel using story telling
to bring both the reader into the story, and the theme into focus. Through his narration,
Douglass also uses narrative strategies like anecdotes, and plot twists. Even with it
being a true story, Douglass brings the readers' attention to a peak with these
techniques making the story interesting and appealing.
The most influential technique used by Douglass is story telling. He uses little stories,
or stories-within-a-story, to make the reader pay attention. With descriptive tales of
the plantations he worked on, the beatings and torture of slaves, and learning to read
and write, he not only gets the attention of the readers, but he gets them to understand
his point of view. For example at the beginning of the narrative Douglass tells a story
of his aunt being beating, "I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most
heart-rendering shrieks of an own aunt of mine," (3). He goes on and gets even more
graphic and descriptive, "The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the
blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest." (4). Also early in the novel, Douglass
writes of the plantation he grew up on, "There were no beds given the slaves, unless one
coarse blanket be considered such," (6). Soon after being sold to Mr. and Mrs. Auld, he
was taught the alphabet. He uses this experience to show to his audience that he is very
literate despite his masters' wishes, "If you teach that nigger how to read there would
be no keeping him," (20). So this story shows some more cruelty from his master. Just for
reading he would be sold, which shows unfair treatment to the reader.
Another similar technique used by Douglass very effectively is anecdotes. He uses
anecdotes throughout the story to bring a humorous or interesting little side story into
the readers' minds. One good example of this is when he is talking about slave songs, "I
have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could
speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness." (9).
This shows the readers of his concerns by just adding a brief story in to interest the
reader. Another good anecdote used by Douglass was with his move to Baltimore. "She was
going to give me a pair of trousers, which I should not put on unless I got all the off
me." (17), this is a little story, nothing big in his life but he uses it to show an
aspect of his move to Baltimore.
Finally, he uses great plot twists to keep the reader on the edge of his toes. At the
beginning of the novel you don't really know where he is going with the narrative. With
some writers their use of foreshadowing, gives you the narrative 10 pages into it.
Douglass however keeps the reader involved in the story because they need to think of
what is next. This is shown when he gives no forewarning of his move into the Auld house.
He starts chapter five (16) by telling of his treatment on Colonel Lloyd's plantation
right into "I was probably between seven and eight years old when I left Colonel Lloyd's
plantation."
These narrative techniques used by Douglass give the reader an in depth look into his
life, and persuade the readers it was directed to in the north to join his abolitionist
cause. The narrative is a great piece of literature, not only for his day, but for ours
because we can learn so much about slavery from it.
Bibliography
Work Cited:
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass, Dover Publications, Inc.
New York 1995.