As the past becomes a distant memory for Americans, we tend to define slavery as a shared experience for all slaves. Douglass challenges this confinement and offers a personal biography of his scars as a slave. He forces the reader to realize his voice is but one of many tortured souls. He knows change can come from his word, yet he treads cautiously, "I speak advisedly when I say this,-that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community" (2050). He is an African-American who dared to tell the truth about slavery. He writes about the abuses of his Aunt Hester, "he (her master) commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood (amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping to the floor" (2042). He tells us these horrible scenes because "dark and terrible as is this picture, I hold it to be strictly true of the overwhelming mass of professed Christians in America" (2094). Douglass tells his story because he believes he must reveal the truths of the white slave holders in order to elicit change. After William Lloyd Garrison heard Douglass speak about slavery he said, "the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind--the powerful impression it created upon a crowed auditory, completely taken by surprise...I think I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment" (Garrison 4).
Douglass's passion for the abolistionist movement was unmatched and those who read his essays or heard him speak could no longer ignore his pleas. Douglass was a great man who "quickened the slumbering energies of his soul and consecrated the great work of breaking the rod of the oppressor, and letting the oppressed go free" (Garrison 3). Douglass wanted to reveal the hypocrisy of the Christian slave owner who "have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor breathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls" (2093).
Douglass was a slave as a child, but became a social activist fighting for the right of all men, women, and children to be free from the chains of slavery. He wrote with both compassion and reasoning, in hopes of changing the laws during his llifetime and for future generations. Within days of escaping the bonds of slavery he "engaged in pleading the cause of my brethern-with what success, and with what devotion, I leave those acquainted with my labors to decide" (2092).
Douglass, Frederick. " Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an
American Slave." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 6.B (2003) Ed. Nina Baym. New York: Norton and Co., Inc. 2032-2097.
Garrison, Lloyd. "Criticism about Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
an American Slave."Ed. Benjamin Quarles, Belknap Press, 1960, 3-15.