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Lauren Isbell

Professor Robison

ENGL 4674

October 26 2023

The Use of Language to Paint a Picture

Frederick Douglass wrote Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave

in 1845. This text tells the life of Frederick Douglass and what it was like to be a slave through

his own words. Explaining the harsh and dangerous life he lived, the audience can see in all the

details how unfair his experiences were. He gives many different examples of the cruelty he went

through and his fellow slaves went through. Douglass expresses and paints a picture of what it

was like to be a slave with the use of details and blunt language.

The first chapter begins with him expressing how not knowing his date of birth affected

him as a child. This then leads to learning about his mother's role in his life. Douglass gives the

audience details that help them feel how little he felt when his mother passed. Having felt no true

love from his mother, he explains her death by saying “Never having enjoyed, to any

considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of

her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger”

(Douglass 2). The use of language like soothing or tender shows the audience that he knows that

a mother is supposed to be those things but he never got to experience that with her. He felt like

it was the death of a stranger due to not having known his mother. Though it might seem

emotionless to describe your mother's death as discovering a stranger has died, it puts the

audience in a slave's shoes by showing the truth behind their childhood.

Under the eye of Mr. Gore, Douglass explains the coolness of his actions. Having

witnessed one of his fellow slaves getting shot, the action is explained straight to the point and
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bluntly. Demby runs from being whipped by Mr.Gore and Douglass uses simple language to

explain the act. He says Mr.Gore gave Demby a chance to follow his rules or he would get shot,

“Mr. Gore then, without consultation or deliberation with any one, not even giving Demby an

additional call, raised his musket to his face, taking deadly aim at his standing victim, and in an

instant poor Demby was no more”(20). The way he explains the action of another slave being

killed makes it known it was an occurrence that, at the time was shocking, but he eventually

would be acclimated to. The final line that describes the death of Demby is straightforward “His

mangled body sank out of sight, and blood and brains marked the water where he had stood”

(20). The bluntness of the language used to describe the event tells the audience that slaves

would learn to be immune to the inhumane actions that took place around them.

Around the age of seven or eight Douglass was informed he would be going to Baltimore

to work under Mr. Hugh Auld. He expresses his emotions to leave as happy, which is not the

language used often in the piece. Leaving home is typically scary and hard for young children

but he says “The ties that ordinarily bind children to their homes were all suspended in my case.

I found no severe trial in my departure” (24). The explanation of leaving with no real feelings

helps readers understand that the lives slaves were put through, took them away from worldly

things. Having no mother or even having a relationship with his siblings it was easy to go. The

idea of brothers and sisters was not one of family “I had two sisters and one brother, that lived in

the same house with me; but the early separation of us from our mother had well nigh blotted the

fact of our relationship from our memories” (25). This quote shows that family often escapes

from memory due to being separated at a young age. The language used to describe the bond

between him and his siblings is nonchalant and easily forgettable. Knowing that he did not know

his siblings the audience and infer that most slaves did not know of their family either.
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Reading this text and knowing that the language used has no fluff helps form the picture

of what it was really like to be a slave and what they went through. There is not much expression

behind Douglass’ words but they are detailed enough to be powerful. The many different

examples provided in this piece and how they are narrated give the best idea behind the life of a

slave.
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Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

Anti-Slavery Office, 1845