Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Flashcards
Direct Quotes from the text
The murder of Demby?
The violent imagery of Demby’s ‘mangled body’, and the fixation on his ‘blood and brains’ in the water (p34), presents him as disfigured beyond belief
The slave holders are presented as troglodytic?
‘savage barbarity’
His opening remarks about his lack of knowledge?
‘no accurate knowledge of [his] age’
the anger that he felt at ‘the means of knowing’ being ‘withheld from [him]’
What were the slaves prevented from becoming?
‘moral, intellectual, and accountable beings’
The slaves’ songs?
They ’were full of meaning to themselves’ (p25), as he describes these songs as his first ’glimmering conception of the dehumanising character of slavery’
It is evidence of their ’contentment and happiness’
The limited personal knowledge of slaves?
‘slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs’
He sees his aunt being tortured?
‘where the blood ran fastest, he whipped longest’
‘No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose.’
What did Gore think would happen if the slaves rose up?
‘the result of which would be, the freedom of slaves, and the enslavement of the whites’
The slaves want education?
‘I succeeded in creating in them a strong desire to learn how to read’
