Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis Essay

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The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave was published in 1845 by the man to which the title refers, Frederick Douglass. A former slave, Douglass wrote this narrative during the abolitionist movement in the hopes to break the distinct barriers between black and white people, and also to educate people on the evils of slavery. He stresses how slavery is immoral, sinful and an abomination to have in the world. Douglass constructs certain passages and points of his narrative in a way to grab his audience’s attention and augment to the arguments that he is presenting to his readers. In the selected passage, the first two paragraphs have a set structure in which Douglass tells his audience about his first six months with Mr. Covey. He then adopts a more lyrical structure for his third paragraph in which he cries out his hatred for the “hottest hell of unending slavery” (Douglass 106). This paragraph is purposefully different from the preceding paragraphs with its lyrical style, sense of hope, and use of metaphors. Frederick Douglass wrote this specific …show more content…
Covey. Douglass use of parallel syntax illustrates the cruelty of Covey. For example, Douglass says that “The longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights were too long for him” (Douglass 104) to furthermore demonstrate the lack of compassion shown to him and other slaves. He uses this as an appeal to pathos, gaining sympathy from his audience once they imagine the suffering of the slaves. Then in the second paragraph, Douglass continues with his appeals to pathos as part of the “set structure” he created for his audience to continuously anticipate throughout the rest of the narrative. By using the imagery of Chesapeake Bay and the “…beautiful vessels, robed in purest white” Douglass permits his audience a chance to fully understand the hopelessness that he and other slaves
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