Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass, an American Slave- A Necessary Evil
http://www.bajanreporter.com/2009/12/breaking-news-barbadian-students-lashed-for-tardiness
One need not progress very
far in the reading of The Narrative of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave
before realizing the extent to which portrayals of violence against slaves by
their masters, often extremely graphic and highly vivid, play a role in the
description of Douglass' life. Clearly, we know now that violence through a
variety of punishments was the norm on the variety of American plantations
during the period when slavery was existent. Something tells me personally that
most individuals at the time realized this fact as well, be they slave owners
or not (the majority of even Southerners did not actually own slaves, and of
those that did, less than one percent actually had any sizable number of them)
(http://civilwarcauses.org/stat.htm). However, the question must be raised,
that did Douglass truly need as graphic the descriptions as he choose to
include in the text in order to further his cause, make his point clear, and
explain what life was truly like as a slave? As an educated African-American,
he already creates much skepticism over that which he has to say. After all,
during a time when so many of the African-American complexions are enslaved,
what made this one individual somehow different and uniquely qualified to weigh
in on the issue with "educated" Americans?
Yet above
all, beyond the abolitionist motivations and such, it seems that Douglass
included these graphic descriptions because that was the way in which he
personally recalled these events happening at the time. This was the unadulterated
impression such violence had left upon him. This was the manner of treatment in
which his being had been exposed to from a very early age of his life.
Additionally, many of the worst things he had seen had been as a young boy, or
certainty at an age prior to adulthood. Thus, a child at this age is not likely
to see fit to internalize something as horrific as seeing his fellow slaves
bleed at the behest of masters as anything less than face value. Every sensory
input he was exposed to during these events would be well affected.
One of the best examples of this comes at the end of the
first chapter of the text, where Douglass describes the beating of a slave
named "Aunt Hester." Having not seen such a display of violence
before in his young life, the act caused him to be "so terrified and
horror stricken at the sight, that [he] hid in a closet and dared not venture
out till long after the bloody transaction was over" (Douglas, chapter 1).
What stands out to the reader about this section more than anything is not so
much that the then young Douglass was exposed to such horrific violence at a
young age, but that the slave in question was of apparent beauty exceeding most
all women in the region, both white and black, and that she had been caught
with another master's slave. Perhaps Douglass is alluding to the idea that the
master meant to have her to himself, and having another slave lie with her,
made her master appear poorly. Either way, the graphic of the representation of
this scene in particular is absolutely necessary for the tone of the narrative
overall.
Did Douglass need to include the graphic and violent scenes in his narrative? As you and I agree, of course he did. Without these scenes this narrative would be about a book of a young slave trying to pry his way to freedom. Although the book is already about that, the gruesome scenes grab the readers attention due to their violent and inhumane nature. The scene that particularly grabbed my attention was when Aunt Hester was brutally tortured. Douglass sheds light on the fact that he was just a young boy when he first saw a bloody encounter. It must be noted that the "bloody encounter" portrays the scene lightly. This encounter was so sickening that it makes the reader question how any human being is capable of such actions. It astonishes me that a child who witnessed this was able to educate himself and resiliently find a way out of slavery. After reading this post I am left with one question. Do you think that Douglass could have depicted the scene in a more efficient way? As in, was the scene placed in the best spot of the narrative? I think that if Douglass opened his narrative with this scene that it would really shock the reader into reality. In other words, I believe many people are ignorant of the true realities of slavery and I think that Douglass attempted to shed light on some of them.
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