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Essay: The Life of Fredrick Douglass
Fredrick Douglass expressed his narrative on slavery through literature, as it encompass the literature power which allows the reader that they can interpret it in various ways. The rules system was enforced by institutions through authority. The literature significantly contributes to the development of law. In the history of America, ‘slavery’ is considered as the most unfortunate practice and in the early centuries, people used to oppose or favor slavery by literature. Fredrick Douglass presented the religion role, particularly about Christianity, in the “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass”. It is written in his literature that the bible possesses two versions, one is true Christianity while the other is white Christianity which assists to strengthen slavery ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"UhYRSyJF","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(\\uc0\\u8220{}Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass\\uc0\\u8221{})","plainCitation":"(“Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":496,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/vDOrLj7p/items/3EU3Q4ZL"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/vDOrLj7p/items/3EU3Q4ZL"],"itemData":{"id":496,"type":"post-weblog","title":"Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass","container-title":"Skyhorse Publishing","abstract":"Packaged in handsome and affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is a new series of essential literary works. From the musings of literary geniuses li...","URL":"https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781945186189/narrative-of-the-life-of-frederick-douglass","language":"en-US","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",12,2]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (“Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”). Douglass is well-known because of his outstanding oratory skill although he is usually acknowledged as the incredible abolitionist.
The work of Douglass regarding slavery demolishment is greatly known because of his slavery life experiences as well as his theory about slavery. In his theory, “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass”, he expressed his view that the bible has influenced negatively on slavery and also developed white Christianity. He claims himself as a slave and according to him, he does not have information about his family roots because slaveholders do not share much knowledge with slaves because if slaves get to know about themselves, they will find ways to escape as Douglass did through recalling his memories. Douglass also targeted the behavior of slaveholders as it was usually harsh and they were forced to perform labor, murder and blood-shedding in the name of religion. In this way, Christianity was practiced in two ways according to Douglass slaves believe in one Christianity while the master who was white Americans believed in the other Christianity version. According to Douglass's theory, the master used cruelty as an excuse for Christianity ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"nU1g2jGZ","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(vrana25)","plainCitation":"(vrana25)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":464,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/vDOrLj7p/items/3WYCQYLF"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/vDOrLj7p/items/3WYCQYLF"],"itemData":{"id":464,"type":"post-weblog","title":"Frederick Douglass’s theory on Religion (Christianity), Slavery, and the Law","container-title":"Vipul A Rana","abstract":"8/07/2010 Law and Literature encompasses the power of literature and they way it presented the law in a light that allows its readers to interpret it from different directions. The law is a system …","URL":"https://vrana25.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/frederick-douglasss-theory-on-religion-christianity-slavery-and-the-law/","language":"en","author":[{"literal":"vrana25"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2010",8,7]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,30]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (vrana25). Christianity no doubt teaches politeness but the one practiced by masters did not allow optimism. As in the peak time of slavery, Christianity was one of the most dominant religions of the US. Although Douglass describes Christianity as the peaceful and pure religion, but according to him, Christianity is of two types ‘Christianity of Christ’ and ‘Christianity of this land’. Though Douglass hates the hypocritical Christianity practices in the name of religion. Here Douglass is demonstrating that there is no good inside the master and slaveholder. The actions of slave owners include enforcing excessive labor on slaves without giving food, stripping privileges, and murdering in some cases. He further explained in his theory that the non-religious slaveholders were not as cruel as the religious were. He also remained puzzled in understanding how a person can act in such a way under the faith of Christianity. The person who has faith in God how would he justifies his inhuman acts which include starving, killing and beating the other person. Thus Douglass only assumed that Christianity devastatingly influenced slavery. According to the theory, it is misinterpreted from bible that, “Opponents of slavery offered complex arguments demonstrating that the slavery allowed in the Bible was different from the ‘monstrous system of American slavery,’ going so far as to claim that the word “slave” in English translation of the Bible was, at least in some passages, actually a mistranslation ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"nyIwjfXU","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}Mocking the Sacred: Frederick Douglass\\uc0\\u8217{}s \\uc0\\u8220{}Slaveholder\\uc0\\u8217{}s Sermon\\uc0\\u8221{} and the Antebellum Debate over Religion and Slavery: Quarterly Journal of Speech: Vol 88, No 3})","plainCitation":"(Mocking the Sacred: Frederick Douglass’s “Slaveholder’s Sermon” and the Antebellum Debate over Religion and Slavery: Quarterly Journal of Speech: Vol 88, No 3)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":466,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/vDOrLj7p/items/9JD24NMK"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/vDOrLj7p/items/9JD24NMK"],"itemData":{"id":466,"type":"webpage","title":"Mocking the sacred: Frederick Douglass's “slaveholder's sermon” and the antebellum debate over religion and slavery: Quarterly Journal of Speech: Vol 88, No 3","URL":"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00335630209384380","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,30]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Mocking the Sacred: Frederick Douglass’s “Slaveholder’s Sermon” and the Antebellum Debate over Religion and Slavery: Quarterly Journal of Speech: Vol 88, No 3)”.Douglass also believed that being attached with faith produces significant changes in the person while recalling his old master, Auld Douglass explains that, "Emancipate his slaves and if that (Christianity) did not do this, at any rate, make him more kind and humane." While recalling inhuman act Douglass describes that Mr. Wilson tied up the young woman and whipped her naked shoulder with heavy cow skin which injured her badly and drops of red blood were started flowing from her shoulder. The master justified this act with the scripture which states that, "He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." This event demonstrated that such religious literature provides evidence to masters on their inhumane act. Although the term law and religion help in building better norms in society. Like on religion masters also justify their behavior through law as the law must be followed by everyone. In slavery, people were not allowed to read and write. Although Douglass managed to read various literature including the bible through which he gets an idea about how slave masters are using religion in the wrong way. In the slave era even reading the scripts of Bible was considered as law-breaking. At some point, he also describes that his master's wife used to help him in reading different types of biblical literature.
