Rhetorical Analysis of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass Essay

Rhetorical psychoanalysis of Narrative of the aliveness of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass wrote domainy autobiographies, editorials, and speeches. His greatest piece is probably the retain Narrative of the livelihood of Frederick Douglass. In this contain he dialog near his life as a striver and he makes numerous arguments against hard workerry. Upon a closer reading, Douglass, by metaphors and in-person anecdotes, appeals to the terzetto rhetorical appeals Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. later(prenominal) in the first chapter Douglass talks nearly his aunt Hester.Hester disobeyed their owner and he started to penalise her. He led her to a sewer under a large solicit in the joist, put in for the usage (Douglass pg4) Made her buy the farm on cast aside dead of the stool tied her to the hook and he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin and soon the warm, red root came descend to the floor (Douglass pg 5) I was so affright and horror-stri cken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet and d ared not to menace out till long after(prenominal) the bloody transaction was over. (Douglass pg 5)With this quote he is subtly saying If you want to tell apart nigh slavery I apprise tell you or so slavery beca design I was in that respect, I lived it. For the fact that he was there and witnessed this event split ups him ethos. around the middle of the sustain chapter Douglass talks about an overseer named Mr. unvoiced. Mr. Severe was the overseer of Colonel Lloyds, who was Douglass owner, plantation. Mr. Severe was rightly named he was a cruel man.I k at a time seen him whip a woman, causing the blood to run half an hour at a time and this, too, in the thick of her crying children, pleading for their mothers release. (Douglass pg 7) Again this same situation where he is telling the audience that he knows what he is talking about because he witnessed and lived it so therefore he has complete credibility to talk about it. This quote shows that he knows exactly what he is talking about so he has the ethos to tell the audience what a slaves life was like. In the middle of chapter two Douglass talks about how the slaves were not given beds.He verbalise They found less trouble from the want of beds, than from the want of time to pause (Douglass pg 6) Very many of their sleeping hours are consumed in preparing the field for the coming solar day and when this is done, sure- adequacy(a) and young, young-begetting(prenominal) and female, married and single, drop down side by side, on one common bed,-the cold, strangle floor,- each(prenominal) covering himself of herself with their miserable blankets (Douglass pg 6) He says this to sack emotion into the audience the phrase the cold, damp floor, and the parallel structure old and young, male and female, married and single submits emotion.This is a unfaltering appeal to pathos in his argument. In the beginning of chapter eight Douglass tal ks about when he went to live in Baltimore. He talks about His old commands youngest son dying and hence three years later his old subordinate died. So his property was cherished and he was sent for to be wanted with the other property. Here again my feelings move up up in detestation of slavery. I had now a new liking of my degraded conditionI odd Baltimore with a young heart overborne with sadness, and a soul full of apprehension. (Douglass pg 27) He says this and these lines evoke so much emotion. With the phrase a young heart overborne with sadness and the use of other emotional voice communication and phrases get the audience going. So this is also an event of a strong appeal to pathos. Around the middle of chapter six Douglass talks about going to live with Mr. and Mrs. auld. Mrs. Auld started to read him the A, B, Cs. After he learned that he was learning to spell words of three or four letters. At that engineer Mr. Auld found out and told Mrs. Auld not to instruc t him further.He said Mr. Auld said if you teach that coon how to read, there would be no safekeeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once conk out unmanageable and of no value to his master It would barely make him discontented and unhappy. These words sank deep into my heart I now understood what had been to me a most dumbfound difficulty-to wit, the white mans part to enslave the black man. (Douglass pg 20) This is his epiphany or his emblem of the cave moment when he realizes what is in reality going on.He thought legitimately for a long time and he finally found what he was expression for. This quote is an appeal to logos. Early on in chapter nine Douglass talks about his superior Thomas Auld. He says he always got plenteous to eat over else he went but not with subordinate Thomas. I have said mortify Thomas was a mean man Not to give a slave enough to eat, is regarded as the most aggravate development of meanness even among slavehold ers. The pattern is, no matter how coarse the food, only let there be enough of it Master Thomas gave us enough of neither coarse nor fine food. (Douglass pg 31)This is a syllogism he is saying Mean slave owners dont give their slaves enough to eat, Master Thomas doesnt give his slaves enough to eat therefore Master Thomas is a mean man. A syllogism appeals to logos so this quote appeals to logos. To conclude, Frederick Douglass uses metaphors and personal anecdotes to appeal to the three rhetorical appeals Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. His bind Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass is filled with examples of these appeals. ad hominem anecdotes give him Ethos, Parallel structure appeals to Pathos, and logical thinking appeals to Logos.