Frederick Douglass's "Narrative" 9/14

In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Frederick Douglass accounts the events of his life as a slave, a run away slave, and then as a free man. Writing in 1845 he looks back on a life spent as chattel amongst chattel, knowing nothing of his past or his heritage. From an early age Douglass wants and seeks any information from which to construct his story as, what he knows to be (and is common knowledge as of 1865) a human being whose masters refuse to acknowledge his humanity. One of the more insidious components of the ideology of the antebellum south was the categorical denial of identity and access to histories, including family histories. Consequently, the oral tradition can be considered one basis for a distinctly new world literary tradition, especially so in regards to a uniquely African American literary tradition. With Narrative Douglass committed his experience as an American slave to writing and with it a great amount of that oral tradition. In doing so he made permanent and accessible the story of slavery to those with access to literacy, chipping away at, in a profound and powerful way, the monopoly of the white perspective in the literature about slavery. As put by William Lloyd Garrison, a prominent Massachusetts abolitionist, Narrative was part of the “the great work of breaking the rod of the oppressor and letting the oppressed go free”. Douglass, in his own words prior to his escape, “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man”. This work provided not only that very story, but also provided, at least in part, as argued by Robert O'Meally in his introduction to my edition of the book, the linguistic tools for the enslaved to affect change. The language of Narrative creates a new reality in which all Americans can imagine and take concrete steps toward ending slavery. I think it's really valuable for everyone to read this because the use of the written narrative has been shown here to be vital to “breaking the rod of the oppressor”. This is not only an example of an autobiographical narrative of an American slave that added to the literary basis for abolitionist ideology, but also a linguist context for fighting the vast and interlocking oppressions of our time. Thus, I'm eager to continue to study this text.