A journey from slavery to freedom in "narrative of the life” by frederick douglass

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and former slave Frederick Douglass during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States.

In Frederick Douglass’s “ Narrative of the Life” he maps out his entire journey from slavery to freedom. As the book begins, he is an enslaved man mentally and physically. By the end of the book, Frederick is free within his mind and legally his body is free also. The book is a path of Frederick Douglass’s life from being held and enslaved during the time of slavery, to be free after the abolition of slavery.

Throughout this book, since it is a narrative about his life, it relates exceptionally to the time period when all the events were taking place during the 1800’s. There were many things that Frederick realized along with his journey and people he met that influenced his life. He experiences many different things along this path to freedom that leads to the man he is when writing the book.

During this time period, women were treated like trash, no matter their race. However, women slaves were treated just as male slaves were, like property. They were beaten so badly that sometimes they couldn’t move. It was scary and unhealthy to be exposed to as a young man, but Douglass was. He watched his aunt be beaten, barely knows his parents before they die, and isn’t given permission to go to his mother’s funeral.

This time period was years on end where African Americans were treated with no respect, as pieces of property, because with slavery, in fact, they were property. Thankfully after the Civil War, the African Americans were able to be their own people, but they didn’t have money or jobs to do so. Leading them to have to keep the jobs they had as slaves, just with little to no pay in order to survive.

Douglass shares his amazing story of a slave to a free man in a telling tale. His life is in a book for all to look back on and read over and over again. His narrative not only shares his life, the things he endured while becoming a free man, and the terrible things that slaves had to go through, but it also showed the time period and the things that went on during the 1800’s. This book shows a great deal of information regarding the time period it is written in.