A slave sits in the corner of the shack looking out towards the moonlit sky; he scans the horizon, making sure no one lurks in the darkness and picks up a pen hidden in the stash of hay lying in the corner. He then unravels his beaten pants to reveal a small, worn-out pamphlet and continues writing on the cramped booklet. The slave, like Frederick Douglass and a few others, risked his own welfare in order to provide himself a small education. Frederick Douglass on the other hand, not only did he risked his life, he overcame it and succeeded in sweeping the table through his autobiography, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In one of his passages, he criticizes the religion of the north and south during his time. This, like other passages, show his critical understanding of the people and ideas of the time. Through complex use of diction and ironic figures of speech, Frederick Douglass projects his voice to retell the journey of a slave whose encounters molded him into a successful, influential, and leading abolitionist.
From a life of slavery to a successful abolitionist orator and writer, Frederick Douglass's intolerance towards slavery shows through the words on the page. An outraged tone directed towards the slaveholders in his past form most of his opinions and ideas present in the autobiography. Frederick Douglass relates most of his description of the slaveholders through such words as: "fiendish barbarity" (27), and "merciless, religious wretch" (85). Repeated usage of the word "evil" and associated words also appear in the autobiography to emphasize his intolerance towards the idea of slavery. This can also be inferred from his consequential turnout as an abolitionist in which he fights against what he came into contact with through his earlier life. He also states close to the end, "It is against religion, as presented by these bodies, that I have felt in my duty to testify" (122) to emphasize his intoleranc...