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Frederick Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, was his first of three autobiographies written about his experiences both during and following his life as a slave. It is his Narrative that lays the foundation for not only his following works, but for an entire genre. The Narrative is Douglass tool for establishing himself as an abolitionist leader as well as an escaped slave. While the Narrative does hold much merit as a tale of political struggle, it seems to be charged more with the complications of the struggles endured in the attempt to progress on a spiritual level. This realm of spiritual development is then countered by the lack of movement on more concrete levels, specifically those of a uniform, legal liberation and a mental and emotional liberation from slavery s chains which bind the slave and free man alike.
These opposite forces are in constant struggle with one another, making all cases of progress cases of regress as well. Progression, for Douglass, becomes both a form and a cause of the regression that precedes it. It is somewhere in the middle of the movement forward and the regression back again that Douglass comes to know himself; it is in the midst of this battle for spirituality that he encounters and develops his faith, he comes to terms with himself as a man, and he comes to terms with himself as not only a man, but a black man, and an American slave. Douglass Narrative is, in many parts, one that focuses much on physical events of his life.
It is the reflection upon events in his life as they occurred. The physical, tangible details are important in the novel because they not only paint pictures of past experiences for the reader, but they offer a chronology of his slave experience as a whole which is both visible and comprehensible. This allows the reader to vividly see both maturation and decay of Douglass as a person and of the institution of slavery. Both the physical and literal regression of Douglass and his environment and the immaterial progression of Douglass spirituality can be perceived as if on a spectrum. As a cause and effect motion, each end and extreme is continuously extended outward to maintain the balance in the middle.
Progress and regress again take on physical natures when they become personified in their fight against each other. When a boy of seven or eight, Douglass recalls his excitement at moving to Baltimore. He is uncertain as to what expectations he should hold, although he feels that there is no place that he could dislike more than Colonel Lloyd s plantation. Even at this young age, Douglass could grasp the notion that no matter how hard the struggle in Baltimore may be, he had already been prepared for it by his treatment at the plantation and he then felt ready to endure any further hardship. Douglass left without a regret, and with the highest hopes of future happiness (p. 32). Other instances of regress producing spiritual progress were the occurrences at Covey s.
The extent of the torture that Douglass endured was at points horrible enough for him to consider taking his own life. But to counter this physical regress, Douglass seats himself near the bay to watch the ships pass by. It is here that he considers that his misery in slavery shall secure him greater happiness as a free man (which he vows to one day be). No matter what the struggle or burden, for Douglass, there is a better day coming (p. 67).
It seems apparent how the weight of his physical troubles create in him a stronger sense of self and a sharper will and determination to bring himself above and beyond his circumstances. His narration regarding the hardships at Covey s illustrate the motion of the regress and the progress as each attempt to defeat the other. The early stages of Douglass fight to lift himself above his circumstances begin as his faith starts to evolve. In the midst of this developing spirituality, Douglass begins to have hope and to let factors in his life be functions of faith.
As he grows spiritually and begins to encounter his true self and its worth, he also begins to realize that his own strength may not be enough and that he may have to rely on things outside of himself, like Sandy s root, to help guide him through. This process, however, is not an easy one for Douglass because of the lack of people and things that have proven themselves trustworthy to him. His faith moves forward much like his spirituality does as it becomes heightened with the wrongs done to him. His faith is a process of testing; all that Douglass had ever known had been ill to him. The place that he lived was not home, his family members were either dead or blotted from his memory as existing as family at all; he had a young heart overborne with sadness, and a soul full of apprehension (p. 47). Douglass must counter these conditions in his mind and the reader sees his faith evolve only when he can ascertain his own strength and value.
Because the Narrative is based primarily on reflection, the reader encounters Douglass on two levels. One first sees him at the time the events are taking place (a child in many senses) and then sees him as he comments and reflects back upon these situations and the way that they have shaped his life. The development of his faith can be traced from when he was a child of 6 or 7 who watched his aunt being beat bloody, the circumstances of which he could not even understand. Even though the master s desire for psychological control and his sexual desires for Douglass aunt may not have been fully comprehended by the 6 year old, this instance was to him an initiation into the hell of slavery whose blood stained gates he would soon pass through.
At this point in the Narrative, Douglass understands little except for the fact that his life is doomed to be much like the lives of his abused aunt and the other slaves around him. Instances of Douglass of faith are portrayed first by his literacy and secondly by his willingness to accept Sandy Jenkins root as protective. Literacy becomes Douglass initial form of faith. Learning to read and to write were the devices that would help him gain control and eventually open the doors to his freedom. In one sense, his ability to read allowed him further insight into the life that he led which thereby gave him greater opportunity to survive both in it and outside of it.
Even though Douglass claims to have envied the ignorant and illiterate slave and wishes to be anything other than what he is in order to avoid thinking, he also realizes that he had once been shut up in mental darkness, and his literacy would lead him down the pathway from slavery to freedom (pp. 83, 36). His oppression gave him a desire to break free, a motivation to excel, which he found in his ability to read and to write; he found what gave the white man power over the black man and Douglass was learning to overcome this power through progression of his self and his faith. Another significant action and reliance on faith is portrayed when Douglass finally allows some credit to be given to the protective powers of the root given to him by Sandy Jenkins. His partial acceptance of the root as charmed gives him the advantage of fighting with more than himself because he is fighting with hope on his side.
This becomes a significant action because Douglass not only places his faith in the object given to him, but also in Sandy. This act of trust shows Douglass mind opening to the intermediates that fall between the stereotypical notions of slave and slaveholder. One of the central issues of the novel and focuses of Douglass himself is the identification of the slave as a person. It is the breaking away from the objectification of the institution of slavery and the consequent moving into a realization of self as having value and definition beyond the term of slave.