Owning the slaves reinforced the idea in slaveholders that they are superior they consider slaves as their property. This made slave owners to behave inhumanly with slaves. In addition, the actions of slave owners were mostly protected through law and they justify their actions through religious scriptures. Douglass presented that the owners of slaves deny their slaves' inhumanity by justifying their human ownership. They do not consider their slaves as human and mostly treat them inhumanely. While treating the slaves like the beast the owners of slaves become beast themselves. They usually become religious and pious in public so that no one can observe their brutality act. They also pervert the bible for the justification of owning slaves. Through the two examples, Douglass represented the slaveholding effect on the slaveholders by the Edward Covey and Thomas Auld character. According to Douglass, they both represented them in completely different they actually are. Edward Covey shows himself as the pious and righteous Christian man but in actuality, he was a cruel slave owner. According to Douglass slavery badly affects the slaves as he witnessed the transformation of Sophia from the righteous woman to the corrupt slave master. As before slavery, she is an affectionate and kind woman after slavery she persuaded the mind of her husband by saying that being slave education will ruin Douglass ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"heQtUVf4","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Stow)","plainCitation":"(Stow)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":494,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/vDOrLj7p/items/VFAA744U"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/vDOrLj7p/items/VFAA744U"],"itemData":{"id":494,"type":"chapter","title":"Douglass, Frederick (1818–1895)","container-title":"Encyclopedia of Political Theory","publisher":"SAGE Publications, Inc.","publisher-place":"Thousand Oaks","page":"403-403","number-of-volumes":"3","source":"SAGE Knowledge","event-place":"Thousand Oaks","URL":"http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/politicaltheory/n134.xml","note":"DOI: 10.4135/9781412958660","author":[{"family":"Stow","given":"Simon"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2010"]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",12,2]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Stow). She used to treat slaves like her property the slaveholding transformed Sophia from the generous lady to the cruel and harsh character woman.
Douglas once turns the table towards slaveholders and appealed with people to do not provide the Underground Railroad secret as he only wanted to protect the slaves but also to experience the helplessness of the slaveholders. It is strongly believed in the south that lifestyle and wealth belong to slavery. The narrative of Douglass is based on the perpetuate slavery of the white slaveholders through keeping their slaves ignorant. When Douglass was writing his narrative at that time it was believed that slavery was considered as the natural state. It was believed that the black was incapable to participated in the works of civil society. So, it is required to keep them as white workers. The strategies of this narrative explain that white has power over black from the time of their birth. The owners of the slaves used to keep the slaves ignorant about their fundamental rights and information about their birthplace, date, and paternity. The master used to prevent their slaves from learning reading and writing because literacy would provide them a sense of capability and understanding. So, through keeping the control over the slaveholders the southern masters of slaves keep their slaves illiterate. As when the slaves could not write about their stories they could not tell to anyone else ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"yEeQzu3g","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}SparkNotes: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Themes})","plainCitation":"(SparkNotes: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Themes)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":469,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/vDOrLj7p/items/54RZQJ9L"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/vDOrLj7p/items/54RZQJ9L"],"itemData":{"id":469,"type":"webpage","title":"SparkNotes: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Themes","URL":"https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/narrative/themes/","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,30]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (SparkNotes: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Themes).
It was surprising for Douglass when he came to know that the people in the North are not different from one who did not own slaves in the south. They were quaint, poor, and live humbly. According to his perception, only the slave owners can be comfortable and rich. Although, New Bedford completely changed his expectations the north people were intelligent, hardworking and well-mannered. He saw their crowded warehouses, well-kept ships, and clean houses. Every person understands his duties and works effectively. Douglass observed various churches their all are shining and lovely. The residents of the South seem to be healthier and happier as compared to those in the South. The man whom Douglass resided was not a wealthier slave owner but a well-mannered man both politically and religiously. Douglass marveled at what he observes in North although there was also imperfectness in the north as he experienced prejudices therein business as well as he didn’t find work and he had to take odd jobs. However, the north was not the place free from racism but a better and pleasant place to live.
Being a slave Douglass slaves’ narrative was often questioned by the reviewers at the various event. The narrative of Douglass faced scrutiny when it was noted by William Garrison the white abolitionist that Maryland was less barbarous as compared to the other states of the south. Though the narrative of Douglass was true in every perspective.
Works Cited:
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Mocking the Sacred: Frederick Douglass’s “Slaveholder’s Sermon” and the Antebellum Debate over Religion and Slavery: Quarterly Journal of Speech: Vol 88, No 3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00335630209384380. Accessed 30 Nov. 2019.
“Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” Skyhorse Publishing, https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781945186189/narrative-of-the-life-of-frederick-douglass. Accessed 2 Dec. 2019.
SparkNotes: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Themes. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/narrative/themes/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2019.
Stow, Simon. “Douglass, Frederick (1818–1895).” Encyclopedia of Political Theory, SAGE Publications, Inc., 2010, pp. 403–403. SAGE Knowledge, doi:10.4135/9781412958660.
vrana25. “Frederick Douglass’s Theory on Religion (Christianity), Slavery, and the Law.” Vipul A Rana, 7 Aug. 2010, https://vrana25.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/frederick-douglasss-theory-on-religion-christianity-slavery-and-the-law/.
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