A Battle Between Hope and Fear

You lost the battle but you haven’t lost the war. This wise farce some how gives us hope. Hope, of keeping on. Hope, of waiting for something better. Hope, of being the best you can be. Hope, of being free. 

Douglass talks about his battle between hope and fear he narrates, all his feelings and emotions, and lets us see his struggle with keeping on. Several times he plans on taking his life, but he never does. He keeps on, hoping that some they he will be free. By the time he arrives at Coveys house the only hope he has left is god, but after time he doesn’t even know if this strenuous idea really exists. If it did why would Douglass be in that horrible situation?

While reading this chapter and seeing Douglass’s battle, I relate this book with Night by Elie Wiesel. This story takes place during the Holocaust but both characters have the same question and the same struggle during the time they where kept from their freedom. Does God really exist? Even though they’ve lost it all, faith is one of the hardest things to loose, but once it’s gone, it’s even harder to get it back. 

Knowledge = Freedom

I have this idea. An idea that explains it all. I don't know how long it'll last, or where it will lead. I feel as if it will take me to a door. A door of freedom and knowledge. Although, there's people and obstacles standing in my way, acting as brick walls, from which I must climb over to get out of this filthy place. I seem to feel a connection with Fredrick Douglass as he, in chapter 6, believes he must learn more and see more of what's out there after getting a small taste of what we now call "wisdom". He must too climb over those high walls to absorb the greatness of being a literate slave. A quality most slave owners fear.

 “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave."

This selection clearly states the necessity Douglass has to overcome this tedious wall of ignorance.  He is eager to taste all the pleasures of freedom, and we certainly can predict that he is not going to stop until he is a free man. 

Ironical Truth

After the first 10 pages of this book, we see how Frederick Douglass manipulates the reader’s thoughts and feelings to make them believe what he wants. It’s the art of persuasion, which makes us change our thoughts and walk on the charters shoes. Using different techniques Douglass catches his audience and makes them want to know what happened next.

It is most evident that Douglass used pathos; the argument of emotion to show how cruel the life of a slave was. He plays with our feelings showing us barbarous acts that get to the inside of owner hearts and develop feelings for his writing. "The poor man was then informed by his overseer that, for having found fault with his master, he was now going to be sold to a Georgia trader. He was immediately chained and handcuffed; and thus, without a moment's warning, he was snatched away, and forever sundered, from his family and friends, by hand more unrelenting than death."

Facts. The most important thing while using logos is too use real events, and information too prove your point. " To be accused was to be convicted, and to be convicted was to be punished; the one always following the other with immutable certainty." he mentions how one mistake, as big as it was, would always be punished in the same way.

Finally, the use of ethos. At the end of chapter 3, Douglass talks about how slaves would defend their masters of being better than other masters. How ironic can that be? He talks about how they believe that being the slave of a richer and more powerful man, would give then some kind of status among the slaves. But they were ignorant about the fact that their owners had no right to do such a thing as have them enslaved, to take their freedom away and to play with them as little puppets. "They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man’s slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!"

The Never Ending Patern of Discrimiantion and Slavery

Slavery comes in all shapes and sizes, yet has been evolved and renewed in each country. Many believe it ended more than 200 years ago, but what they don't know is that there exist numerous other ways to enslave a person. Through out history we encounter various events where even though slavery was "illegal", people were taken away from their families, their homes, their life’s, put into situations where they had no choice but to follow orders, and in return they got nothing but the "privilege" of preserving their life’s. 

World War ll is probably the biggest prove that slavery went over all treaties and boundaries set on this issue. Millions of Jews where forced to leave everything behind and come to a place where human rights were as real as flying unicorns. This people had to work for their lives, they had to please whatever wish their commander had, even if it went against their own believes, if by this time they had any left. The worst part is that the vast majority didn't live to tell the story, they where put into an oven or just starved to death, because to some crazy psychopath they were just animals with no value. Where was the rest of the world to stop this?

Even though the time setting is totally different, we find very similar stories in these two events of history. Till today we see how people are discriminated for there believes, their skin color, or anything that goes against what society has planned for us. If we don’t learn how to see people for what’s on the inside we are never going to stop the cycle of discrimination and slavery.