Again, this only takes place as Douglass struggles to tolerate and eventually rise above the physical injustices he met with in his life. In finding awareness of himself as a man, Douglass goes through three stages. Initially, he sees himself as a fragment of something much larger than himself. Throughout the early experiences narrated in the novel, Douglass seems to identify himself as part of the collective mass of slaves who have no personal identity aside from that of the objects they are characterized as. He sees himself as a slave more than he does as a person. His function and his worth at this point in his life are dependent upon the duties given to him by the slaveholder and the location in which he is to do them.
Douglass recalls the slaves who had been sent to work at the Great House Farm. Only the smartest and most trusty fellow[s] were sent there and to the slaves, this was considered a high privilege (p. 13). Achieving this higher level was a consequence of being a good slave and having confidence placed in one by one s master. Being witness to his aunt s beatings gave Douglass his first step towards the development of his inner self, and this made him aware that he, like all the others, would soon file in through the blood stained gates. The emphasis at this point is on the generalization of the passage that he is now joining a multitude. In Douglass second stage of defining himself as a man, he proceeds to separate himself from this mass, which enables him to see the injustice as belonging to him individually as well as to the population of slaves in general.
It is only when he learns to read that Douglass can begin to define himself and recognize himself as something outside of that generalized group. The opening of these doors let Douglass into a world where he felt that he deserved to be a world of freedom and opportunity. His literacy prompted his continual thinking about his situation and also prompted his growing hatred of his enslaver's, both individually and collectively. In seeing himself as a man partially separate from other men, Douglass starts to establish his duties, both to himself and to others. Once Douglass fixates himself as an individual apart from the mass of slaves (yet still one of them), he begins a self defining process in order to determine what and who exactly he is. It was due to the horrifying experiences at Covey s that Douglass grew the most.
The long physical sufferings of violent beatings, intolerable working conditions, and other inhumane settings succeeded in defeating Douglass in body, soul, and spirit as the dark night of slavery surrounded him and darkened his perspective (p. 66). But again, as the reader sees throughout the narrative, Douglass counters this with a stronger and more determined sense of hope and faith that he will persevere. I believe that the most important aspect of his self recognition comes after his altercation with Covey. Douglass himself states that his victory relit any old hopes of freedom, recalled former self confidence, and most importantly, reestablished his sense of manhood. Once he can see himself as a man and not just a slave, he can validate his longings for freedom not only for himself but for all men and women who had passed through the bloody gates with him. While Douglass realization of himself as a man is a significant step in securing his freedom, it is his third step towards self definition that provides the greatest benefit.
His recognition of himself as a black man prompts the most movement towards conquering slavery in his own life and in his own mind and in the lives and the minds of others. While it is obvious that slavery can never be abolished in the lives of those who shared its brutality and those who share its heritage, I believe that Douglass goal was to beat slavery before slavery could beat him or beat any more of his fellow slaves, their families, friends, and any and all who supported the abolitionist movement. From the beginning of the novel, Douglass blackness and the African American in general were purposely hidden among the darkness of the morality of his tales and among the darkness of the physical world. By doing this, Douglass creates an almost shameful portrayal of the black person. This is illustrated by Douglass interactions with his mother, which only took place in the darkness where she was with him in the night, both in the blackness of the evening but also in the blackness of their lives, their persons, and their outcomes. There is a stark contrast in this blackness; it was here that Douglass could hide in fear, but here also that he could feel safe and feel a sense of belonging the slaves held on to their hopes for freedom in the darkness.
This was the time they had to themselves, the time they had to see spouses and children, the only time they had to establish themselves as something more than a tool in a field or an instrument of labor. The sentiment that comes across is that a black man or woman can hold no value in the light of day and in the light of society and that their proper place, if not working for white masters, is hidden away in that darkness. For Douglass to come to terms with who he was as a black man meant separating himself even further from other slaves to establish a self identity made up of more than the definition of colored person as a slave. Again, the physical downward spiral of the tragedies of slavery affect Douglass and create in him the notion that as a man he deserves better and as a black man, he deserves equality.
Towards the end of the Narrative, Douglass appears to have made a connection with his heritage. By this point he has fully separated himself from the slave class through his comprehension of himself as belonging to that group yet an individual outside of it as well. He now becomes aware of himself as part of another assemblage that of the black race. In speaking about the underground railroad, Douglass sees problems with the openness of the plans. He feels that no hints regarding the escapes should be let out for they might allow one to trace the footprints of our flying brother (p. 100).
This connection between himself and the escaping slave can also be seen as the commonality of their sufferings endured as slaves, but it must also be noted as his link to his heritage and to his people who are indeed slaves, but African Americans as well. They are his own brother children of a common Father (p. 106). I believe that it is this more complete self understanding and realization of himself as a black man that drives him to take his powerful stand against the institution and the injustice. Because of the long sufferings Douglass endured as a black American slave, he grew spiritually, mentally, and intellectually and because of his tragedies, he triumphed into a dedicated leader and into an educator of the people. Douglass succeeded in making himself into something that could move beyond slavery and eventually hold more power over it than it did over him. The development of his faith, the development of his concept of himself as a man and the development of his concept of himself as a black man all served to create in him the strength that led him to the control that he desired.
It was the struggle between the powers of inner strength and progress and the powers of physical and literal defeats and regressions that allowed Douglass this deeper sense of self. This gave him the determination and the force to fight against the injustices done to him and to his fellow American slaves.
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