Frederick Douglass Escape From Slavery

Words: 274
Pages: 2

Frederick Douglass conveys a hunted state of mind through animal imagery, frantic sentence structure, and apprehensive diction. Douglass likens his arrival at New York to the escape from “a den of hungry lions” and depicts his sojourn to be fraught with “the ferocious beasts of the forest” that “lie in wait for their prey”. The animal imagery comparing the slaveholders to lions exposes his rightful fear of being recaptured. As a runaway slave, there is always danger lurking around the corner; the comparison to “beasts” awaiting “prey” demonizes the slaveholders and expresses the sheer amount of fear present in Douglass’s mind. As such, Douglass maintains a certain level of fear, even as he attains his goal of escaping from slavery. Despite