Douglass' Method of Persuasion My Bondage and My Freedom
My Bondage and My Freedom is widely considered to be one of the mosthistorically influential documents produced in the midst of theabolitionist movement. Written by a former slave, the memoir served as amoving argument against the inhuman institution of slavery in Americanhistory. Interestingly, however, although Douglass was an incrediblyeducated man, he did not resort to arguments of reason or philosophy in thework in an attempt to illustrate the immorality of slavery. Instead,perhaps because of his education and natural intelligence, coupled with akeen awareness of public (white) sensibility, he refrained from attackingthose responsible for using slaves, as well as those responsible forsupporting the institution, itself. Instead, recognizing the limitationsof his time and dominant social culture, he used the device of emotion toconvey the brutality to the sympathetic side of his reader's psyches. The genre of the "slave memoir" was hardly a novel form during theyears of the abolitionist movement. Indeed, several accounts
exist of theexperiences of emancipated or escaped slaves. (33) In fact, Douglass even went so far as to describe the murder of afellow slave, not much more than a child, by a woman, no less-writing, "Thewife of Mr. " (15) Indeed, using this method of illustration was exponentially moreeffective than mere ethical arguments-and Douglass was well aware of thatfact. In conclusion, Frederick Douglass used the best tool at his disposalto make the point of the inhumanity of slavery abundantly clear to hisaudience. To be sure, Douglass was very much a man of his times,meaning that he fully understood the limitations of his power ofpersuasion. However, during that time,although such accounts did gain popular readership, and even greaterreadership within anti-slave circles, the accounts were often regarded withsome amount of suspicion. I have know him to tie her upearly in the morning and hip her before breakfast, leave her, go to hisstore, return at dinner, and whip her gain, cutting her in the placesalready made raw with his cruel lash. After all, abolitionist or not, many whites would haveconsidered any attack upon their race as a group to be on some level, quiterepugnant. In this, he was (and remains today) immenselysuccessful. Giles Hick, living but a short distance from where I used tolive, murdered my wife's cousin, a young girl between fifteen and sixteenyears of age, mangling her person in the most horrible manner. Indeed, many charged that the stories comingfrom the pens (or oral accounts) of former slaves were either negativelyskewed or fabricated, or were outright fictional propaganda, forged bywhite abolitionists with political (as well as economic) motives. Douglass knew that he had to avoid that trap if his message wasto be persuasive. It is for this reason that ex-slave abolitionists like FredrickDouglass specifically used emotional arguments to mould the responses oftheir readership-especially in his 1855 work, My Bondage and My Freedom. After all, trying to explain to someone that "causinganother to suffer is bad," is much more complicated than showing themsuffering for themselves-then, allowing their psyche to come to thatconclusion.
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Acceptance Essays
