Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - Essay Example

Being free, Douglass could do any kind of work of his choice without being forced and eat well even if it was not much food. As illustrated in the narrative, Douglass hired out his time to work as a calker but all that he earned went to his Master Hugh. If only could enjoy what he toiled for, then he could say he had freedom.

According to Douglass (p.68), the desire to be free then started to overwhelm him while in slavery and that prompted him to find a way to achieve his own freedom. This was a matter of death and life but Frederick Douglass decide to give it a try than acknowledge his life as a slave and live with it. The only way that Douglass could be free and get to enjoy freedom for the rest of his life was to escape from the slaveholders. After planning it all, and making up his mind, Frederick Douglass finally achieved his freedom from slavery by escaping out of slavery and went seeking a better life in a free world.

It is fact that at the time, the cases of slavery and slave trade were something common. That is why a narrative like this of Frederick Douglass was very popular. Many black men and women were sold and enslaved by white people. There they could work for their work white masters for the rest of their lives (Douglass p.113). However, others like Douglass who are lucky to escape get a chance to start their lives afresh out of slavery. This is clearly seen from the fact that Mr. Ruggles was there to help those who escaped from slavery. This means that there were many black people who worked as slaves. In Bedford, there were people who had escaped from slavery and went to start new lives in freedom. Thus the story of Frederick Douglass was not a unique case at that time.

The techniques used and the flow of the narrative by Douglass were very descriptive and flowing. Therefore, one can say that there was nothing ineffective about the narrative. The writing style used by Douglas was very effective in getting the audience to understand the story. First, of it all, Frederick Douglass did the narrative in the first person. This helped in bringing out the main theme in the narrative and making people compelled about it because it makes the narrative like a direct conversion between the narrator and the reader/audience. Another style is the transition of the story which enables the readers to connect ideas flowing from the beginning to the end. The sentences also used by Douglass are simple and very easy to understand as they are written in simple language. The method used in the tone of the narrative makes the story very compelling as it brings out the atmosphere of the real situation that Douglass was in.