Douglass Narrative

As we have seen in previous orations, the spoken word is more compelling and profound than any other narrative of the time. Douglass paints a portrait of the experiences he had as a slave and uses specific detail of the day to day circumstances. In many ways, it is like a documentary of slavery. There is a show on MTV that I sometimes watch called True Life, in which an individual is followed from the moment he/she wakes up to the moment they go to sleep taking into account their daily struggles, activities of daily living, and psychosocial responses. Many times they are dealing with a special circumstance such as having a disability or addiction. Frederick Douglass's narrative speaks that he used corn bags to keep warm because he had so little clothing to use. I cannot even fathom sleeping in a corn bag! They are rough, itchy, and often smell of cow manure. In addition, he was always hungry and reacted in beastly retaliation in protection of his food when he was feed. This an instinctive response that depicted slave owners treatment of slaves as creatures of burden. Douglass accomplishes the portrayal of slavery in the most raw and uncensored account of cruelty from the perspective of the black man. It is difficult to determine if whether women or men had it worse as slaves. I rather not even consider giving pity, the human condition is just the same to me, however we learn from Douglass that the black man was a undeniable target for much violence and callousness.