In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass reveals his theme of oppression of slaves in the first four chapters. He describes witnessing severe punishments of slaves that showed they were seen as less than human. Douglass discusses an overseer shooting and killing a slave named Demby without facing legal consequences, demonstrating how little value was placed on slaves' lives. Douglass uses these examples to develop his theme that slavery dehumanized and oppressed people. He aims to convey to readers that slavery was an abhorrent institution.
In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass reveals his theme of oppression of slaves in the first four chapters. He describes witnessing severe punishments of slaves that showed they were seen as less than human. Douglass discusses an overseer shooting and killing a slave named Demby without facing legal consequences, demonstrating how little value was placed on slaves' lives. Douglass uses these examples to develop his theme that slavery dehumanized and oppressed people. He aims to convey to readers that slavery was an abhorrent institution.
In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass reveals his theme of oppression of slaves in the first four chapters. He describes witnessing severe punishments of slaves that showed they were seen as less than human. Douglass discusses an overseer shooting and killing a slave named Demby without facing legal consequences, demonstrating how little value was placed on slaves' lives. Douglass uses these examples to develop his theme that slavery dehumanized and oppressed people. He aims to convey to readers that slavery was an abhorrent institution.
In his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass
reveals his theme of oppression, in chapters 1-4, by repeating ideas of dehumanizing slaves, or african americans in general. Throughout these chapters, he introduces his life as a slave and his mother and talks about his time on Colonel Lloyd's farm. To start, Douglass repeats his idea of slaves being dehumanized through examples of punishment, fear, and family bonds being split. Specifically, Douglass mentions his different experiences of watching people get whipped by the overseers a couple of times throughout the chapters. One example he mentions is “I have seen him whip a woman, causing the blood to run half an hour at the time” (18-19). Douglass is proving exactly how common these situations were. He’s watched woman, men, even his own aunt punished in severe ways. The sentence’s discussion of severe punishment introduces the concept of dehumanizing. The slave owners don’t care of the pain they are inflicting on the slaves, the fact that they are punishing people like they are less than humans develops Douglass’s theme of oppression. Sometimes, these punishments went further than just a few whips on their backs. Next, the harshest of overseers can take their punishments to the next level- cold-blooded murder. In chapter 4, Douglass talks about how a young overseer shot a slave named Demby for not following orders. Douglass explains “...that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community” (26). The overseer was not convicted or tried for his crime of killing Demby. Douglass indicates that the nature of colored people taken to be slaves resulted in the white slave owners dehumanizing these slaves. The law and society thought slave’s lives were worth so little, that murdering a white person was a crime, but murdering a colored person was not. Douglas also added how cheap it was to bury a slave. White people thought colored people weren’t worth the trouble. This further develops Douglass’s theme of oppression against slaves. Therefore, through the motifs of white people punishing and dehumanizing slaves, Frederick Douglass reveals and develops his theme of oppression. Ultimately, Frederick wants the reader to conclude that slavery is an abomination. He uses example of the frequent punishments Douglass has watched over slaves experience through his time and explains the difference between the life worth of a white person compared to a slave. Douglass has told and shown so much in just four chapters. Douglass had to face a lot of struggles as a slave and after.