Narrative of the life of frederick douglass - Research Paper Example

He highlighted that he had served his entire life as a slave during such meetings. However, his oratory skills made many people doubt that he had served as a slave for more than 20 years. The fact that people doubted him, was one of the factors that pushed him to tell his story by writing a memoir that detailed his entire experience from childhood until the time when he escaped from slavery. Reading the book creates a vivid picture of how it was like to be born into slavery and begin serving as a slave at a very tender age.

Notably, Douglass’ memoir was published during a time when the anti-slavery movement was gaining momentum. Therefore, it served to place emphasis on the need to terminate slavery. However, the relevance of the book in the years that would follow declined until the 1960s when the civil rights movement became very active. This paper will discuss the journey taken from Douglass’ text, and how it has emerged as one of the critical literary works in the slave narrative genre. After Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave was published, it starred an alarming interest on the impacts of slavery.

Surprisingly, many people did not realize that slaves were oppressed and mistreated badly. The literature that existed before Douglass’ was published highlighted that slavery benefited both the slave masters and the slaves. The public had been deceived by such information and Douglass wanted to expose the evils of slavery. He was one of the few slaves fortunate enough to exhibit a remarkable level of literacy. His memoir served as a revelation to the real experiences of slaves under their masters.

It served to promote the Douglass’ agenda of abolishing slavery. It communicated numerous reasons why African American slaves deserved freedom (Barnes 69). At the end of the memoir, Douglass had stated that he was in pursuit of the freedom of other African American