ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his
             birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time,
             springtime, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of
             unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I
             could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege" (Douglass 19). This
             passage clearly indicates differences between white children and slave children. These
             differences build the foundation for demeaning the child into a slave and removing his
             manhood from his soul. This is the start of the process that extracts a brute from a child.
             Throughout the narrative Douglass uses the word 'brute', to form the image that
             slaves were nothing more than beasts. This is only one of the numerous examples in
             which Douglass creates the image of a dehumanized slave though the use of his
             vocabulary. Douglass states, "I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity
             was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark
             that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a
             man transformed into a brute!" (Douglass 73). Douglass makes it clear to the reader that
             slavery degrades a man, and makes him loose his manhood. According to Douglass,
             slavery transformed humans into beasts. Douglass was no longer a man; he was in every
             essence an animal transformed by the brutality of slavery into a mindless worker.
             ...