Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)

Things to Consider:

• Identity: Racial, Sexual, Spiritual
• Role of Religion
• Manhood
• Comparison with Equiano and Jacobs
• Education
• Relationships among Slaves
• Chiasmus:  A type of balance in which the second part is balanced against the first part but with the parts reversed.  From the Greek chi: X.  (Also known as antimetabole). 

** Homework Questions ** ( See Q's for Part Two )

• Why would masters want to keep  their slaves ignorant of their birthdays?
• In discussing the separation of slave-mothers from their children, Douglass says, "For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child.  This is the inevitable result" (272). Does his mother's behavior support or contradict Douglass's belief?  Explain.

• Explain:  "To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery" (276).

Why do the slaves fight over whose master is "best"?  What does "best" mean?  How might the masters view these fights?

• Douglass says that Mr. Gore "was just the man for such a place, and it was just the place for such a man" (279).  What literary technique does Douglass use here?  Present another example of this technique from this page.

• Why, according to Mr. Auld, would teaching Douglass how to read "forever unfit him to be a slave" (283)?  Would Douglass agree with him? Explain.

• When describing Mrs. Auld, why does Douglass say, "Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me" (284)?

• Why does Douglass sometimes view learning to read as "a curse rather than a blessing" (285)?

• How does Captain Auld's religious conversion make him "more cruel and hateful in his ways" (290)?

• When did Douglass escape from slavery? (See also 308)

• Why do slave-children of masters "invariably suffer greater hardships" than others?

• Explain Douglass's description of his reaction to seeing his aunt being whipped:  "It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. . . .  I wish  I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it" (274).

• Explain:  "It was no small affair, in the eyes of the slaves, to be allowed to see Baltimore" (275).

• Explain:  "[Mr. Severe's] death was regarded by the slaves as the result of merciful providence" (276).
• Why was Mr. Hopkins considered a "good overseer"?
• Why was it a "privilege" to go to Great House Farm?

Explain:  "A still tongue makes a wise head" (278).

• What reasoning does Mr. Gore give for killing Demby?

• Why does Douglass spend most of the three days before going to Baltimore in the creek?
• Explain:  "Being hanged in England is preferable to dying a natural death in Ireland" (281).

• Where is Smith's Wharf? Bowley's Wharf?
• Why does he consider being selected to go to Baltimore "as a special interposition of divine Providence"(282)?

• How does Douglass continue his education after Mrs. Auld stops teaching him?
• Why won't he reveal the identities of his "instructors"?

• In terms of escape, why are "the chances of success . . . tenfold greater from the city than from the country" (289)?

• Explain:  "Of all men, adopted slaveholders are the worse" (290)?

• Is Mr. Covey successful in "breaking" Douglass?  Explain.

• Why does Sandy Jenkins give Douglass a root? Does it work?  Explain.

• Explain:  "I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact" (297).
• Why doesn't Covey have Douglass punished for his resistance?

• Why are the religious slaveholders the worst?

• Why will no white man volunteer to testify on Douglass's behalf after he's severely beaten?

• Why doesn't Douglass give all the details regarding his escape from slavery?

• Why does he call Northerners "legalized kidnappers"(309)?

• How does the black community react to the threat of one of their members to "turn in" a fugitive?  Is this reaction justified?  Explain.

• What is the difference between the "Christianity of this land" and the "Christianity of Christ"?

• Explain:  "Mr. Covey's forte consisted in his power to deceive" (293)?

• What purpose does the slave holiday between Christmas and New Years' serve for the slaveholder?

• Explain:  "I will give Mr. Freeland the credit of being the best master I ever had, till I became my own master" (300).

• Why does Betsy Freeland call Douglass a "yellow devil" (302)?

• Why does his master send him back to Baltimore?

• Explain:  "To make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one" (305).

• What is the "upperground railroad" (306)?  Why is it dangerous?

• Why does Douglass prefer keeping none of his wages to keeping what amounts to 1% of them?

• Explain Douglass's feelings upon reaching a free state.

• What motto does Douglass adopt?  Why?
• Who is Anna Murray?  Has she been discussed before?(see 280)  How does her portrayal compare to those of comparable characters in Jacobs or Equiano?

• How does Douglass get his last name?

• Why can't Douglass get a job in the North as a calker?

• What is the purpose of the Appendix?

• Explain the point of the poem found at the end of the narrative.