by Pooka

Created on: May 12, 2008

Fredrick Douglass is both narrator and protagonist of My Bondage and My Freedom. He uses the story of his own life to enlighten the world on the situation of slavery in the United States, and encourages abolition and the rights of African Americans as free citizens. It is important to realize that he takes on this dual role so that his own story will be as an example to the larger issue. Therefore even when Douglass is talking only about himself, he is also engaging the institution of slavery as a whole.

Douglass presents himself as a very rational and dry figure who can see both sides of any issue, even slavery. He is able to present a realistic account of why slavery exists, but does so without any attempt at justifying the morality of it. Though he spends a great deal of time talking about the cruel masters and overseers from his own life and experience, his main outrage is not towards the individuals who perpetuate slavery, but the institution of slavery itself and the corrupting nature that it holds. Douglass' childhood as a slave is represented as both unique and as a representation of all slaves. This duality allows him to address the overarching issue of slavery, while telling his own personal story at the same time.

Douglass uses several themes throughout his narrative to explore the negative impact of slavery on the entire country. He writes in vivid detail about the common cruelties slaveholders inflict against their property. But Douglass is no fool; he doesn't believe the overseers who beat slaves daily will be swayed by a written account of physical abuse against slaves. He therefore also makes it a point to show how dehumanizing slavery is not just to the slave, but to anyone who supports it.

Douglass' goal is to show that slavery is unnatural for everyone involved. The corrupting power that slaveholders have over their slaves destroys their own humanity as well as the slave's. He speaks first as a narrator about how many slave owners would commit adultery and sometimes rape with their female slaves. "He can be father without being husband, and may sell his child without incurring reproach" (41) A master fathering a slave child, Douglass would argue destroys the very concept of fatherhood and of family. Family is antagonistic to slavery. He makes the argument personal later in that same paragraph "My father was a white man, or nearly white. It was sometimes whispered that my master was my father." (41) The very existence of such a slave threatens

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