Like so many other slaves of his time, Frederick Douglass faced the cruel hardships of being born into a life of bondage. However, he obtained the greatness of freedom that many slaves could only dream of. As a result, we have the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, which sheds light on the horrid conditions of slavery in the south, and the hard work of the abolitionists fighting for the freedom of slaves around the United States. He writes of his experiences on the plantation under the watch of savage overseers, and in the city - learning to read and write and earn a living. He speaks of some similarities and many differences between his rural and urban experiences, and in this essay I hope to prove this point.
             One of the similarities between living on the plantation and living in Baltimore was that the masters knew the dangers of teaching slaves to read. Teaching a slave to read meant the master would not be able to keep the slave, because he/she would become unfit for slavery. He/she would "become unmanageable" and be of no use to the master (47).
             Another similarity is the extreme prejudice against the blacks. Even in Baltimore, a free black was still not considered of equal status to a white man. The employment field was very biased to whites, and blacks could not fight this. If they did, it almost certainly wouldn't have made a difference, and possibly even endangered the life of the black (99).
             The differences, however, far outweigh the similarities. In the instance of food, for example, on the plantation each slave was barely given enough to eat, and very little time in which to eat it. It was also far from nutritious, and the slaves would not be in good condition, for they were working too hard on very little substance (71). In Baltimore, Douglass had plenty to eat. He never felt the pain of hunger while he was living there.
             The type of work expected done on the plantation wa...