Frederick Douglass was born into a world of callous racism that would do anything but help him become a powerful and influential being. After years of slavery Douglass slowly began to recognize the power of reading and this gave him the confidence and knowledge to plan an escape from the life of slavery. On September 3, 1838, Frederick Douglass finally escapes slavery and heads north to reach his free life. In the excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Mr., Douglass recounts his emotions on escaping slavery and arriving in New York in 1838. Upon his arrival Douglass expresses feelings of excitement, fear, and loneliness through the use of figurative speech, diction and repetition.
             Throughout the passage Frederick Douglass uses figurative speech such as simile, metaphor, and hyperbole to reveal his feeling of excitement and then his change to fear as he explains his free life in New York. Frederick Douglass could not find the words to express his feelings of leaving behind his life in slavery. In writing to a dear friend, after his arrival Douglass uses simile when he say's he felt like the "unarmed mariner," when he is rescued by a friendly man from the pursuit of a pirate. In this one sentence the reader can infer the gist of the passage, being about the characters bad experiences with slavery, and his exuberant joy of becoming free. The day of his escape was one of the highest excitements he ever felt. The reader begins to realize he is no longer subdued to pain and sarrow. Frederick Douglass also uses simile when he exclaims he felt like one who has escaped "a den of hungry lions." From this statement the reader begins to acknowledge Frederick Douglass' gladness and joy as he no longer has any bonds that had held him to his old masters because they were finally broken. Frederick Douglass is now his own master. The feeling of being your own boss and no longer having someone destroying your happiness creat...