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Narrative Of Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

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Every time an author writes a book, they have some sort of purpose. Whether it is to tell the reader about an experience or inform the reader about a situation. In Narrative of Frederick Douglass his goal in the story is to not only to show/inform the reader the cruelty of slavery but to persuade the reader of the evils of slavery to the slaveholder and the slave. He uses many devices to portray his thinking, and to persuade the reader that not only are slaves affected by slavery, but the slaveholders too. He uses literary devices to show slavery in a different light such irony, anecdotes, and imagery.
• Throughout the book Douglass uses many rhetoric and arguementive strategies to persuade the reader. He often uses irony to show the reality …show more content…
Douglass used this numerous times throughout the book, on page 85 he wrote. “He then gave me a savage kick in the side... He gave me another kick… I staggered and fell down... Mr. Covey took up the hickory stick slat… and gave me a heavy blow upon me… These descriptive words such as heavy blow, savage kick in my side and blood ran freely give the reader such vivid images of Douglass being beaten ruthlessly by the slaveholder. In Douglass' narrative, he discusses his brutal beatings from Mr. Covey, then one day Douglass had enough of it and fought back. They ought or at least 3 hours, but from that day forward e was never beaten again. But just because his slave life was getting better didn’t mean that the other humans sought anymore of him. For example, this quote talks about how he was at work and the white men would not work with a man of color, thinking that they were peon to him. “They, however, came upon me, armed with sticks, stones, and heavy handspikes… I could whip the whole lot of the… one of their number gave, with his heavy boot, a powerful kick in my left eye. (Page 104). After the fight Douglass went and told his master what happen, but he then realized that his master could never testify for his slave and that even if he got the other colored people who saw to testify for him a thousand of them testifying wouldn’t even put a

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