Narrative of the Life

The opening chapter is Fredrick Douglas’s narrative caught my attention and saddened me quickly. It talks directly about his mother and how she was non-existent in his life not by choice but by the slave owners. But he goes on to tell how he was not alone in this matter and that every slave was separated from his/her mother at about 12 months of age. One quote that caught my attention was this, “ For what this separation has done I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child” (Douglas 931). I really could not imagine who or where I would be today if I didn’t have my mom’s influence of my life. It is scary/sad to think about what these slaves went through.  These slave owners had a “system’ of doing things to keep control of the slaves for example mother being separated and no slave was allowed to learn to read and write. It was all about control.

            The most disturbing part of this story was when he was just seven years old and had to watch the brutal beatings of his Aunt. The scene where he is in the closet watching the Captain hoist her onto a hook and continued to beat her in the chest while Fredrick watched hopelessly. Hearing this just makes me sick kind of embarrassed that our country has this in our history books. It was such an inhumane setting in America at this point. With Civil rights act of the 1960’s only being a short while ago racism is still present in America today. But the fact it took such a long time and such detailed stories like this one to end slavery. Switching gears a little bit. I just thought of a part that a cracked a little smile at which might be a tad bit dark. When the drunkard Mr. Severe died I was kind of happy. That man must have been the most ill-minded, sadistic creature I have heard of in a long time. I like how Fredrick Douglas out in there that most of the slaves thought that it was an act of virtue that he died. That’s how bad of a guy this guy was to the people and they thought it was an act of God that sent this crazy man away.

            When Fredrick arrives in Baltimore I thought it was going to be the end of the story and a happy ending. It is and it isn’t. He does get to leave the dreaded Great House Farm and the horrible beatings he witnessed. He gets assigned to a new family and he immediately falls in love with them. At first the mistress is a nice, full-hearted women who starts to teach Fredrick his ABC’s. Of course, Fredrick loves this woman who is teaching him but gets his heart broken once again. Her husband one day tells her to stop teaching him how to read and write. At first she is hesitate and can’t bare to be mean to Fredrick. But over time you start to see her heart change for the worst. She starts to yell and rip newspapers out of Frederick’s hands. It goes back to my earlier point even in the so call nice Baltimore that all the white slave owners went by the same system to control the slaves.