. In what way does Frederick Douglass’s slave narrative embody a striving for freedom through a journey toward self-definition?

. In what way does Frederick Douglass’s slave narrative embody a striving for freedom through a journey toward self-definition?

Frederick Douglass was born around the year 1818, a time which legal slavery was being practised in America. He was born in Talbot County, Maryland. He did not know the exact dates for his birth, something common to people born during the era of slavery. During his early life, Douglass lived with his maternal grandmother after the death of his mother when he was around ten years of age. He got separated from his mother at a very young age, and he narrates that he only saw his mother about five times in his life, something common among slaves. Douglass narrates how he saw brutal beatings of slaves in the plantations of his owner Colonel Edward Lloyd. He slept on the floor with his head placed inside a corn sack while his feet exposed out to the cold, as was also the case with the other slaves, old and young, female and male.

When he was around seven years old, Douglass was sent to work for Hugh Auld, who was a ship carpenter in Baltimore. He states that he almost felt like a free man in the city compared to how he was in the plantations. During these times, slaves and children born in slavery were forbidden from being acquiring an education. In spite of this ban, Douglass learnt how to read and write after being taught, in discretion, the alphabet by his slaveholder’s wife, Sophia. Sophia contributed a lot to young Douglass’ growing sense of freedom. Hugh Auld, the slaveholder, found out about this and forbade his wife from further teaching him. Douglass did not lose hope, and he began learning from the white children whom he interacted with. He then shared the knowledge he had acquired with the other enslaved people with the aim of making them educated too. At age 15, he got sent back to the plantation where he suffered hunger among other oppressions. He later gets sent to another holder Edward Covey who treated slaves terribly. He recalls how he was beaten, and after running away and getting caught, he fights his holder. This fight strengthens Douglass’ desire to be a free man as shown by his statement: “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man”, (page. 65-66). He gets sent to William Freeland, who was a landowner. Douglass felt that he, together with the other slaves, did not deserve the treatment that they were receiving and the lives which they led.

Douglass explains his excitement upon Hugh Auld, allowing him to work at a shipyard in Baltimore and he was paid wages. This gives him a sense of how freedom feels, and it makes him desire to be free even more. He started having imaginations of how life would be as a free man. He uses the words: “a moment of the highest excitement I have ever experienced. . . I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions” (page. 107) to show how happy he felt about it. Douglass shared his knowledge by teaching his fellow slaves how to read the new testament of the bible during the church service, which they attended once in a week. So many slaves had the urge to read and write that more than 40 slaves would turn out to attend the lessons. Slave owners did not like this initiative, and they would often disperse the slaves during these lessons armed with clubs and stones.

Later in life, around the year 1838, Douglass marries Anna Murray and moves to New Bedford, Massachusetts where he settles fully. Douglass joins a black church and is introduced to the members of William Lloyd Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society in New Bedford.He becomes an anti-slavery lecturer, and he was often asked to tell his story at abolitionist gatherings.

Douglass lived a life full of oppression as a child born to slavery, and as he grew older, the urge to become a free man drove his actions such as the interest to acquire knowledge by reading and opposing his masters’ oppressions such beatings and free labour in the plantations. Despite all these, he was very determined to ensure that he broke himself and other slaves from the chains of slavery. He felt everyone had the right to live freely without having to fear or to be owned by another person, no matter the colour of their skin. He went through a lot, but finally, he managed to emerge a free man and started leading movements against slavery which he did successfully.