Oppression and Resistance in Douglass’s Narrative

Oppression and Resistance in Douglass’s Narrative

In Frederick Douglass’s narrative, he gives the story of his life and how he lived as slave. The narrative begins by talking about Douglass’s birth in Tuckahoe, Maryland. Douglass confirms that he does not know his accurate age, nor does he know his father. However, he says he saw his mother rarely who they were separated while he was an infant. At the beginning of the story, Douglass gives an insight into the life of a slave and confirms that separation from mothers and not knowing about age and paternity as common among slaves. He says that most masters wished for that to keep the slaves ignorant. In the narrative, Douglas presents several tactics that slaveholders used to oppress their slaves. Firstly, slaveholders decreased the slaves’ confidence in acting freely. Douglass gives an example of how slaves were encouraged to get drunk during the holidays. According to Douglass, the act of drinking during holidays were made to lead slaves to think in a certain way (Douglass, 2019). Slaveholders wanted slaves to think that they would fail if left to live on their own.

Secondly, slaveholders developed the skills of painful literacy among slaves. When Douglass was introduced to reading by Mrs. Auld to learn basic reading and ABCs, Auld discovers and rebukes her for teaching a slave. Auld tells his wife that if she teaches a nigger to read, he will be unfit to be a slave and become unmanageable (Douglass, 2019). Douglas learns the truth of this prophecy later. After learning how to read, he felt that reading gave him a wretched condition, without offering a solution to solve the condition. At some point, he envied his fellow-slaves for their stupidity (Douglass, 2019). More so, slaveholders robbed time for liberating silence from slaves. Douglass argues that they were overworked, and not given time to read or think. He gives an example of how he was overworked by Mr. Covey until his soul, body and spirit were broken. In his narrative, he says that his intellect weakened and his mood to read diminished because of overworking. The slaveholders also robbed slaves a humble time by ensuring that they were continuously occupied in mind, either by work or liberty.

Moreover, slaveholder kept slave aware of their depended status through gratitude. Slaveholder increased dependency by linking rewards of comfort and position to faithful service. Slaves who were seeking positions in the slaveholder’s plantation wanted to please their overseers. Given that the overseer gives positions and rewards, the slaves became grateful and dependent recipients. This dependency is shown in sports, dancing and drinking during holidays among slaves. Through this tactic, slaveholders wanted to be seen as givers of good things and the slaves as thankful, passive receivers (Douglass, 2019). Finally, slaveholders broke slaves’ relationships with family and community. As researchers have proven, freedom is linked with a community. Douglas narrates how he was separated from his mother at a young age before reaching twelve years old. Although he did not know what its meaning was, Douglass thought it was made to interfere with the development of a child’s affections towards the mother and destroy the natural affection of mothers to their child. In another example, Douglas remembers of a new community that he had formed with his fellow slaves who attended Sabbath school (Douglass, 2019). He was removed from the new community and jailed after his plan to escape were discovered.

Nonetheless, slaves applied differed approaches to resist slavery by their masters. Douglass’s life experiences show some of the resistance approaches that slaves could apply. Firstly, learning how to read and reading many books was a significant way to resist. According to Douglass, books changed his worldview; he recognized that reading was an opportunity to explore possibilities of life (Douglass, 2019). Reading is a necessity that is meaningful for self-creation and helps individuals explore possibilities of life. Also, engaging slaveholder in a physical fight was another way to resist oppression. For example, Douglass was worked and beaten to exhaustion by Mr. Covey until they engaged in a fight. After the fight that Douglass won, the beating and overworking stopped (Douglass, 2019). Lastly, slaves could form communities to build a good relationship. This relationship brought the experience of affection to them. For example, when Douglass was planning to escape for the first time, he was in a community. The escape plan was a community affair as Douglass states in the narrative.

Reference

Douglass, F. (2019). Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass. Dreamscape Media, LLC.